It’s 1934. The Great Depression is in full swing. The economy’s shot. Millions are without work, homes, or food. Huge swathes of the United States are being buried under hurricanes of dust. The nation’s suffering. Some days it feels like the whole world’s falling apart.
And for you, it already has. You fought against the undertow as long as you could, but eventually it pulled you under. So you died, face-down in the dust, your body left to dessicate with the rest of them.
And then, somehow, you got back up. No one knows why. Maybe God, ever the gambler, threw a whole mess of dice for you and it was boxcars all the way down. But now you’re a Wanderer, a soul caught in a crevice between the two halves of the Nation: Steel and the Myth, the physical and the emotional, the real and the surreal.
Now there’s no going back to your dead past, and no future for you here in this false promise of a nation. But that doesn’t mean there’s no hope. There’s still the West: a dream at the other end of an endless sea on fire with the setting sun. It’s a good place, a place of honest folks living by their own means for their own ends doing whatever it is God put them here to do.
They say, in the Myth of California, there’s a train called the Sunset Line that’ll take you to the West. The ticketmaster takes Coin hewn from the soul of the Nation, from suffering people helped or demons banished. Or, if you’re a real sonuvabitch, stolen from other Wanderers. And of course the Devil’s got a stash if you’re in the mood to gamble…
So there you are. A tough life, a tough death, a tough road ahead of you. But at the other end of it, there’s hope. There’s always hope. Can’t promise you’ll ever see the West, mind you. Odds are good you’ll disappear into the dust like the rest of them. The Almighty never promised the world was fair.
But at least you’ve got something to dream of, Wanderer. It’ll have to do.
This is a playtest of a very early prototype I’m working on called To The West. It’s a 2-part series. Being able to attend each session is preferred, but not required. You must RSVP for each session you wish to attend.
To The West is about ordinary folks wandering across a United States alive with its histories and myths. It’s about folks struggling against powers too large for them to overcome, about contending with the troubled past of the nation, and about finding hope for a better life in bleak times.
We’ll be using the X-Card and Lines and Veils for safety, and the Gauntlet Inclusivity Policy will be in full effect.
Content warning: American history, pulled from often and directly, in all its horrible, messy beauty
2019-07-22T23:30:00Z → 2019-07-24T02:30:00ZSession 1
2019-07-29T23:30:00Z → 2019-07-30T02:30:00ZSession 2