Haunted West by Chris Spivey – Role-Playing Game Review

• Creative Director and Development: Chris Spivey
• System Design: Chris Spivey, Rose Bailey, Neall Raemonn Price, and Adam Alexander
• Powered by the Apocalypse Hack: Amr Ammourazz
• Written by: Chris Spivey, Angel Adeyoha, Evan Perlman, Daniel Kwan, Alexandra Jackson, Adam Alexander, Alex Mayo, Neall Raemonn Price, Misha Bushyager, Cameron Hays, Rose Bailey, Kenneth Hite, Cori Redford, Mark Morrison, and Dennis Detwiller
• Art Direction: Chris Spivey, Jill Spivey, and Natasha Carnell
• Layout and Design: Natasha Carnell
• Cover Art: Kurt Komoda
• Interior Art: Kurt Komoda, Alex Mayo, Cori Redford, Jabari Weathers, and Zora Spivey
• Editing: Rachel Wolfe, Matthew DeForrest, and Jill Spivey
• Additional Text: Jennifer Kretchmer, Charles Gerard, Matt Forbeck, Brian Wilkins, Kate Bullock, Gareth Hanrahan, Shane Ivey, Jess Nevins, Camdon Wright, Richard Levin, Zora Spivey, and J. Gray
• Content, Design, and Sensitivity Consultants: Angel Adeyoha, J. Gray, Eddy Webb, Danielle Lauzon, David Scheidecker, Jennifer Kretchmer, Tom Cadorette, Matthew DeForrest, and Zhui Ning Chang
• Playtesting: Adam Alexander, James Rouse, Ariel Celeste, Quinn Murphy, Jennifer Kretchmer, Karen Tate, Forest Crumpler, John Thomas, John Rugwell, Greg Dean, Jim Thomson, Humza Kazmi, Neill Smith, Tom Bridge, and Jill Spivey
• Special Thanks: Ariel Celeste, Tameca L Coleman, Brennen Reece, and Vincent Baker

“I dedicate Haunted West to my wife Jill and my daughter Zora, the lights of my life; they are my tethers to the ground and my wings to the sky. This book is also dedicated to the forgotten voices who shaped America before their stories were stolen. You will be remembered.”—Chris Spivey

Haunted West is a battle cry, one of a growing number of modern ripostes to many years of whitewashing in historical writing and Western genre fiction and films. I love that about it. And I’m not the person to tell you whether or not it could do that job better, I’m just happy it’s here.

Haunted West is also a roleplaying game about the Wild West with added weird elements, which is the bit I feel qualified to review it on.

It would be easy to say that if you like Spivey’s award-winning RPG book Harlem Unbound, you’ll like Haunted West. But Haunted West is a very different beast. (And this truly is a beast of a book, weighing in at 800 pages.) Haunted West is ambitious in all directions. It includes:

• A whole new system, inspired by but not limited to a number of older D100 systems.
• Three ways to play: story-focused, traditional, and miniatures wargame. (Arguably, there are actually two more ways to play Haunted West, but we’ll get to that.) This book is attempting to replace every single Western-themed tabletop game at once.
• A historical setting and an alternative historical setting. An optional campaign frame that can apply to either setting. You can customise all of these with varying levels of weirdness or play them as completely mundane.
• Historical information on the entire Wild West or Old West era, as well as the American Civil War and its aftermath. And potted histories of numerous immigrant populations as well as many Indigenous American* nations and peoples. It challenges and recontextualises narratives that go back well over a hundred years. Not to say it’s the first book, or even RPG to do that, but it’s a big thing for such a gigantic RPG product to be utterly dedicated to that particular fight.
• A dozen player character archetypes, each with their own character creation tables.
• Rules for generating your own settlements.
• A weird bestiary.
• Seven magic styles (if you include weird science).
• Tons of historical folks, curious facts and story ideas.
• Aliens, sorcerers, clockwork bandits, time slips, demons, Death in the form of a gunfighter, vampires and much more.
• A bunch of appendices, including an extensive list of historically appropriate medicines and an article on using the Cthulhu Mythos in this game.

*From what I understand, Indigenous American is now the preferred term for at least some groups, so I will use it in this article. I apologise to any descendants of the original inhabitants of the Americas who prefer the terms Native Americans or First Peoples.

Some parts of this book inspired me. Some were an absolute blast to read. Some struck me to my core. Others just washed over me or were a grind to read.

Should you buy it? It’s a well written, heartfelt and important book, which seeks to give voices and faces to groups who have been criminally under-represented, or mis-represented, in all kinds of media for a very long time, but particularly in the Western genre. My personal recommendation is to always support own voices and respectful, diverse representation in SFF and RPGs when you can. Aside from the clear moral arguments, it makes for a far more interesting and satisfying world of fiction that we can all enjoy. So yes, buy, review, retweet, encourage, support.

If you buy the book, will you enjoy it? The answer to that is—it depends. The rest of this article will be a look at the individual sections of the book, what I liked and didn’t like, so you can make your own decision. I’m going to fight my usual impulse to review every single sub-chapter and section of an RPG in detail, because we have a lot of content to get through, but I’d still recommend you clear your schedule and sit somewhere comfortable while you read.

A note on art before we get going. Haunted West contains a mixture of slightly stylised, comic-book style art, and a stupendously impressive collection of historical photographs. (And if some of them aren’t actually historical, I certainly couldn’t tell.) The two styles don’t blend particularly well, but they both work great on their own.

01 Foreword

Here the authors discuss the erasure of Black people from the history of the Wild West or Old West, and the misrepresentation of Indigenous Americans. They also discuss racial politics and various immigrant groups before moving on to the weird, paranormal, supernatural, and extra-terrestrial. This is a game where all kinds of mythologies meet each other.

And we get some handy notes about the way the book is constructed, which introduces six different sorts of sidebars and their purposes. A good design choice, in my opinion. I also appreciated the glossary of terms being placed here, at the front of the book.

02 The Ouroboros System

The Ouroboros System is a new RPG ruleset. Theoretically it could be used as a universal ruleset, but as written it’s heavily linked to the terminology and mythology of the Wild West.

As a D-100 or D-Percentile system, this game has you roll two ten-sided dice to resolve most conflicts. One die is the ‘tens’ die, and the other is the ‘ones’ die. Combined, these give a number out of 100. For example, a four on the tens die and a seven on the ones die gives a result of 47. Skills are listed as 1 to 100, and you succeed at using them by rolling equal to or less than the Skill. (In fact, they can get higher than 100, making failure all but impossible and wild success all the more likely.)

I’m only guessing, but to me, the Ouroboros System reads like a greatest hits collection of all the mechanics from other percentile games that appealed to the authors, with a few new tricks thrown in.

Characters get percentages in all Skills, like Call of Cthulhu. There are levels of success and penalties to Skill level like Warhammer Fantasy Roleplaying. Doubles, e.g., 33, are extreme successes like in Zweihänder.

One major mechanic, which is unique in my experience of percentile systems, is the Jacks rule. Say your character has 70% in the Acrobatics Skill and you roll 40 to use it, succeeding by 30, or three increments of 10. Now you have three Jacks. You can spend those Jacks to increase the effects of succeeding that roll, or you can ‘float them down the River’ and keep them to use later. Jacks in your River can be spent to let you auto-succeed at other Skill rolls or gain 10% to them. So, that success with Acrobatics means you can succeed your next three rolls as well or give yourself the chance to earn even more Jacks with future rolls. If you’re winning with this system, you’ll probably keep on winning!

I did like the way Skills are organised into groups based on the time they take; there are some really neat little tricks of organisation and imagination in this book. (Though at other times it seems a bit confused, perhaps as a consequence of its immense size.) If you’re used to D-Percentile games, you may be pretty confident you can learn this one quickly.

Well, steady there cowboy, don’t get ahead of yourself.

This is a crunchy game, one which attempts to make rules for almost everything. Including, but not limited to:

• Multiple different types of damage. Physical and mental damage have separate tracks that are filled in from opposite sides of the character sheet and impose a specific Condition if they cross over.
• Cover rules.
• Rules for light and darkness.
• A fairly complex disease and poison system.
• Detailed and extensive chase rules accounting for speed differences in mph, natural obstacles, and being knocked off course after taking damage.
• Specific three round rules for social and gun duels.

Damage, and other effects can impose Conditions on characters. Some of these come with colourful names like “Airin’ the Paunch”, “Knock Galley West”, “Hair in the Butter”, or “Dandered!!!”. Dandered!!! covers being in a blind rage that removes your ability to retreat or think tactically, which is very fitting for the genre.

The Quick Draw version of the rules is, by contrast, pretty simple. The Balladeer (game master) narrates the story, the players narrate what their characters do and how they succeed, boasting and pushing their luck as much as possible. When the Balladeer thinks a player has gone too far, they Call Their Bluff and the player has to roll to succeed, as with a traditional RPG. Quick Draw still sits on the same framework of rules, however. Gamers who prefer rules-light, story-focused games may be put off by that. I do like the boasting element, however.

Overall, this is a system you could fall in love with and get lost in, or bounce off very hard. If you want to use it, be prepared to invest some time into learning it and maybe check out a Let’s Play video or two.

03 The People

(Confusingly, this chapter is completely separate from the Historical Folks chapter, which appears much later in the book.)

An incredible amount of historical and cultural research went into making this book. And I’m not here to critique it—my history degree has been gathering dust on a shelf for a long time now, and I never did know much about American history. Me debating the authors of this book on this subject would be like me stepping into the ring with a professional boxer. I’ll simply talk about what stood out to me, and its use for RPGs.

This chapter is where the emotional gut punches really start to get heavy. The authors are unapologetically angry about the depredations of white Europeans. The human cost of the colonisation of what we now call the Americas was devastating and apocalyptic, and this chapter really brings that home. (Particularly to a foreigner, like me, who isn’t usually emotionally invested in American history.) The authors also discuss conflicts between indigenous nations.

There are descriptions of a large number of Indigenous American peoples and nations of the American West, their cultures, histories, and eventual fate—a catalogue of massacres, broken treaties, plagues, starvation, forced displacement, and schools that effectively became death camps.

The book divides these nations into three broad groups—Plains Nations, Nations of the Southwest, and Nations of the Northwest Coast. The authors celebrate the diverse histories and cultures of each nation, from the city building Puebloans, to the matrilineal Ndee (Apache), who were once peaceful but were eventually driven to aggression by pressure from colonisers.

A key detail is how much the indigenous societies changed over the course of European expansion—many shifted from sedentary farming societies to buffalo-hunting nomadism. Even this level of detail leaves many tantalising loose threads, which could send the reader down a historical rabbit-hole. Who, for example, were the Niitsitapi Horn Society? Though painful, I did find it all fascinating to read.

There are also descriptions of the Jewish diaspora to the USA, from small groups of Sephardic Jewish people to the massive influx of Jewish people fleeing pogroms in Russia. Mention is made of the establishment of the B’nai B’rith, and belief in the “Goldene Medina,” the “Golden Land,” which is how many Jewish people viewed the USA, sometimes in vain.

There is a careful discussion of Black indigenous peoples descended from slaves, who I had not previously realised were a significant population. The authors describe complex, fraught and variable relations between them and full-blooded Indigenous Americans, ranging from cooperation and integration to enslavement.

I also learned a lot about Chinese immigrants to the USA, and the systemic racism levelled against them, which was exemplified in laws such as the Chinese Exclusion Act, but accompanied by escalating violence and persecution. Mention is also made of the vicious Tong Wars of the late 19th Century.

Black Americans are also discussed, of course. Key points include the setting up of societies to provide education and aid for freed people who had previously been legally denied both property and literacy. The wonderfully named (though poignant), exodusters, are also described—Black people who left States where they had faced appalling abuse and went to forge new lives in the West.

There are details of Mexican Americans—their territories annexed, the rights they were offered by the USA revoked or ignored, viewed as interlopers in lands they had once owned.

Early Mormons are also described, and given a context I hadn’t known about before.

“Joseph Smith lived in New York during a period known as the Second Great Awakening, where many new denominations and religious movements were born as a reaction against the Age of Enlightenment.”

They also attacked other settlers, and even, technically, fought a war with the US army.

I would have been interested to learn more about Irish immigrants. But this book is already extremely long!

From there the authors switch over to descriptions of broad professions and non-ethnic groups. I learned American cowboys learned their droving techniques from Mexican vaqueros. And that these techniques could be traced back through the Spanish to the Moors, circa the 7th Century AD. I also learned that over a third of Wild West cowboys were Black.

I was particularly fascinated by the Indigenous American Lighthorse.

“The Five “Civilized” Nations had a mounted police force referred to as the Lighthorse. These officers were formed into companies, patrolled a designated area, and enforced laws, peacekeeping, and disputes. They had no authority over non-nations peoples, though their words carried significant weight. Each nation’s Lighthorse company was composed, funded, and operated differently.”

And I was saddened to learn that U. S. Marshals (figures of romance, even for Brits), were mainly used for tracking escaped slaves up to the Civil War.

Outlaws are, of course, a vital part of the Wild West. Again, this book provides context for what made the West so lawless. For one thing, the famously bloody American Civil War left behind many people who had been trained in violence, and now saw it as a way to get what they wanted. Multiple outlaw bands are described, including:

The Seven Rivers Warriors, who numbered deputies and a US Marshal among their number.

The Cochise County Cowboys. Possibly the first example of organised crime in the USA, they were Wyatt Earp’s opponents at the OK Corral.

The Pinkertons are described in a carefully balanced manner, on the one hand they worked as an intelligence agency for Lincoln during the Civil War and hired women and marginalised people. On the other they were brutal strike-breakers.

The infamous KKK are also described, a fitting human evil for player characters to battle.

Overall, it’s a tremendous amount of information that anyone who likes history but doesn’t know much about America, will find fascinating. I imagine for Americans it will hold some surprises too. I can’t see any RPG group using all of it, however. It’s a resource to draw upon.

Moving on, there’s a sub-chapter about Sex, Gender and the Wild West.

Details of what specific types of sex would have scandalised a sex worker on the frontier are interesting, but I can’t see myself dropping them into a discussion at the gaming table. Of more obvious use are descriptions of the diverse non-binary gender identities that were accepted or honoured by some Indigenous Nations. And the lack of a clear contemporary gay identity. Though bachelor marriages (which may have been purely financial, depending on the couple in question), were considered normal. And LGBTQ+ activists did exist.

Interestingly, trans people found it easier to live their gender identity in the West, finding more acceptance and opportunities. Though many were outed on their death beds or after death.

“Soiled Doves” is the term used for sex workers. The authors are keen to point out these people were a powerful force in the West, funding communities, marrying well, and often possessing more personal freedom than most. This power was not shared equally by all ethnicities—Chinese and Indigenous American women were far more likely to be exploited or victimised.

04 Print the Legend (Character Creation)

The authors recommend a Session Zero (a gaming session dedicated solely to creating characters), and I absolutely agree; you’ll need at least one.

Paragons (player characters in this game) have detailed, legendary back-stories based on a lifepath system. They also get an Archetype (character class, sort of). There are twelve Archetypes, including Academic, Drover, Gadgeteer, Gunfighter and Mystic. We get historical examples of each Archetype, which is a great idea. But we’ll come back to Archetypes; this game wants us to work up to that point.

While many RPGs have you rolling up stats and/or choosing from a list of abilities based on a class or archetype, or buying skills, stats and powers with points, lifepath character generation has you play through the story of the character’s life up to this point, using rolls to randomly generate results from various tables.

Haunted West provides tables for generating your Paragon’s parents, the circumstances of their birth, their early childhood and adolescence, and for events influenced by their Archetype once they reach adulthood. Tables feed into other tables.

For example, you roll to determine your social class (including whether you were enslaved, or belonged to an indigenous people), and that roll then determines which table you roll on next. At some stages you get a binary choice about how a particular event played out, which gives the player a bit of control over the narrative. It’s a straightforward process at each stage but is quite a lot of work as a whole.

It’s very likely a Paragon’s social class will have changed by the time they are classed as an “apprentice”. It seems strange that adolescence doesn’t follow on from childhood at all. If you were born into wealth, you’re just as likely to end up being raised in a cabin in the woods as anyone else. I guess change was very rapid in the Wild West. In fairness, the authors do intend to create exceptional stories.

There are three Event tables for each Archetype, corresponding to the three Wild West eras detailed in this book. And a further two tables each, one for rolling up NPCs related to the Paragon, and the other for specifically Weird events. Rolls on these tables may be activated by certain results on the core tables.

Meet a Devil at the Crossroads. Take part in an infamous action during the American Civil War. Get sued or sacked. Encounter ghosts or aliens. And that’s just the Academic! You could also stumble into the Netherworld. See a herd of demon cattle in the sky. Get held up on a stagecoach (either by normal bandits or by pirates on wind-powered prairie schooners). Someone could steal your horse or put their own patent on your invention. A monument could be built in your honour, or you could make friends with a cook. Have a gunfight with Death. Open a saloon. Battle werewolves with Harriet Tubman or become a defrocked priest due to scandal. Kill a bear with just a knife or gain a pet smilodon (sabre-toothed cat). It’s a world of possibilities!

If you use this character generation system as intended, you can’t end up with just a shallow cowboy. Your character will have texture, they will have depth, they will have the history of the West embedded beneath their nails. Honestly, you could take this whole section and turn it into a solo journaling game or writing exercise.

I’ve not used a lifepath system before and it’s not my preferred method. It appears time-consuming and leaves your character very much at the mercy of fate. (Though the authors suggest you could always pick your preferred results, which solves the lack of choice, but not the time required). On the plus side, it does allow players to get a lot of use out of the historical information provided by this book—it’s a lot more important to know when cattle rustling became common or if Chinese people were able to serve in the Union Army, if you’re playing through a character’s life a few years at a time.

I will note Haunted West doesn’t have that same eccentricity that plagued earlier editions of Traveller, where your character could die during character creation. Still, I really can’t imagine going through the whole process for anything less than a campaign.

(Don’t despair if you’d really prefer to play short games or one-shots in the Weird West, there is a fifth way to play, which we will get to, eventually.)

The lifepath system influences your Paragon’s Traits (stats or characteristics) and Skills, but you do get to assign some yourself. You also pick Peculiarities, minor abilities and quirks that make your character unique, and Propensities, Archetype abilities that start out as minor bonuses and develop into extraordinary supernatural powers.

This game is designed to be tweaked to your preferences. There are multiple ways of assigning Traits, and multiple styles of campaign that determine the number of points assigned to characters at the start of the game—Grittier, Westerner, or Spaghettier.

The Traits are a reasonable selection. They’re measured from 1-20 and the game will sometimes call for a Trait Roll instead of a Skill Roll, which is a D20 roll instead of a percentile roll (D100 roll). This seems needlessly complicated to me, considering you could multiply the Traits by 5 and get matching percentages. Call of Cthulhu used to have D20 characteristics and D100 Skills and has since fixed it. However, I will admit the elegance of Traits directly translating into Skill percentages (without multiplication). I.e., if you have 15 in the Awareness Trait but no training in or talent for the Animal Handling Skill, you’ll still have 15% in Animal Handling because your natural perceptiveness gives you a small advantage over the next person who doesn’t know what they’re doing.

Paragons have pools of points measuring both physical and mental health. They also get a Gumption score, which straight up reduces damage taken and improves healing; a very neat way of making an action hero. Grit powers abilities and rerolls. There’s a lot to keep track of, so I appreciated the summaries provided.

Haunted West has a fairly exhaustive Skill List. It includes electrics and, technically, computer use (for weird science inventions or alien devices). Ingratiate is an interesting social Skill. Low Profile is very nicely described and very appropriate to the setting (useful if your Libertine spots her likeness on a wanted poster in the town square and has a sudden need to blend into the crowd). Style is used for making an impression and comes in various flavours—military, heroic, theatrical. Tinker is for jury rigging or altering devices. The authors have perhaps gone a little over the top with the social Skills—Bluff, Deception, and Wily all seem to tread on each other’s toes a lot.

I did like the descriptions of what makes using each Skill easier or harder. Very helpful to GMs! I also liked that at higher percentages your Paragon automatically passes routine rolls, a nice way to demonstrate their competence and speed the game along. This is a game of legendary heroes, or at least of legends in the making.

Peculiarities are a bit of fun. Mostly they add small bonuses to Skill Rolls. They’re quite flavourful though, including classic Western tricks like being good at “flim-flam”, having a silver tongue, or being tale spinner, quick draw expert or light sleeper. I particularly appreciated the Partner in Every Saloon Peculiarity, which gives you a chance to run into a friend, rival or ex in every town you walk into.

Negative Peculiarities are even more fun. The very poetic “Among the Willows”, means you’re wanted by the law. Your character could also have a rival, a quick temper, a need to show off, a curse or a clockwork heart!

Up to this point, this book felt a bit like an alternative Down Darker Trails (the Call of Cthulhu RPG set in the Wild West). Propensities push it more into the territory of Deadlands (the pulpy, high-powered Weird West RPG).

Propensities are available based on Archetype and come in levels from 1-5 (each level providing a different ability). Levels 1 and 2 provide multiple options to pick from. Level 1s often to provide bonus Jack on successful rolls for certain Skills. Higher levels can go in all sorts of directions.

• “Attuned” ranges from uncannily acute senses to detecting Weird beings to assaulting the minds of others by telepathically sharing revelations with them.
• “Deadeye” ultimately lets you curve bullets around cover.
• “Deputise” starts out with building posses out of ordinary people and builds into the power to deputise the ghosts of a target’s victims to torment them and ultimately to become a rider of the Apocalypse.
• “Entertainer” lets you steal sanity or shapeshift into other people.
• “Epicurean” let’s you throw a party so good it brings back the dead.
• “Shepherd” is based around founding your own town. At its highest level you run a State or its equivalent.
• “John Henry” makes you a living legend. Though in game terms it mainly makes you better than other people. You get boosted stats, you can’t critically fail, and you get two bonus Jacks every time you succeed.
• The wildly epic “Life Force” Propensity grants healing powers, the ability to punch someone in the soul and ultimately eternal youth, immunity to all disease, bonuses to Traits AND regeneration. You basically become Wolverine without the claws or the attitude.

Some Propensities impressed me less. “Outlaw” lets you automatically escape all prisons within a week. “Over The Horizon’s” Level 5 lets you find Hidden Passages that cut down on journey time. I’d have had it teleport you to your destination instantly. The book actually warns you other people can use these improved trails, as though that’s a bad thing. Surely being able to sell the location of trails that shorten journey time across a dangerous but lucrative frontier would be like a licence to print money? (I guess this justifies this power’s Level 5 status after all.)

Finally, we get a description of a Paragon’s Western Code. This is a series of opposed drives or motivations, e.g., “Societal versus Selfish”. Each set of codes adds up to 20. So, if Societal was 8 then Selfish would be 12, and if Selfish increased to 13 then Societal would reduce to 7. Voluntarily flipping a Western Code grants you a bonus to a roll. There are other effects based around how the character interacts with society.

Perhaps this system is inspired by Pendragon. Or perhaps by the Storyteller System. Chris Spivey is currently freelancing for Onyx Path after all (who love this sort of morality/personality system). And there are definitely other Onyx Path associates amongst the creators of this book. (Which is no bad thing, I love Onyx Path.)

Western Codes can be adjusted by certain lifepath events. But otherwise, I couldn’t find any explanation of exactly how to set them. I can only presume the player sets them up however they want before running the lifepath gauntlet.

Another key sub-chapter—Magicks, Psychics, and the Science of the Weird.

A quick disclaimer. From what I’ve read of his works so far, I would say that Chris Spivey approaches magic from a horror writer’s perspective. From this angle, magic is like smoking; you may be drawn to it, it may look cool, but it will do appalling things to you and those around you.

I approach magic more from a high fantasy writer’s perspective. From this angle, magic is like Rock and Roll: absolutely awesome. It goes with everything and anyone who doesn’t like or tries to tone it down is wrong. Both approaches are valid. But if you prefer the horror approach, take my opinions here with a pinch of salt.

It’s also worth noting that the authors took a conscious decision not to include any “magick” based on belief systems that are still followed today, e.g., Kabbalah, Lakota (Sioux), Voodoo. I understand and respect that decision; it’s hard to write a book about respectfully representing various groups while simultaneously turning their religions into “magic powers”. But I must admit I would love to read a book that respectfully collects the diverse “magical” traditions found in the USA into RPG form, particularly if written by members of the represented cultures.

In the world of Haunted West, magic, or magick, has dwindled for centuries but is now returning due to a certain catastrophic event. This chapter presents six manifestations of that magic: Alchemy, Demonology, Medium, Pharaon, Psychoscopy, and Weird Science. Most of these magic systems are either very dangerous, very time consuming, or both. There are usually multiple rolls involved, as you acquire the right supplies and set up your lab or ritual space. You might be better off sticking to your Propensities.

I have a soft spot for Alchemy, having nearly written an RPG supplement about it many years ago. So I was a bit disappointed with this rendition of it. It takes weeks to make alchemical elixirs and months to make the really powerful ones. Which would have been more reasonable if these elixirs didn’t become unstable after one week. I struggle to see the circumstances under which a group of Paragons would wait for six months to pull a job but be ready to do it with less than a week’s notice.

In fairness, Jacks can be spent to improve preparation time and increase stability time. And while it doesn’t look very workable to me, I haven’t actually gone through and played this out, so it might work perfectly well in practice. I did enjoy the fact that the elixir of immortality only extends your life for one year, so an alchemist would be in a constant battle to make enough elixir to preserve their youth and health.

One last petty little gripe though. One of the big super-elixirs that can take many months to make inflicts 1D8+3 damage per round, over three rounds, an average of 22 damage total over the three rounds. A stick of dynamite does 6D6 damage in one go, an average of 21 damage. And surely anyone with enough skill in chemistry to do magic with it (and access to the weird and wonderful ingredients alchemy requires), could just make dynamite instead. Or buy it.

On the plus side, Alchemy in this setting has a unique selling point—you can stack the effects of multiple elixirs onto one character. Too many effects lead to nasty side effects, however, and there is an unpredictable system for defining when a character crosses that line, which adds a pleasing sense of danger to the whole process.

Demonology is for those who find Alchemy to be just too safe and easy. This book presents a small but delightfully gruesome selection of evil spirits who can be summoned and bargained with to gain strange powers and insights. Including: Zereda (Dreamer in the Shade-Tree), Tanin’iver (Steed of Lilit, the Blind Dragon), and Rahav (the Majestic One, Splendid Lord of the Waters). (10 out of 10 for demon-naming.)

Summoning requires month of painstaking research, as well as the sacrifice of material and spiritual resources. Successfully summoning a demon does not mean you’ll necessarily be able to bind it, or even avoid getting eaten. A Demonologist must use their social skills to trick, charm or bribe their chosen spirit. Tons of roleplaying potential here!

Medium covers seances—contacting the dead for information. I really liked this, it’s historically accurate to beliefs of the time, such as Spiritualism, and it’s not the sort of magic that’s often explored in RPGs. An interesting and enjoyable addition.

Pharaon is based around collecting and wielding cards from a magical deck. (No, it’s not Yugi-Oh.) It’s much quicker and more straightforward than most of the other magicks. Though using it costs Lucidity (sanity), so it’s hardly safe! And you have to acquire cards before you can use them, which is an adventure in itself.

Psychoscopy: One of the less dangerous weird abilities, it’s the psychic power of absorbing information by touching objects. I think it’s mainly included as an example of a psychic power, providing a framework for Balladeers (GMs), to write their own powers.

Weird Science is all about making weird gadgets. Creating a new gadget is a very involved and expensive process and usually takes years. But unlike Alchemy, there are Propensities that allow you to reduce the time taken. And once you’ve made your gadget you can usually keep it forever, or at least until it gets blown up. Gadgets include: Heat rays. Death rays. Web shooters. Cybernetic enhancements. Jetpacks. Bullets that come round for a second go. And more general enhancements like accuracy bonuses.

Overall, the magic systems presented here seem as much an opportunity for roleplay as a chance to sling cool powers around. The authors want you to bargain with Fezek, Duke of the Ill Wind, for knowledge of the medicine that will cure your Nation of the plague, to raid abandoned mines or crashed alien spaceships for rare metals, or play a round of poker against a faceless cardsharp on a riverboat at midnight—your soul bet against its Pharaon card.

Sub-Chapter Services, Stables and Sundries, is the equipment section.

As ever, Spivey and his team demonstrate excellent historical knowledge and research skills. I liked the descriptions of contemporary ammunition, particularly the (by then) outdated cap and ball pieces.

There are plenty of interesting, if tragic, historical guns and other weapons to learn about. Unusually, the authors don’t just focus on the capabilities of the weapon, they include lots of cultural context and curious little facts. The impractical brand of pistols that was favoured by Confederate officers. The advanced rifle used by Sitting Bull. The way shotguns were sometimes called “snake eyes”. The fact that most knives sold as Bowie knives were actually cheap knockoffs made in the English town of Sheffield. Other anecdotes are sprinkled in, such as the tale of the Whiskey Rebellion.

Popular horse breeds are described, plus optional rules for making a slightly unique mount. We also get rules for poisons, including for movie style chloroform. (With a wry note stating that this isn’t realistic.) And prices for just about everything you might find in the Wild West: paint, bicycles, wire cutters, typewriters, cows. Cattle being very important, of course!

Services are also priced up, from baths to burials. I gave Black Void grief for the amount of trade goods it had priced up. For some reason Haunted West doing the same thing bothered me less, perhaps because it’s rooted in the real world, perhaps because it’s so stuffed with details everywhere else that this just felt par for the course. It just goes to show, Haunted West is not a fantasy of the Old West. It’s the Old West, with weird elements layered over it.

The Exoduster Letters Sub-Chapter presents a tragic, spooky tale of Black settlers dying on the trail. The narrative cuts out partway through, albeit on a possibly hopeful note.

05 The Balladeer

This is the GM Section. It’s well laid out and includes page numbers for any referenced topics or rules, which is always super helpful.

There are some good practical tips, a discussion of the social contract between gaming groups, safety tools, and the expectations on players. There’s a helpful breakdown of how Haunted West scenarios are described. We are reminded of the importance of making vital clues easily available to players. And of course, we are reminded that the Old West was a diverse place and games of Haunted West should reflect that.

The authors also encourage you to fine tune the game to your group’s preferences (more or less weird, higher or lower levels of power), which certainly plays to this book’s strengths.

Then we move into some more information about the setting. Darker Hue Studios is known for beautiful writing, and that particularly shines through here.

“Whether the West is the original inhabitants’ homeland or the frontier for settlers, in the years following the Civil War it is regarded as a liminal space, between and touching both the mundane and the spiritual, the settled and the natural, the traditional and the radically new.

“What of those people and settlers who are just regular folk experiencing the hidden, splendid, terrifying, and secret world of the Weird?”

I won’t go into spoiler territory, but the authors have neatly tied together the worlds of the supernatural and the extra-terrestrial.

Finally, we get another rule—Reputation. Basically, the more Experience Points a Paragon has, the greater their reputation in the West. NPCs will take more notice of their actions, good and bad. They will be treated with mounting awe, respect and fear. This is a very neat and fun idea, one that really plays into the conceit of playing a legendary figure of the Wild West.

Creating the World

This section provides tables for generating your own settlements, which is nice. You won’t be surprised at this point to learn the settlement generator is very richly detailed and carefully thought out. There are multiple levels of population, technology and specific buildings, all the way up to clockwork cities and arcane temples. Despite the density of options, you could roll up a mining settlement or thriving town very quickly.

I really liked the way these settlements were dynamic and evolving. They could be boomtowns or in the process of becoming ghost towns; they could be riven by religious tensions or menaced by supernatural threats. There are generators for NPCs and even for crime.

A bunch of example settlements help you to get your head around the system and keep you from having to reinvent the wheel if you don’t have time, e.g., a Hell on Wheels (railway building settlement), a Man-camp (I’ll let you draw your own conclusions), or a City. Most intriguing was Fort Salvat—an interdimensional crossroads for multiple versions of America ruled by different nations and peoples.

06 The Ballads

This chapter discusses different styles of game, provides a suggested setting for Haunted West, and some ideas for adventures (called Bags of Nails).

The Hidden Science provides a framework for a terrifying and nearly unwinnable secret war against a vast evil. It has themes of slavery, ancient conspiracies and advanced science, and approaches the borders of cosmic horror. It’s bold, bleak, and epic, with plenty of diversity and a dash of hopeful defiance, very Chris Spivey!

“When interrogated, near death, he tells a bizarre story of a huge GUN built in the midst of the Sahara Desert. “To fire at what?,” Shane asks. “TO FIRE AT THE MOON, YOU FOOL!”

As compensation for the awful trials awaiting them, Paragons can join a secret society, which comes complete with a small but fun arsenal of cool gadgets, like a lantern that’s also a heat-ray, and a flashbang pocket watch.

The Bags of Nails include—missing settlers, skeletal miners, demonic tonics and giant werefish. Also, town-stomping Gila monsters and a good luck cat. Lots of fun to be had. This is a setting with great potential.

One, more complete, adventure, has the Paragons retracing the journey of a cursed gun and the trail of dead desperados it left behind. A very entertaining excuse to weave multiple short stories into an ongoing campaign.

07 The Weird and Unknown

Most of this section is a list of supernatural beings for Paragons to encounter.

“The entities here—allies, adversaries, and otherwise—are not mindless things to be used or populated in a dungeon, or an abandoned mine, in our case, to be killed by the Paragons without remorse. No. Instead, they are thinking beings with plans, goals, and desires, some of which are far outside of human comprehension. They aren’t static or set pieces; their introduction should feel important, unique, dangerous, and terrifying,”

And they certainly do, at least from the descriptions. I love a good fantastical bestiary, and this is absolutely the highlight of the book for me, a small but beautiful gem.

NPCs and adversaries are divided into four types. Wranglers are minions, they can be cut down with brutal ease, but are good at ganging up on more serious opponents. Shootists are almost as dangerous as Paragons, and don’t have to be any good at shooting things. Cold-Blooded are the big bosses, too much for any one Paragon to take down. Beyond are just that, creatures too powerful to be defeated by conventional means, they must be avoided, tricked, or appeased.

The authors have scoured the mythologies of the world to find interesting supernatural creatures. Yes, there are the familiar Eastern European vampires. But there is also the Adze, a vampire from Ghana and Togo that travels in the form of a firefly. And the Asanbosam, a tree-lurking iron-clawed vampire from Western Africa.

Then there are the Huapi, face-stealing maneaters from China. El Coco, a hair-fancying Mexican monster who seduces people with the power of his guitar playing. Anansi the Spider God. The Irish Fear Gorta, the revenant corpse of one who died of starvation. And the Ka’lanu Ahkyeli’ski (Raven Mockers), heart-eating creatures from Aniyunwiya (Cherokee) folklore. And plenty more!

Other adversaries are drawn from more modern popular culture, such as the relentless Being in Black or fearsome Ghost Riders in the Sky. And clockwork gamblers, which is the best kind! Each being comes with a plot hook, which is really helpful and nice to see. This whole chapter is highly gameable.

We also get three sample human opponents. These are just to demonstrate how to build human foes, I guess, but I could have done with a few more ready to go. And a gunfighter NPC would have been nice.

There’s a short bestiary of actual animals too. Including cougars and grizzly bears (the wild animals, not the cliches of the dating scene). Also, a T-Rex. Which is great. Let’s take a moment to appreciate a game that lets you take on multiple kinds of vampires, clockwork gamblers, aliens and a T-rex. That’s the kind of creativity that delights me about Darker Hue Studios’ output.

08 Reconstruction

“It’s what is at the heart of the marginalized experience: Perseverance. To get up again, no matter how many times you’re knocked down.”

This is an alternative history setting that describes a post-Civil War USA that might have been. One where the Indigenous State of Sequoyah was created and became a comparatively welcoming home to Black Americans. Also one where the US government remained committed to protecting the rights of Black people. This setting is a dream, inspired by the tragic loss of a past and present that could have been so much better than what actually transpired. But it’s a hard-eyed dream, it lays out the backlash from angry, defeated white Southerners, and the difficult lives of exodusters, Chinese immigrants and Indigenous Americans.

It’s also fairly dry, with only the occasional supernatural plot hook dropped in (such as an undead John Wilkes Booth). And I couldn’t really tell exactly where it diverged from actual American history. It would have made more sense to place it after the next chapter, which describes the history of the Old West. I can only say this setting would likely have more resonance for someone more familiar with the subject matter, and/or anyone who lives in the USA and has experienced or witnessed the poisoned legacy of the post-Civil War era. And while the timeline is quite detailed, that is necessary to allow it to be used with the lifepath character creation system.

09 The American Myth

This is a fairly long section, covering the lead up to the Civil War, all the way up to the end of the Old West. And, referring back to the dedication of the book, I can see why. It’s a necessary part of the authors’ vision to take back the history, and even the legends, of the Wild West for those who were written out of them. It’s clearly very well researched and takes care to debunk a lot of the myths of American history, such as the idea of individual exceptionalism, or the straightforward divide between the progressive, anti-slavery North, and the conservative, pro-slavery South. It’s also a very useful aid to the lifepath character generation system.

I did find it a slog to read. But then it would have been weird if it was too entertaining; this part of American history (much like British history of the time), is a catalogue of massacres, epidemics and exploitation. Speaking of my country—I knew the British were instrumental in the Atlantic Slave Trade for many years, which made the diagram of a slave ship all the more viscerally appalling to me. I wasn’t aware the British also created the plantation system, which was used to control and victimise so many of the enslaved people who survived those journeys, and their descendants. So, I have to offer my (pained) gratitude to the authors, for helping me to learn more about the stains on my own nation’s conscience.

A few interesting points stuck out, such as the fact that Filipinos accompanied Spanish settlers to create the first Asian settlement in America.

Then there’s the role of slavery in the push for Texan independence from Mexico (where slavery was illegal). Manifest Destiny. The horrific Trail of Tears. The profound impact of the California Gold Rush, which took an enormous toll through disease and privation. The Underground Railroad. Battles up and down the Mississippi. The Buffalo Soldiers. The impact of wars against Indigenous Americans.

More entertaining, though still harrowing at times, are the explorations of the history behind the familiar tropes of the Wild West—gun duels, train robberies, wars, and the Wild West shows that created the myths this book is intended to debunk. Also, some events I’d never heard of, such as the range-wars, bloody battles over grazing land for sheep or cattle. Again, weird plot hooks are dropped in occasionally, and I was pleased to see them, but I would have liked to have seen a lot more.

This chapter achieves the stated goal of educating people about the truth of the Old West, and I’m very glad and grateful to have read it. It’s not particularly gameable, however. It’s interesting and enlightening background, but from a GM or player’s perspective, it feels hard to justify this many pages dedicated to the setting without providing much in the way of plot hooks, powers or weirdness.

10 Historical Folks

This chapter is also very long but it’s also a very easy and wonderful read, another real gem for me. It presents a fascinating and diverse cast of real historical people who built the West and/or became its legends. Black people, white people, Indigenous Americans, Mexicans, Chinese people, mixed heritage people, Jewish people, women and men. Sex workers, drovers, spies, abolitionists, community leaders, gunfighters, occultists, soldiers, outlaws, lawmen, inventors, and more. Inspiring tales, heartrending tragedies, unique lives. Including:

• Bat Masterson, a Black U.S. Deputy Marshal who was the inspiration for the Lone Ranger.
• Tasunke Witko (Crazy Horse)
• Mary Edwards Walker: A white surgeon and abolitionist.
• Marie Laveau: The so-called “Voodoo Queen” of New Orleans.
• Ah Toy: The most famous and highly paid contemporary Chinese sex-worker in San Francisco.

And that barely even scratches the surface! There are enough examples to cover all of the Archetypes, and they all come with a plot hook. I really enjoyed reading all of these tales, and together they make an excellent resource for a GM.

11 Stops Along the Trail

“The Vaile Mansion in nearby Independence, built in 1881, has a strange sort of effect on the locals. Pedestrians unconsciously cross the street to avoid walking in front of it, and when the lady of the house takes her own life, rumors say her husband tries to bury her on the front lawn in a glass-lidded coffin. Is it just coincidence, or is there a greater intelligence at play?”

“The first marshal of Canyon Diablo is sworn in at 3:00 p.m. and buried five hours later.”

Moving from history to geography, this chapter literally takes you from East to West, describing cities and towns, their demographics, places of interest, and the sort of crimes you can expect. Every place has a plot hook and a manifestation of the Weird.

Meet the historical medium who became the first woman to run for US president. Or the streetcar companies who ripped up competitors’ lines before laying their own. Investigate why poor people are queuing up for a free cup of blood in a slaughterhouse. Explore a mechanical prison. Solve the mystery of a spectral horse with a fatal gaze. Evade the clutches of lethal desert plants. There’s also a section on the environments of the Old West.

“In Haunted West, Paragons travel through some of the most sublime and starkly beautiful scenery in the world. The environment and weather are characters in themselves, and the Balladeer should incorporate them to heighten the drama and terror.”

It’s a beautifully written, even lyrical, description of mountains, deserts, and forests. Accompanied by some practical advice on creating adventures based on the land or weather e.g., surviving a blizzard, or tracking an animal to its cave.

Famous landmarks are also discussed, such as the Taos Pueblo and the Grand Canyon. Again, this section is lively and stuffed full of interesting details. Another wonderful resource for a GM.

12 Bag of Nails

Finally, the authors’ put it all together and demonstrate what an adventure in Haunted West could look like. (Must admit, I don’t understand why this chapter was put in a different place to the plot ideas and full adventure in Chapter Six—The Ballads, perhaps it was a stretch goal.)

Night of the Aerostat is pretty good. It features a mysterious flying object, cattle mutilations and an occult society. There are encounters with both Numa (Paiute) and Mormon Danite characters. More hostile events include a gruelling struggle with bandits, battles with paranormal beings and a desperate trek through a deeply hostile environment. Simple brute force won’t work, a bit of investigation is required if the Paragons are going to survive the final confrontation (though it should be a fun and varied fight). The writing is nicely evocative.

“Hiko’s courthouse stands half-built, dreams of justice abandoned along with dreams of prosperity. Jimson weed grows wild around the bullet-ridden sheriff’s office.”

And the truth of what’s going on is weirder and nastier than you might expect.

Overall, I liked it, and I’d be keen to see more Haunted West adventures in future.

13 Appendices

Most RPG books would be pretty much over at this point. But Haunted West has plenty more content to share. A product, I suspect, of a successful Kickstarter campaign.

A. Ivey’s Almanac of Ailments

Comes complete with another reminder of the appalling toll inflicted by the introduction of European diseases to the Americas. Also a chilling description of the various stages of syphilis.

There are specific and pretty detailed rules for diseases, including risk factors. I was very amused by the risk factor for Bad Tooth: “Having teeth”.

Historical medicines are also included, such as canchalagua, Dover’s Powder, arsenic, and dragon’s blood. There’s even a rule for the placebo effect, due to the popularity of “patent medicines” and miracle cures.

You can generate your own patent medicine if you wish. I rolled up Jenkins’—Brown Foot Drops, Clear Ache Discovery and Herbal Ulcer Bitters.

B. The Mythos in Haunted West

The Cthulhu Mythos is close to Spivey’s heart, so it’s no surprise to see it rearing its squamous head in this book. And, as the authors’ point out—vast forbidding landscapes are a good setting for inhuman terrors and hidden civilisations.

“If it can be imagined, there is every chance it could walk or shamble across the great open spaces of the West. If it can’t be imagined, so much the better.”

The authors’ present a thoughtful, philosophical take on the Mythos, alongside some juicy plot hooks. Such as the revelation that your Paragon is not the original brain of the body they’re piloting!

We’re also treated to a sampling of mythos gods, tomes, spells, and civilisations. I really loved that we are given three different subterranean civilisations, each one inhabiting a deeper layer of the Earth—K’n-yan, Yoth, and N’Kai.

There’s a system for Mythos magic too. Which is at least as dangerous to the user as any of the core six.

C. Haunted West World

And here it is, the final way to play Haunted West. You could almost miss it, tucked away at the back like this—a brief but complete Powered by the Apocalypse version of Haunted West, with playbooks for all the Archetypes. If you like this setting but are struggling with the crunchy rules, it’s a godsend—a nice, rules-light framework using a well-known system that’s great for one-shots and covers the magic powers and weird abilities of Paragons pretty nicely. Not everyone likes PbtA (I tend to find it a bit restrictive), but it’s very quick and easy to get up and running; I think it would take me longer to lead one player through character creation in the core game, than it would for me to have created an entire posse with this PbtA hack and started our first scene.

As a nice bonus, this version does something I’ve not seen done before by PbtA—the ability to critically succeed on a roll of 12+.

Bibliography

Not normally worth reviewing, but Darker Hue Studios are superb at research. (I would not be surprised if this book found its way into some university libraries, as Harlem Unbound did.)

Alongside the extensive historical references, we get some very interesting and diverse fiction recommendations. I was most intrigued by Merkabah Rider: High Planes Drifter—a series about a Jewish mystic-gunslinger. A wide array of films get name dropped too, I urge you to go and find a clip of Billy the Kid Versus Dracula, it’s hilarious.

Conclusion

And there we are. Thank you for sticking with me all the way to the end.

So, is it good? It’s almost too big to tell. You could ignore whole swathes of the book and still get a lot of use out of the remaining chapters.

The rules are over-complicated for my taste, but they seem functional, and if you enjoy GURPS, Traveller, Hero System, D&D 3.5, or Pathfinder 1, you’ll probably be happy enough with them. If you enjoy Call of Cthulhu, Warhammer Fantasy Roleplay or Runequest you can probably get the hang of this pretty well too. And you can always use the PbtA hack instead.

The magic systems are dangerous, and require time investment from both player and character. But that should appeal to fans of Call of Cthulhu, Kult, or Unknown Armies. And if you just want to develop some cool supernatural powers you can always play a Law officer, Drover, or Gunfighter and eventually learn to fire magic bullets, summon a stampede, or deputise ghosts.

There’s more variety in the gadgets, powers, history, and peoples described in this book than you will probably ever need. There are fascinating monsters from all over the world, awesome weird places to explore, and historical stories to inspire and appal. It has a tremendous amount of gameable content.

There’s beautiful, passionate, lyrical writing in this book. There are very important stories I feel privileged to have read. And there are topics that are dry enough that anyone might struggle to make them entertaining. There is certainly more history and background information than anyone but the most dedicated fans or historical enthusiasts will need.

If you want to learn about the true history of the Old West, this book is a superb resource. If you already have a preferred Weird West game but want more inspiration or wish to respectfully include the many different peoples and groups who made up the Old West, this book will be very useful to you. If you want to run a game of Haunted West, you’ll either have to put in a solid investment of time to learn the rules and read up on the history, or resign yourself to sifting through this large and (understandably) expensive book to find the bits and pieces that work for you.

This is a valuable and significant book, and it deserves to be supported. But it’s so sprawling, and it presents so much that it’s unlikely to be able to please most readers with all of its content. I leave the rest up to you.

If the idea of inclusive own voice led RPGs appeals to you, you should also check out Coyote and Crow, “a Nebula Award nominated sci-fi and fantasy tabletop role playing game set in a First Nations alternate future where colonization never happened.”

Disclaimer: I received a free digital copy of this book in return for an honest review.