Ooh! Ooh! Whatever it is, I'm in!

Here's Game III.

I don't see why we can't have multiple games running, so anyone else who has a Premise should feel free to start a thread.

Premise: An unknown terror stalks the Old West

Starting Period:The First Attacks

--EVENT: The Red Ace Gang blitzkrieg's the sole village of the dwindling Taloqua Tribe. With the tribe's strongest warriors out on a hunt, the Red Ace Gang kills indiscriminately, takes anything of value and sets fire to the rest. High Chieftain Krag Tallshadow survives, but the tribe is crippled. It is rumored that the Taloqua practiced "dark magiks", mostly involving long ritualistic ceremonies.

--EVENT: Cyrus Ford, the leader of the Red Ace Gang, pulls into Owlhoot Junction to sell scalps that they took from the Taloqua tribe. Drunk during a poker game, he becomes enraged at losing to the town's physician. Ford drags him out of the saloon, guns him down, and returns wearing the man's stethoscope. Ford demands that the saloon and the entire gang start addressing him as "Doctor Ford."

--EVENT: In the town of Horsetail, county Sheriff Orville Curts and town Marshall Roy Oatlash get into a brutal saloon brawl over the affections of Lilly Dunning--a dancing girl at the saloon. Lilly marries Curts the next day, but the two lawmen remain antagonistic towards each other.

--EVENT: After several missed trade attempts, Marshal Roy Oatlash leads a team to the Broken Axle Cattle Ranch. Approaching the ranch, they see that many of the fences have been broken and much of the herd is missing, doubtless wandered off. Entering the main house of the ranch, Marshal Oatlash and his men find every ranch hand hung upside down, disemboweled, and beheaded. There is no blood anywhere.

--Event: The infamous bandit Alejandro Villalobos Bustillo de la Sota (AKA El Barril) escapes form the territorial prison in Nogales.
He makes his way to his gang's secret hideout in a gorge 15 miles south of Horsetail.
He finds his gang, including his two brothers, butchered in a most appalling fashion. Evidence of a savage gun battle is evident, but no bodies are present aside from those of his men. he finds orange stains with a peculiar, cinnamon-like aroma in various places about the stronghold.
Recovering his prized Winchester model 1873 from the wrecked hideout, El Barril swears to avenge his comrades at any cost.

Period: The First Death of Sheriff Curts

--Event: Sheriff Curts finds a handwritten letter nailed to his door. It simply reads: Your wife, or your life. It appears to be written in blood. Curts tucks the letter in his boot, telling no one about it save for Deputy Miles Danson.

--Event: Sheriff Curts party, on its way to request help with the mysterious attacks, is ambushed during the night by the mysterious attackers. Deputy Danson insists they're some kind of wolves, but Curts replies by saying "Those aren't any wolves I've ever heard of." During their escape attempt, Deputy Danson is killed, after which Curts breaks off from the party to heroically draw the attackers attention and give the rest a chance to escape. The ploy works, and with Sheriff Orville Curts wife Lilly Curts left to drive the stagecoach, the rest of the party successfully gets away, but with Sheriff Orville Curts failing to catch up with them again, they fear the worst.

--Event: El Barril brazenly enters The 5 Aces saloon in Horsetail and begins intimidating the gringos he finds there, forcing the piano player and saloon patrons to accompany him on bawdy drinking songs. Marshal Oatlash arrives to restore order and arrest El Barril. The bandit accuses Oatlash of being behind the deaths of his gang and announces his intention "snap his neck like a twig". a savage brawl ensues.

Period: The Night of the Wolves

Event:Father Silas Bannon, the pasture and de-facto mayor of Dalton, orders the execution of Wilhemena "Crazy Eye" Hood. Bannon believes Hood to be practicing dark arts, and it is her that has brought about the evil spirits that plague the Texas plains. Hood is executed via hanging, without trail. Several witnesses claim to have seen Hood's shadow leave her body and hang itself over Bannon. The town awakens next morning to find that all of their livestock and family pets have died. Bannon writes it off as the death throes of a mad witch.

--Event: El Barill and Marshall Oatlash reach an uneasy truce. They will cooperate until the unseen attackers have been eliminated. Once that is accomplished, there will be "a settling of accounts".

--Event: After weeks of fear, madness, and blood, Father Silas Bannon throws oil onto the doors of every building in Dalton, Texas. He burns the entire town to ash on the coldest, driest February night in memory. The handful of survivors report seeing him riding north into a blizzard, alternately singing hymns and shrieking.

--EVENT: A pack of wolves takes up residence in the burned-out ruins of Dalton. One night, the wolves begin to act strangely, forgoing hunting to gather together and howl at the rising moon. Then the pack divides into three groups, with one group each heading for the towns of Horsetail, Angel's Prairie and Owlhoot Junction.


--EVENT: In a night of terror and bloodshed, the wolves attack the three towns. Owlhoot Junction and Angel's Prairie suffer a dozen people dead each before the citizens organize and gun down the seemingly fearless and crazed creatures. In Horsetail, Marshall Oatlash and the Kinney sisters respond more quickly, killing the wolves with the loss of only the elderly schoolmarm and the town drunk. There is no apparent explanation for the wolves' strange and savage behavior.


Period: The Return of Sheriff Curts
--EVENT: Twenty-two days after the disappearance of Sheriff Curts, The Red Ace Gang rides into Horsetail. With Sheriff Curts still missing and Deputy Danson pushing up daisies, there is little law remaining in the town. The gang quickly realizes this and terrorizes the town. Doc Ford catches Lilly Curts attempting to telegraph Marshall Oatlash. After cutting the telegraph lines, Ford attempts to have her way with the wayward sheriff's wife. Lilly is able to smash an oil lamp across Ford's face, leaving him scarred and blinded in his right eye. Furious and embarrassed, Doc Ford orders his men to pillage Horsetail. Before riding off he threatens "We'll be back, we just needed more bullets".

--EVENT: Twenty-six days after his disappearance, Sheriff Curts returns to Horsetail astride his horse. He is beaten, scarred, and strangest of all, his right arm is now scaly, black, and clawed. When asked about this, Curts answers "They took my arm. I took one a' theirs."

--EVENT: Ruth and Esther Kinney, sister bounty-hunters originally from Chicago, ride into Angel's Prairie dragging the entire Red Ace Gang behind them.

Period: The Destruction of Angel's Prairie

--EVENT: Famed gunslinger Joshua Freeman, the Black Blur of Angel's Prairie, learns of the Red Ace Gang's impending execution. Recalling the debt he owes the Red Ace leader, "Doctor" Cyrus Ford, he resolves to save them from the noose by day's end.

--EVENT: On the same day, Father Bannon rides into town, his body appearing to have decayed over time. A murder of crows trails his arrival.

****Event: On his way to Angel's Prairie, Joshua Freeman is ambushed by a number of the mysterious attackers that have been causing the chaos and panic in the surrounding area. However, rather than killing Freeman, the creatures bring him before High Chieftain Krag Tallshadow, who says something about how Freeman will help them before performing a mysterious ritual on the man. Soon after the ritual begins, Freeman screams can be heard for miles until some time after Tallshadow finishes.

--EVENT: Father Bannon meets Joshua Freeman outside the town of Angel's Prairie just two hours before the Red Ace Gang is to be hanged. How Bannon knew when and where to meet Freeman is unknown. Something nearly transparent flows from Bannon's mouth and seeps into Freeman. Bannon's body then collapses into ash, while Freeman's body grows scales and his fingernails become claws. The murder of crows begins to follow Freeman.

--Event: With their execution having been postponed until the following day, the Red Ace Gang spends the night in jail again. However, as the full moon waits overhead, the Gang members are visited by Joshua Freeman, who kills the guards to get inside. Once there, some mystical force causes the members of the Red Ace Gang to transform into hideous monsters that the jail is unable to contain. The former gang members, no longer possessing a will of their own, break out and begin to attack the town and its townspeople.

Period: The Nightmare Beneath Crawley Canyon

--EVENT: With Angel's Prairie leveled, and the men behind the massacre of their people now dead, the Taloqua Tribe feels confident in their victory over their oppressors. Chieftan Tallshadow, however, knows better, and begins preparing the rituals necessary to bring forth 'The Storm That Slumbers Beneath the Earth.'

Period: Battle of Owlhoot Junction.

--EVENT: The telegraph office in Horsetail receives a frenzied, disjointed message from the train station in Owlhoot Junction. Initially the messages describes a train derailment, then an "attack" by "things" or "varmints". the message ends in a frantic call for assistance as the "critters are breaking in the windows".

--EVENT: In the wreckage of Owlhoot Junction, Marshal Outlash finds Joshua Freeman, who's body has decayed to what seems to be a still-living corpse. Freeman cackles just before Outlash puts a bullet in the gunslinger's brain. With the immediate threat taken care of, Outlash and Curts agree to put aside their differences and, with the help of the Kinney sisters and El Barril, vow to put an end to this evil at the source: the Teloqua Tribe in Crawley Canyon.

Ending Period: The Last Ride of the Crawley Canyon Posse

--EVENT: Following the destruction of Owlhoot Junction, Sheriff Curts rallies together a posse from the survivors who are willing and able to take up arms. This posses heads for Crawley Canyon with all due speed to try to set up an ambush.

--Event: The remnants of Sherriff Curts' posse flees across the Crawley Canyon bridge, pursued by the Taloqua's Eldritch army. El Barril, dying from the sorcerous poison burning in his veins, holds back the abysmal horde at a choke point near the south end of the bridge with his sharpshooting, as the rest of the posse rigs the bridge with dynamite.
At last, his ammunition spent, the fierce bandito wields his Winchester like a club, smashing skulls and spattering brains. High Chieftain Krag Tallshadow leaps forward and buries a knife in El Barril's chest, only to be gut-shot by the outlaw's concealed derringer. Chuckling with grim mirth, El Barril mutters "jaque mate." and slumps to the ground. The things swarm past his corpse and onto the bridge.

--Event Marshal Oatlash looks back across the bridge in time to see El Barril's last stand. He takes the unconscious Sheriff Curts and places him on the back of Ruth's horse, locks eyes with her, and says "Make sure he gets back to Lilly," before swatting the stallion and sending it racing away. He limps back across the bridge, patiently alternating firing his Colts between the monstrosities and the dynamite. It is the last words anyone will hear him say.

--EVENT: With their numbers dwindled to near nothing and their "dark magik" powered army finally stopped, High Chieftain Krag Tallshadow and warrior Sih Swiftfoot - the very last of the Taloqua Tribe - make their retreat. With Tallshadow mortally wounded, he appoints Swiftfoot the new High Chieftain, then passes on what knowledge he can so that their army might rise again some day. Tallshadow then tasks Swiftfoot with surviving and rebuilding the tribe so that one day, whether in this generation or many generations in the future, the Taloqua Tribe might finally have its revenge.

Premise: An unknown terror stalks the Old West

Starting Period:The First Attacks

--EVENT: The Red Ace Gang blitzkrieg's the sole village of the dwindling Taloqua Tribe. With the tribe's strongest warriors out on a hunt, the Red Ace Gang kills indiscriminately, takes anything of value and sets fire to the rest. High Chieftain Krag Tallshadow survives, but the tribe is crippled. It is rumored that the Taloqua practiced "dark magiks", mostly involving long ritualistic ceremonies.

--EVENT: Cyrus Ford, the leader of the Red Ace Gang, pulls into Owlhoot Junction to sell scalps that they took from the Taloqua tribe. Drunk during a poker game, he becomes enraged at losing to the town's physician. Ford drags him out of the saloon, guns him down, and returns wearing the man's stethoscope. Ford demands that the saloon and the entire gang start addressing him as "Doctor Ford."

--EVENT: In the town of Horsetail, county Sheriff Orville Curts and town Marshall Roy Oatlash get into a brutal saloon brawl over the affections of Lilly Dunning--a dancing girl at the saloon. Lilly marries Curts the next day, but the two lawmen remain antagonistic towards each other.

--EVENT: After several missed trade attempts, Marshal Roy Oatlash leads a team to the Broken Axle Cattle Ranch. Approaching the ranch, they see that many of the fences have been broken and much of the herd is missing, doubtless wandered off. Entering the main house of the ranch, Marshal Oatlash and his men find every ranch hand hung upside down, disemboweled, and beheaded. There is no blood anywhere.

--Event: The infamous bandit Alejandro Villalobos Bustillo de la Sota (AKA El Barril) escapes form the territorial prison in Nogales.
He makes his way to his gang's secret hideout in a gorge 15 miles south of Horsetail.
He finds his gang, including his two brothers, butchered in a most appalling fashion. Evidence of a savage gun battle is evident, but no bodies are present aside from those of his men. he finds orange stains with a peculiar, cinnamon-like aroma in various places about the stronghold.
Recovering his prized Winchester model 1873 from the wrecked hideout, El Barril swears to avenge his comrades at any cost.

Period: The First Death of Sheriff Curts

--Event: Sheriff Curts finds a handwritten letter nailed to his door. It simply reads: Your wife, or your life. It appears to be written in blood. Curts tucks the letter in his boot, telling no one about it save for Deputy Miles Danson.

--Event: Sheriff Curts party, on its way to request help with the mysterious attacks, is ambushed during the night by the mysterious attackers. Deputy Danson insists they're some kind of wolves, but Curts replies by saying "Those aren't any wolves I've ever heard of." During their escape attempt, Deputy Danson is killed, after which Curts breaks off from the party to heroically draw the attackers attention and give the rest a chance to escape. The ploy works, and with Sheriff Orville Curts wife Lilly Curts left to drive the stagecoach, the rest of the party successfully gets away, but with Sheriff Orville Curts failing to catch up with them again, they fear the worst.

--Event: El Barril brazenly enters The 5 Aces saloon in Horsetail and begins intimidating the gringos he finds there, forcing the piano player and saloon patrons to accompany him on bawdy drinking songs. Marshal Oatlash arrives to restore order and arrest El Barril. The bandit accuses Oatlash of being behind the deaths of his gang and announces his intention "snap his neck like a twig". a savage brawl ensues.

Period: The Night of the Wolves

Event:Father Silas Bannon, the pasture and de-facto mayor of Dalton, orders the execution of Wilhemena "Crazy Eye" Hood. Bannon believes Hood to be practicing dark arts, and it is her that has brought about the evil spirits that plague the Texas plains. Hood is executed via hanging, without trail. Several witnesses claim to have seen Hood's shadow leave her body and hang itself over Bannon. The town awakens next morning to find that all of their livestock and family pets have died. Bannon writes it off as the death throes of a mad witch.

--Event: El Barill and Marshall Oatlash reach an uneasy truce. They will cooperate until the unseen attackers have been eliminated. Once that is accomplished, there will be "a settling of accounts".

--Event: After weeks of fear, madness, and blood, Father Silas Bannon throws oil onto the doors of every building in Dalton, Texas. He burns the entire town to ash on the coldest, driest February night in memory. The handful of survivors report seeing him riding north into a blizzard, alternately singing hymns and shrieking.

--EVENT: A pack of wolves takes up residence in the burned-out ruins of Dalton. One night, the wolves begin to act strangely, forgoing hunting to gather together and howl at the rising moon. Then the pack divides into three groups, with one group each heading for the towns of Horsetail, Angel's Prairie and Owlhoot Junction.


--EVENT: In a night of terror and bloodshed, the wolves attack the three towns. Owlhoot Junction and Angel's Prairie suffer a dozen people dead each before the citizens organize and gun down the seemingly fearless and crazed creatures. In Horsetail, Marshall Oatlash and the Kinney sisters respond more quickly, killing the wolves with the loss of only the elderly schoolmarm and the town drunk. There is no apparent explanation for the wolves' strange and savage behavior.


Period: The Return of Sheriff Curts
--EVENT: Twenty-two days after the disappearance of Sheriff Curts, The Red Ace Gang rides into Horsetail. With Sheriff Curts still missing and Deputy Danson pushing up daisies, there is little law remaining in the town. The gang quickly realizes this and terrorizes the town. Doc Ford catches Lilly Curts attempting to telegraph Marshall Oatlash. After cutting the telegraph lines, Ford attempts to have her way with the wayward sheriff's wife. Lilly is able to smash an oil lamp across Ford's face, leaving him scarred and blinded in his right eye. Furious and embarrassed, Doc Ford orders his men to pillage Horsetail. Before riding off he threatens "We'll be back, we just needed more bullets".

--EVENT: Twenty-six days after his disappearance, Sheriff Curts returns to Horsetail astride his horse. He is beaten, scarred, and strangest of all, his right arm is now scaly, black, and clawed. When asked about this, Curts answers "They took my arm. I took one a' theirs."

--EVENT: Ruth and Esther Kinney, sister bounty-hunters originally from Chicago, ride into Angel's Prairie dragging the entire Red Ace Gang behind them.

Period: The Destruction of Angel's Prairie

--EVENT: Famed gunslinger Joshua Freeman, the Black Blur of Angel's Prairie, learns of the Red Ace Gang's impending execution. Recalling the debt he owes the Red Ace leader, "Doctor" Cyrus Ford, he resolves to save them from the noose by day's end.

--EVENT: On the same day, Father Bannon rides into town, his body appearing to have decayed over time. A murder of crows trails his arrival.

--Event: On his way to Angel's Prairie, Joshua Freeman is ambushed by a number of the mysterious attackers that have been causing the chaos and panic in the surrounding area. However, rather than killing Freeman, the creatures bring him before High Chieftain Krag Tallshadow, who says something about how Freeman will help them before performing a mysterious ritual on the man. Soon after the ritual begins, Freeman screams can be heard for miles until some time after Tallshadow finishes.

--EVENT: Father Bannon meets Joshua Freeman outside the town of Angel's Prairie just two hours before the Red Ace Gang is to be hanged. How Bannon knew when and where to meet Freeman is unknown. Something nearly transparent flows from Bannon's mouth and seeps into Freeman. Bannon's body then collapses into ash, while Freeman's body grows scales and his fingernails become claws. The murder of crows begins to follow Freeman.

--Event: With their execution having been postponed until the following day, the Red Ace Gang spends the night in jail again. However, as the full moon waits overhead, the Gang members are visited by Joshua Freeman, who kills the guards to get inside. Once there, some mystical force causes the members of the Red Ace Gang to transform into hideous monsters that the jail is unable to contain. The former gang members, no longer possessing a will of their own, break out and begin to attack the town and its townspeople.

Period: The Nightmare Beneath Crawley Canyon

--EVENT: With Angel's Prairie leveled, and the men behind the massacre of their people now dead, the Taloqua Tribe feels confident in their victory over their oppressors. Chieftan Tallshadow, however, knows better, and begins preparing the rituals necessary to bring forth 'The Storm That Slumbers Beneath the Earth.'

Period: Battle of Owlhoot Junction.

--EVENT: The telegraph office in Horsetail receives a frenzied, disjointed message from the train station in Owlhoot Junction. Initially the messages describes a train derailment, then an "attack" by "things" or "varmints". the message ends in a frantic call for assistance as the "critters are breaking in the windows".

--EVENT: In the wreckage of Owlhoot Junction, Marshal Outlash finds Joshua Freeman, who's body has decayed to what seems to be a still-living corpse. Freeman cackles just before Outlash puts a bullet in the gunslinger's brain. With the immediate threat taken care of, Outlash and Curts agree to put aside their differences and, with the help of the Kinney sisters and El Barril, vow to put an end to this evil at the source: the Teloqua Tribe in Crawley Canyon.

Ending Period: The Last Ride of the Crawley Canyon Posse

--EVENT: Following the destruction of Owlhoot Junction, Sheriff Curts rallies together a posse from the survivors who are willing and able to take up arms. This posses heads for Crawley Canyon with all due speed to try to set up an ambush.

***--EVENT: The posse, consisting of Curts, Oatlash, El Barril, the Kinney Sisters and a half dozen cowboys unwisely wearing Red Shirts, approach the Crawley Canyon bridge. They are ambushed by a force consisting of the zombified things that used to be the Red Ace Gang, along with several of the monsters that had been summoned up from beneath Crawley Canyon. In the terrible fight that follows, four of the cowboys and Esther Kinney are killed. The posse is forced to flee towards the Crawley Canyon bridge.

--Event: The remnants of Sherriff Curts' posse flees across the Crawley Canyon bridge, pursued by the Taloqua's Eldritch army. El Barril, dying from the sorcerous poison burning in his veins, holds back the abysmal horde at a choke point near the south end of the bridge with his sharpshooting, as the rest of the posse rigs the bridge with dynamite.
At last, his ammunition spent, the fierce bandito wields his Winchester like a club, smashing skulls and spattering brains. High Chieftain Krag Tallshadow leaps forward and buries a knife in El Barril's chest, only to be gut-shot by the outlaw's concealed derringer. Chuckling with grim mirth, El Barril mutters "jaque mate." and slumps to the ground. The things swarm past his corpse and onto the bridge.

--Event Marshal Oatlash looks back across the bridge in time to see El Barril's last stand. He takes the unconscious Sheriff Curts and places him on the back of Ruth's horse, locks eyes with her, and says "Make sure he gets back to Lilly," before swatting the stallion and sending it racing away. He limps back across the bridge, patiently alternating firing his Colts between the monstrosities and the dynamite. It is the last words anyone will hear him say.

--EVENT: With their numbers dwindled to near nothing and their "dark magik" powered army finally stopped, High Chieftain Krag Tallshadow and warrior Sih Swiftfoot - the very last of the Taloqua Tribe - make their retreat. With Tallshadow mortally wounded, he appoints Swiftfoot the new High Chieftain, then passes on what knowledge he can so that their army might rise again some day. Tallshadow then tasks Swiftfoot with surviving and rebuilding the tribe so that one day, whether in this generation or many generations in the future, the Taloqua Tribe might finally have its revenge.

Premise: An unknown terror stalks the Old West

Starting Period:The First Attacks

--EVENT: The Red Ace Gang blitzkrieg's the sole village of the dwindling Taloqua Tribe. With the tribe's strongest warriors out on a hunt, the Red Ace Gang kills indiscriminately, takes anything of value and sets fire to the rest. High Chieftain Krag Tallshadow survives, but the tribe is crippled. It is rumored that the Taloqua practiced "dark magiks", mostly involving long ritualistic ceremonies.

--EVENT: Cyrus Ford, the leader of the Red Ace Gang, pulls into Owlhoot Junction to sell scalps that they took from the Taloqua tribe. Drunk during a poker game, he becomes enraged at losing to the town's physician. Ford drags him out of the saloon, guns him down, and returns wearing the man's stethoscope. Ford demands that the saloon and the entire gang start addressing him as "Doctor Ford."

--EVENT: In the town of Horsetail, county Sheriff Orville Curts and town Marshall Roy Oatlash get into a brutal saloon brawl over the affections of Lilly Dunning--a dancing girl at the saloon. Lilly marries Curts the next day, but the two lawmen remain antagonistic towards each other.

--EVENT: After several missed trade attempts, Marshal Roy Oatlash leads a team to the Broken Axle Cattle Ranch. Approaching the ranch, they see that many of the fences have been broken and much of the herd is missing, doubtless wandered off. Entering the main house of the ranch, Marshal Oatlash and his men find every ranch hand hung upside down, disemboweled, and beheaded. There is no blood anywhere.

--Event: The infamous bandit Alejandro Villalobos Bustillo de la Sota (AKA El Barril) escapes form the territorial prison in Nogales.
He makes his way to his gang's secret hideout in a gorge 15 miles south of Horsetail.
He finds his gang, including his two brothers, butchered in a most appalling fashion. Evidence of a savage gun battle is evident, but no bodies are present aside from those of his men. he finds orange stains with a peculiar, cinnamon-like aroma in various places about the stronghold.
Recovering his prized Winchester model 1873 from the wrecked hideout, El Barril swears to avenge his comrades at any cost.

Period: The First Death of Sheriff Curts

--Event: Sheriff Curts finds a handwritten letter nailed to his door. It simply reads: Your wife, or your life. It appears to be written in blood. Curts tucks the letter in his boot, telling no one about it save for Deputy Miles Danson.

--Event: Sheriff Curts party, on its way to request help with the mysterious attacks, is ambushed during the night by the mysterious attackers. Deputy Danson insists they're some kind of wolves, but Curts replies by saying "Those aren't any wolves I've ever heard of." During their escape attempt, Deputy Danson is killed, after which Curts breaks off from the party to heroically draw the attackers attention and give the rest a chance to escape. The ploy works, and with Sheriff Orville Curts wife Lilly Curts left to drive the stagecoach, the rest of the party successfully gets away, but with Sheriff Orville Curts failing to catch up with them again, they fear the worst.

--Event: El Barril brazenly enters The 5 Aces saloon in Horsetail and begins intimidating the gringos he finds there, forcing the piano player and saloon patrons to accompany him on bawdy drinking songs. Marshal Oatlash arrives to restore order and arrest El Barril. The bandit accuses Oatlash of being behind the deaths of his gang and announces his intention "snap his neck like a twig". a savage brawl ensues.

Period: The Night of the Wolves

Event:Father Silas Bannon, the pasture and de-facto mayor of Dalton, orders the execution of Wilhemena "Crazy Eye" Hood. Bannon believes Hood to be practicing dark arts, and it is her that has brought about the evil spirits that plague the Texas plains. Hood is executed via hanging, without trail. Several witnesses claim to have seen Hood's shadow leave her body and hang itself over Bannon. The town awakens next morning to find that all of their livestock and family pets have died. Bannon writes it off as the death throes of a mad witch.

--Event: El Barill and Marshall Oatlash reach an uneasy truce. They will cooperate until the unseen attackers have been eliminated. Once that is accomplished, there will be "a settling of accounts".

--Event: After weeks of fear, madness, and blood, Father Silas Bannon throws oil onto the doors of every building in Dalton, Texas. He burns the entire town to ash on the coldest, driest February night in memory. The handful of survivors report seeing him riding north into a blizzard, alternately singing hymns and shrieking.

--EVENT: A pack of wolves takes up residence in the burned-out ruins of Dalton. One night, the wolves begin to act strangely, forgoing hunting to gather together and howl at the rising moon. Then the pack divides into three groups, with one group each heading for the towns of Horsetail, Angel's Prairie and Owlhoot Junction.


--EVENT: In a night of terror and bloodshed, the wolves attack the three towns. Owlhoot Junction and Angel's Prairie suffer a dozen people dead each before the citizens organize and gun down the seemingly fearless and crazed creatures. In Horsetail, Marshall Oatlash and the Kinney sisters respond more quickly, killing the wolves with the loss of only the elderly schoolmarm and the town drunk. There is no apparent explanation for the wolves' strange and savage behavior.


Period: The Return of Sheriff Curts
--EVENT: Twenty-two days after the disappearance of Sheriff Curts, The Red Ace Gang rides into Horsetail. With Sheriff Curts still missing and Deputy Danson pushing up daisies, there is little law remaining in the town. The gang quickly realizes this and terrorizes the town. Doc Ford catches Lilly Curts attempting to telegraph Marshall Oatlash. After cutting the telegraph lines, Ford attempts to have her way with the wayward sheriff's wife. Lilly is able to smash an oil lamp across Ford's face, leaving him scarred and blinded in his right eye. Furious and embarrassed, Doc Ford orders his men to pillage Horsetail. Before riding off he threatens "We'll be back, we just needed more bullets".

--EVENT: Twenty-six days after his disappearance, Sheriff Curts returns to Horsetail astride his horse. He is beaten, scarred, and strangest of all, his right arm is now scaly, black, and clawed. When asked about this, Curts answers "They took my arm. I took one a' theirs."

--EVENT: Ruth and Esther Kinney, sister bounty-hunters originally from Chicago, ride into Angel's Prairie dragging the entire Red Ace Gang behind them.

Period: The Destruction of Angel's Prairie

--EVENT: Famed gunslinger Joshua Freeman, the Black Blur of Angel's Prairie, learns of the Red Ace Gang's impending execution. Recalling the debt he owes the Red Ace leader, "Doctor" Cyrus Ford, he resolves to save them from the noose by day's end.

--EVENT: On the same day, Father Bannon rides into town, his body appearing to have decayed over time. A murder of crows trails his arrival.

--Event: On his way to Angel's Prairie, Joshua Freeman is ambushed by a number of the mysterious attackers that have been causing the chaos and panic in the surrounding area. However, rather than killing Freeman, the creatures bring him before High Chieftain Krag Tallshadow, who says something about how Freeman will help them before performing a mysterious ritual on the man. Soon after the ritual begins, Freeman screams can be heard for miles until some time after Tallshadow finishes.

--EVENT: Father Bannon meets Joshua Freeman outside the town of Angel's Prairie just two hours before the Red Ace Gang is to be hanged. How Bannon knew when and where to meet Freeman is unknown. Something nearly transparent flows from Bannon's mouth and seeps into Freeman. Bannon's body then collapses into ash, while Freeman's body grows scales and his fingernails become claws. The murder of crows begins to follow Freeman.

--Event: With their execution having been postponed until the following day, the Red Ace Gang spends the night in jail again. However, as the full moon waits overhead, the Gang members are visited by Joshua Freeman, who kills the guards to get inside. Once there, some mystical force causes the members of the Red Ace Gang to transform into hideous monsters that the jail is unable to contain. The former gang members, no longer possessing a will of their own, break out and begin to attack the town and its townspeople.

Period: The Nightmare Beneath Crawley Canyon

--EVENT: With Angel's Prairie leveled, and the men behind the massacre of their people now dead, the Taloqua Tribe feels confident in their victory over their oppressors. Chieftan Tallshadow, however, knows better, and begins preparing the rituals necessary to bring forth 'The Storm That Slumbers Beneath the Earth.'

Period: Battle of Owlhoot Junction.

--EVENT: The telegraph office in Horsetail receives a frenzied, disjointed message from the train station in Owlhoot Junction. Initially the messages describes a train derailment, then an "attack" by "things" or "varmints". the message ends in a frantic call for assistance as the "critters are breaking in the windows".

--EVENT: In the wreckage of Owlhoot Junction, Marshal Outlash finds Joshua Freeman, who's body has decayed to what seems to be a still-living corpse. Freeman cackles just before Outlash puts a bullet in the gunslinger's brain. With the immediate threat taken care of, Outlash and Curts agree to put aside their differences and, with the help of the Kinney sisters and El Barril, vow to put an end to this evil at the source: the Teloqua Tribe in Crawley Canyon.

Ending Period: The Last Ride of the Crawley Canyon Posse

--EVENT: Following the destruction of Owlhoot Junction, Sheriff Curts rallies together a posse from the survivors who are willing and able to take up arms. This posses heads for Crawley Canyon with all due speed to try to set up an ambush.

--EVENT: The posse, consisting of Curts, Oatlash, El Barril, the Kinney Sisters and a half dozen cowboys unwisely wearing Red Shirts, approach the Crawley Canyon bridge. They are ambushed by a force consisting of the zombified things that used to be the Red Ace Gang, along with several of the monsters that had been summoned up from beneath Crawley Canyon. In the terrible fight that follows, four of the cowboys and Esther Kinney are killed. The posse is forced to flee towards the Crawley Canyon bridge.

--Event: The remnants of Sherriff Curts' posse flees across the Crawley Canyon bridge, pursued by the Taloqua's Eldritch army. El Barril, dying from the sorcerous poison burning in his veins, holds back the abysmal horde at a choke point near the south end of the bridge with his sharpshooting, as the rest of the posse rigs the bridge with dynamite.
At last, his ammunition spent, the fierce bandito wields his Winchester like a club, smashing skulls and spattering brains. High Chieftain Krag Tallshadow leaps forward and buries a knife in El Barril's chest, only to be gut-shot by the outlaw's concealed derringer. Chuckling with grim mirth, El Barril mutters "jaque mate." and slumps to the ground. The things swarm past his corpse and onto the bridge.

--Event Marshal Oatlash looks back across the bridge in time to see El Barril's last stand. He takes the unconscious Sheriff Curts and places him on the back of Ruth's horse, locks eyes with her, and says "Make sure he gets back to Lilly," before swatting the stallion and sending it racing away. He limps back across the bridge, patiently alternating firing his Colts between the monstrosities and the dynamite. It is the last words anyone will hear him say.

****--Event: High Chieftan Tallshadow, with regret in his heart, casts the final incantation to summon the Storm That Slumbers Beneath the Earth. A giant, indescribable horror beaks through the ground and begins to lumber towards the remnants of the retreating Crawley Canyon Posse. When he does, Sheriff Curts awakens on the back of Ruth Kinney's horse, and insists that she turn back. She does, and Curts faces down the terrible Storm, which swallows him whole...allowing Curts to claw his way through the horor's innards and plunge his inhuman arm into its heart.

--EVENT: With their numbers dwindled to near nothing and their "dark magik" powered army finally stopped, High Chieftain Krag Tallshadow and warrior Sih Swiftfoot - the very last of the Taloqua Tribe - make their retreat. With Tallshadow mortally wounded, he appoints Swiftfoot the new High Chieftain, then passes on what knowledge he can so that their army might rise again some day. Tallshadow then tasks Swiftfoot with surviving and rebuilding the tribe so that one day, whether in this generation or many generations in the future, the Taloqua Tribe might finally have its revenge.

Hesster56 is next.

Sheriff Curts is now officially 120% Pure Awesome Sauce.

Alright, I'm calling it: This is the last round. Stuff that could still be explained:

-The note on Sheriff Curts' door.
-Freeman's debt to Doc Ford
-The Battle of Owlhoot Junction
-Maybe a few more details on The Last Ride of the Crawley Canyon Posse

Also, yes, Orville Curts takes care of business.

Premise: An unknown terror stalks the Old West

Starting Period:The First Attacks

--EVENT: The Red Ace Gang blitzkrieg's the sole village of the dwindling Taloqua Tribe. With the tribe's strongest warriors out on a hunt, the Red Ace Gang kills indiscriminately, takes anything of value and sets fire to the rest. High Chieftain Krag Tallshadow survives, but the tribe is crippled. It is rumored that the Taloqua practiced "dark magiks", mostly involving long ritualistic ceremonies.

****EventStarved, dehydrated, and dying of exposure in the desert, Joshua Freeman is found arguing with a cactus by Cyrus Ford. Freeman's prints show him coming from the direction of the Taloqua camp Ford's gang has just raided. Knowing the value of a favor from a desperate gunslinger, Ford provides Freeman with enough food and water to survive, and a ride to the next village they come to. Once he is lucid, Freeman explains that he had heard that the Taloqua tribe had boasted of men that "would not die though they'd been hit with all the shells of a six-gun," and had attempted to find out more himself.

--EVENT: Cyrus Ford, the leader of the Red Ace Gang, pulls into Owlhoot Junction to sell scalps that they took from the Taloqua tribe. Drunk during a poker game, he becomes enraged at losing to the town's physician. Ford drags him out of the saloon, guns him down, and returns wearing the man's stethoscope. Ford demands that the saloon and the entire gang start addressing him as "Doctor Ford."

--EVENT: In the town of Horsetail, county Sheriff Orville Curts and town Marshall Roy Oatlash get into a brutal saloon brawl over the affections of Lilly Dunning--a dancing girl at the saloon. Lilly marries Curts the next day, but the two lawmen remain antagonistic towards each other.

--EVENT: After several missed trade attempts, Marshal Roy Oatlash leads a team to the Broken Axle Cattle Ranch. Approaching the ranch, they see that many of the fences have been broken and much of the herd is missing, doubtless wandered off. Entering the main house of the ranch, Marshal Oatlash and his men find every ranch hand hung upside down, disemboweled, and beheaded. There is no blood anywhere.

--Event: The infamous bandit Alejandro Villalobos Bustillo de la Sota (AKA El Barril) escapes form the territorial prison in Nogales.
He makes his way to his gang's secret hideout in a gorge 15 miles south of Horsetail.
He finds his gang, including his two brothers, butchered in a most appalling fashion. Evidence of a savage gun battle is evident, but no bodies are present aside from those of his men. he finds orange stains with a peculiar, cinnamon-like aroma in various places about the stronghold.
Recovering his prized Winchester model 1873 from the wrecked hideout, El Barril swears to avenge his comrades at any cost.

Period: The First Death of Sheriff Curts

--Event: Sheriff Curts finds a handwritten letter nailed to his door. It simply reads: Your wife, or your life. It appears to be written in blood. Curts tucks the letter in his boot, telling no one about it save for Deputy Miles Danson.

--Event: Sheriff Curts party, on its way to request help with the mysterious attacks, is ambushed during the night by the mysterious attackers. Deputy Danson insists they're some kind of wolves, but Curts replies by saying "Those aren't any wolves I've ever heard of." During their escape attempt, Deputy Danson is killed, after which Curts breaks off from the party to heroically draw the attackers attention and give the rest a chance to escape. The ploy works, and with Sheriff Orville Curts wife Lilly Curts left to drive the stagecoach, the rest of the party successfully gets away, but with Sheriff Orville Curts failing to catch up with them again, they fear the worst.

--Event: El Barril brazenly enters The 5 Aces saloon in Horsetail and begins intimidating the gringos he finds there, forcing the piano player and saloon patrons to accompany him on bawdy drinking songs. Marshal Oatlash arrives to restore order and arrest El Barril. The bandit accuses Oatlash of being behind the deaths of his gang and announces his intention "snap his neck like a twig". a savage brawl ensues.

Period: The Night of the Wolves

Event:Father Silas Bannon, the pasture and de-facto mayor of Dalton, orders the execution of Wilhemena "Crazy Eye" Hood. Bannon believes Hood to be practicing dark arts, and it is her that has brought about the evil spirits that plague the Texas plains. Hood is executed via hanging, without trail. Several witnesses claim to have seen Hood's shadow leave her body and hang itself over Bannon. The town awakens next morning to find that all of their livestock and family pets have died. Bannon writes it off as the death throes of a mad witch.

--Event: El Barill and Marshall Oatlash reach an uneasy truce. They will cooperate until the unseen attackers have been eliminated. Once that is accomplished, there will be "a settling of accounts".

--Event: After weeks of fear, madness, and blood, Father Silas Bannon throws oil onto the doors of every building in Dalton, Texas. He burns the entire town to ash on the coldest, driest February night in memory. The handful of survivors report seeing him riding north into a blizzard, alternately singing hymns and shrieking.

--EVENT: A pack of wolves takes up residence in the burned-out ruins of Dalton. One night, the wolves begin to act strangely, forgoing hunting to gather together and howl at the rising moon. Then the pack divides into three groups, with one group each heading for the towns of Horsetail, Angel's Prairie and Owlhoot Junction.


--EVENT: In a night of terror and bloodshed, the wolves attack the three towns. Owlhoot Junction and Angel's Prairie suffer a dozen people dead each before the citizens organize and gun down the seemingly fearless and crazed creatures. In Horsetail, Marshall Oatlash and the Kinney sisters respond more quickly, killing the wolves with the loss of only the elderly schoolmarm and the town drunk. There is no apparent explanation for the wolves' strange and savage behavior.


Period: The Return of Sheriff Curts
--EVENT: Twenty-two days after the disappearance of Sheriff Curts, The Red Ace Gang rides into Horsetail. With Sheriff Curts still missing and Deputy Danson pushing up daisies, there is little law remaining in the town. The gang quickly realizes this and terrorizes the town. Doc Ford catches Lilly Curts attempting to telegraph Marshall Oatlash. After cutting the telegraph lines, Ford attempts to have her way with the wayward sheriff's wife. Lilly is able to smash an oil lamp across Ford's face, leaving him scarred and blinded in his right eye. Furious and embarrassed, Doc Ford orders his men to pillage Horsetail. Before riding off he threatens "We'll be back, we just needed more bullets".

--EVENT: Twenty-six days after his disappearance, Sheriff Curts returns to Horsetail astride his horse. He is beaten, scarred, and strangest of all, his right arm is now scaly, black, and clawed. When asked about this, Curts answers "They took my arm. I took one a' theirs."

--EVENT: Ruth and Esther Kinney, sister bounty-hunters originally from Chicago, ride into Angel's Prairie dragging the entire Red Ace Gang behind them.

Period: The Destruction of Angel's Prairie

--EVENT: Famed gunslinger Joshua Freeman, the Black Blur of Angel's Prairie, learns of the Red Ace Gang's impending execution. Recalling the debt he owes the Red Ace leader, "Doctor" Cyrus Ford, he resolves to save them from the noose by day's end.

--EVENT: On the same day, Father Bannon rides into town, his body appearing to have decayed over time. A murder of crows trails his arrival.

--Event: On his way to Angel's Prairie, Joshua Freeman is ambushed by a number of the mysterious attackers that have been causing the chaos and panic in the surrounding area. However, rather than killing Freeman, the creatures bring him before High Chieftain Krag Tallshadow, who says something about how Freeman will help them before performing a mysterious ritual on the man. Soon after the ritual begins, Freeman screams can be heard for miles until some time after Tallshadow finishes.

--EVENT: Father Bannon meets Joshua Freeman outside the town of Angel's Prairie just two hours before the Red Ace Gang is to be hanged. How Bannon knew when and where to meet Freeman is unknown. Something nearly transparent flows from Bannon's mouth and seeps into Freeman. Bannon's body then collapses into ash, while Freeman's body grows scales and his fingernails become claws. The murder of crows begins to follow Freeman.

--Event: With their execution having been postponed until the following day, the Red Ace Gang spends the night in jail again. However, as the full moon waits overhead, the Gang members are visited by Joshua Freeman, who kills the guards to get inside. Once there, some mystical force causes the members of the Red Ace Gang to transform into hideous monsters that the jail is unable to contain. The former gang members, no longer possessing a will of their own, break out and begin to attack the town and its townspeople.

Period: The Nightmare Beneath Crawley Canyon

--EVENT: With Angel's Prairie leveled, and the men behind the massacre of their people now dead, the Taloqua Tribe feels confident in their victory over their oppressors. Chieftan Tallshadow, however, knows better, and begins preparing the rituals necessary to bring forth 'The Storm That Slumbers Beneath the Earth.'

Period: Battle of Owlhoot Junction.

--EVENT: The telegraph office in Horsetail receives a frenzied, disjointed message from the train station in Owlhoot Junction. Initially the messages describes a train derailment, then an "attack" by "things" or "varmints". the message ends in a frantic call for assistance as the "critters are breaking in the windows".

--EVENT: In the wreckage of Owlhoot Junction, Marshal Outlash finds Joshua Freeman, who's body has decayed to what seems to be a still-living corpse. Freeman cackles just before Outlash puts a bullet in the gunslinger's brain. With the immediate threat taken care of, Outlash and Curts agree to put aside their differences and, with the help of the Kinney sisters and El Barril, vow to put an end to this evil at the source: the Teloqua Tribe in Crawley Canyon.

Ending Period: The Last Ride of the Crawley Canyon Posse

--EVENT: Following the destruction of Owlhoot Junction, Sheriff Curts rallies together a posse from the survivors who are willing and able to take up arms. This posses heads for Crawley Canyon with all due speed to try to set up an ambush.

--EVENT: The posse, consisting of Curts, Oatlash, El Barril, the Kinney Sisters and a half dozen cowboys unwisely wearing Red Shirts, approach the Crawley Canyon bridge. They are ambushed by a force consisting of the zombified things that used to be the Red Ace Gang, along with several of the monsters that had been summoned up from beneath Crawley Canyon. In the terrible fight that follows, four of the cowboys and Esther Kinney are killed. The posse is forced to flee towards the Crawley Canyon bridge.

--Event: The remnants of Sherriff Curts' posse flees across the Crawley Canyon bridge, pursued by the Taloqua's Eldritch army. El Barril, dying from the sorcerous poison burning in his veins, holds back the abysmal horde at a choke point near the south end of the bridge with his sharpshooting, as the rest of the posse rigs the bridge with dynamite.
At last, his ammunition spent, the fierce bandito wields his Winchester like a club, smashing skulls and spattering brains. High Chieftain Krag Tallshadow leaps forward and buries a knife in El Barril's chest, only to be gut-shot by the outlaw's concealed derringer. Chuckling with grim mirth, El Barril mutters "jaque mate." and slumps to the ground. The things swarm past his corpse and onto the bridge.

--Event Marshal Oatlash looks back across the bridge in time to see El Barril's last stand. He takes the unconscious Sheriff Curts and places him on the back of Ruth's horse, locks eyes with her, and says "Make sure he gets back to Lilly," before swatting the stallion and sending it racing away. He limps back across the bridge, patiently alternating firing his Colts between the monstrosities and the dynamite. It is the last words anyone will hear him say.

****--Event: High Chieftan Tallshadow, with regret in his heart, casts the final incantation to summon the Storm That Slumbers Beneath the Earth. A giant, indescribable horror beaks through the ground and begins to lumber towards the remnants of the retreating Crawley Canyon Posse. When he does, Sheriff Curts awakens on the back of Ruth Kinney's horse, and insists that she turn back. She does, and Curts faces down the terrible Storm, which swallows him whole...allowing Curts to claw his way through the horor's innards and plunge his inhuman arm into its heart.

--EVENT: With their numbers dwindled to near nothing and their "dark magik" powered army finally stopped, High Chieftain Krag Tallshadow and warrior Sih Swiftfoot - the very last of the Taloqua Tribe - make their retreat. With Tallshadow mortally wounded, he appoints Swiftfoot the new High Chieftain, then passes on what knowledge he can so that their army might rise again some day. Tallshadow then tasks Swiftfoot with surviving and rebuilding the tribe so that one day, whether in this generation or many generations in the future, the Taloqua Tribe might finally have its revenge.

Premise: An unknown terror stalks the Old West

Starting Period:The First Attacks

--EVENT: The Red Ace Gang blitzkrieg's the sole village of the dwindling Taloqua Tribe. With the tribe's strongest warriors out on a hunt, the Red Ace Gang kills indiscriminately, takes anything of value and sets fire to the rest. High Chieftain Krag Tallshadow survives, but the tribe is crippled. It is rumored that the Taloqua practiced "dark magiks", mostly involving long ritualistic ceremonies.

EventStarved, dehydrated, and dying of exposure in the desert, Joshua Freeman is found arguing with a cactus by Cyrus Ford. Freeman's prints show him coming from the direction of the Taloqua camp Ford's gang has just raided. Knowing the value of a favor from a desperate gunslinger, Ford provides Freeman with enough food and water to survive, and a ride to the next village they come to. Once he is lucid, Freeman explains that he had heard that the Taloqua tribe had boasted of men that "would not die though they'd been hit with all the shells of a six-gun," and had attempted to find out more himself.

--EVENT: Cyrus Ford, the leader of the Red Ace Gang, pulls into Owlhoot Junction to sell scalps that they took from the Taloqua tribe. Drunk during a poker game, he becomes enraged at losing to the town's physician. Ford drags him out of the saloon, guns him down, and returns wearing the man's stethoscope. Ford demands that the saloon and the entire gang start addressing him as "Doctor Ford."

--EVENT: In the town of Horsetail, county Sheriff Orville Curts and town Marshall Roy Oatlash get into a brutal saloon brawl over the affections of Lilly Dunning--a dancing girl at the saloon. Lilly marries Curts the next day, but the two lawmen remain antagonistic towards each other.

--EVENT: After several missed trade attempts, Marshal Roy Oatlash leads a team to the Broken Axle Cattle Ranch. Approaching the ranch, they see that many of the fences have been broken and much of the herd is missing, doubtless wandered off. Entering the main house of the ranch, Marshal Oatlash and his men find every ranch hand hung upside down, disemboweled, and beheaded. There is no blood anywhere.

--Event: The infamous bandit Alejandro Villalobos Bustillo de la Sota (AKA El Barril) escapes form the territorial prison in Nogales.
He makes his way to his gang's secret hideout in a gorge 15 miles south of Horsetail.
He finds his gang, including his two brothers, butchered in a most appalling fashion. Evidence of a savage gun battle is evident, but no bodies are present aside from those of his men. he finds orange stains with a peculiar, cinnamon-like aroma in various places about the stronghold.
Recovering his prized Winchester model 1873 from the wrecked hideout, El Barril swears to avenge his comrades at any cost.

Period: The First Death of Sheriff Curts

--Event: Sheriff Curts finds a handwritten letter nailed to his door. It simply reads: Your wife, or your life. It appears to be written in blood. Curts tucks the letter in his boot, telling no one about it save for Deputy Miles Danson.

--Event: Sheriff Curts party, on its way to request help with the mysterious attacks, is ambushed during the night by the mysterious attackers. Deputy Danson insists they're some kind of wolves, but Curts replies by saying "Those aren't any wolves I've ever heard of." During their escape attempt, Deputy Danson is killed, after which Curts breaks off from the party to heroically draw the attackers attention and give the rest a chance to escape. The ploy works, and with Sheriff Orville Curts wife Lilly Curts left to drive the stagecoach, the rest of the party successfully gets away, but with Sheriff Orville Curts failing to catch up with them again, they fear the worst.

--Event: El Barril brazenly enters The 5 Aces saloon in Horsetail and begins intimidating the gringos he finds there, forcing the piano player and saloon patrons to accompany him on bawdy drinking songs. Marshal Oatlash arrives to restore order and arrest El Barril. The bandit accuses Oatlash of being behind the deaths of his gang and announces his intention "snap his neck like a twig". a savage brawl ensues.

Period: The Night of the Wolves

Event:Father Silas Bannon, the pasture and de-facto mayor of Dalton, orders the execution of Wilhemena "Crazy Eye" Hood. Bannon believes Hood to be practicing dark arts, and it is her that has brought about the evil spirits that plague the Texas plains. Hood is executed via hanging, without trail. Several witnesses claim to have seen Hood's shadow leave her body and hang itself over Bannon. The town awakens next morning to find that all of their livestock and family pets have died. Bannon writes it off as the death throes of a mad witch.

--Event: El Barill and Marshall Oatlash reach an uneasy truce. They will cooperate until the unseen attackers have been eliminated. Once that is accomplished, there will be "a settling of accounts".

--Event: After weeks of fear, madness, and blood, Father Silas Bannon throws oil onto the doors of every building in Dalton, Texas. He burns the entire town to ash on the coldest, driest February night in memory. The handful of survivors report seeing him riding north into a blizzard, alternately singing hymns and shrieking.

--EVENT: A pack of wolves takes up residence in the burned-out ruins of Dalton. One night, the wolves begin to act strangely, forgoing hunting to gather together and howl at the rising moon. Then the pack divides into three groups, with one group each heading for the towns of Horsetail, Angel's Prairie and Owlhoot Junction.


--EVENT: In a night of terror and bloodshed, the wolves attack the three towns. Owlhoot Junction and Angel's Prairie suffer a dozen people dead each before the citizens organize and gun down the seemingly fearless and crazed creatures. In Horsetail, Marshall Oatlash and the Kinney sisters respond more quickly, killing the wolves with the loss of only the elderly schoolmarm and the town drunk. There is no apparent explanation for the wolves' strange and savage behavior.


Period: The Return of Sheriff Curts
--EVENT: Twenty-two days after the disappearance of Sheriff Curts, The Red Ace Gang rides into Horsetail. With Sheriff Curts still missing and Deputy Danson pushing up daisies, there is little law remaining in the town. The gang quickly realizes this and terrorizes the town. Doc Ford catches Lilly Curts attempting to telegraph Marshall Oatlash. After cutting the telegraph lines, Ford attempts to have her way with the wayward sheriff's wife. Lilly is able to smash an oil lamp across Ford's face, leaving him scarred and blinded in his right eye. Furious and embarrassed, Doc Ford orders his men to pillage Horsetail. Before riding off he threatens "We'll be back, we just needed more bullets".

--EVENT: Twenty-six days after his disappearance, Sheriff Curts returns to Horsetail astride his horse. He is beaten, scarred, and strangest of all, his right arm is now scaly, black, and clawed. When asked about this, Curts answers "They took my arm. I took one a' theirs."

--EVENT: Ruth and Esther Kinney, sister bounty-hunters originally from Chicago, ride into Angel's Prairie dragging the entire Red Ace Gang behind them.

Period: The Destruction of Angel's Prairie

--EVENT: Famed gunslinger Joshua Freeman, the Black Blur of Angel's Prairie, learns of the Red Ace Gang's impending execution. Recalling the debt he owes the Red Ace leader, "Doctor" Cyrus Ford, he resolves to save them from the noose by day's end.

--EVENT: On the same day, Father Bannon rides into town, his body appearing to have decayed over time. A murder of crows trails his arrival.

--Event: On his way to Angel's Prairie, Joshua Freeman is ambushed by a number of the mysterious attackers that have been causing the chaos and panic in the surrounding area. However, rather than killing Freeman, the creatures bring him before High Chieftain Krag Tallshadow, who says something about how Freeman will help them before performing a mysterious ritual on the man. Soon after the ritual begins, Freeman screams can be heard for miles until some time after Tallshadow finishes.

--EVENT: Father Bannon meets Joshua Freeman outside the town of Angel's Prairie just two hours before the Red Ace Gang is to be hanged. How Bannon knew when and where to meet Freeman is unknown. Something nearly transparent flows from Bannon's mouth and seeps into Freeman. Bannon's body then collapses into ash, while Freeman's body grows scales and his fingernails become claws. The murder of crows begins to follow Freeman.

--Event: With their execution having been postponed until the following day, the Red Ace Gang spends the night in jail again. However, as the full moon waits overhead, the Gang members are visited by Joshua Freeman, who kills the guards to get inside. Once there, some mystical force causes the members of the Red Ace Gang to transform into hideous monsters that the jail is unable to contain. The former gang members, no longer possessing a will of their own, break out and begin to attack the town and its townspeople.

Period: The Nightmare Beneath Crawley Canyon

--EVENT: With Angel's Prairie leveled, and the men behind the massacre of their people now dead, the Taloqua Tribe feels confident in their victory over their oppressors. Chieftan Tallshadow, however, knows better, and begins preparing the rituals necessary to bring forth 'The Storm That Slumbers Beneath the Earth.'

Period: Battle of Owlhoot Junction.

--EVENT: The telegraph office in Horsetail receives a frenzied, disjointed message from the train station in Owlhoot Junction. Initially the messages describes a train derailment, then an "attack" by "things" or "varmints". the message ends in a frantic call for assistance as the "critters are breaking in the windows".

--EVENT: In the wreckage of Owlhoot Junction, Marshal Outlash finds Joshua Freeman, who's body has decayed to what seems to be a still-living corpse. Freeman cackles just before Outlash puts a bullet in the gunslinger's brain. With the immediate threat taken care of, Outlash and Curts agree to put aside their differences and, with the help of the Kinney sisters and El Barril, vow to put an end to this evil at the source: the Teloqua Tribe in Crawley Canyon.

Ending Period: The Last Ride of the Crawley Canyon Posse

--EVENT: Following the destruction of Owlhoot Junction, Sheriff Curts rallies together a posse from the survivors who are willing and able to take up arms. This posses heads for Crawley Canyon with all due speed to try to set up an ambush.

--EVENT: The posse, consisting of Curts, Oatlash, El Barril, the Kinney Sisters and a half dozen cowboys unwisely wearing Red Shirts, approach the Crawley Canyon bridge. They are ambushed by a force consisting of the zombified things that used to be the Red Ace Gang, along with several of the monsters that had been summoned up from beneath Crawley Canyon. In the terrible fight that follows, four of the cowboys and Esther Kinney are killed. The posse is forced to flee towards the Crawley Canyon bridge.

--Event: The remnants of Sherriff Curts' posse flees across the Crawley Canyon bridge, pursued by the Taloqua's Eldritch army. El Barril, dying from the sorcerous poison burning in his veins, holds back the abysmal horde at a choke point near the south end of the bridge with his sharpshooting, as the rest of the posse rigs the bridge with dynamite.
At last, his ammunition spent, the fierce bandito wields his Winchester like a club, smashing skulls and spattering brains. High Chieftain Krag Tallshadow leaps forward and buries a knife in El Barril's chest, only to be gut-shot by the outlaw's concealed derringer. Chuckling with grim mirth, El Barril mutters "jaque mate." and slumps to the ground. The things swarm past his corpse and onto the bridge.

--Event Marshal Oatlash looks back across the bridge in time to see El Barril's last stand. He takes the unconscious Sheriff Curts and places him on the back of Ruth's horse, locks eyes with her, and says "Make sure he gets back to Lilly," before swatting the stallion and sending it racing away. He limps back across the bridge, patiently alternating firing his Colts between the monstrosities and the dynamite. It is the last words anyone will hear him say.

--Event: High Chieftan Tallshadow, with regret in his heart, casts the final incantation to summon the Storm That Slumbers Beneath the Earth. A giant, indescribable horror beaks through the ground and begins to lumber towards the remnants of the retreating Crawley Canyon Posse. When he does, Sheriff Curts awakens on the back of Ruth Kinney's horse, and insists that she turn back. She does, and Curts faces down the terrible Storm, which swallows him whole...allowing Curts to claw his way through the horor's innards and plunge his inhuman arm into its heart.

--EVENT: With their numbers dwindled to near nothing and their "dark magik" powered army finally stopped, High Chieftain Krag Tallshadow and warrior Sih Swiftfoot - the very last of the Taloqua Tribe - make their retreat. With Tallshadow mortally wounded, he appoints Swiftfoot the new High Chieftain, then passes on what knowledge he can so that their army might rise again some day. Tallshadow then tasks Swiftfoot with surviving and rebuilding the tribe so that one day, whether in this generation or many generations in the future, the Taloqua Tribe might finally have its revenge.

****EVENT: After clawing his way out of the beast known only as "The Storm", Sheriff Curts makes his way back to Horsetail. He is greeted with the fanfare and gratitude of the legend he has become. Curts, never one for such pomp, quickly reminds everyone that it wouldn't have been a success it if weren't for the remainder of the Crawley Canyon Posse. Exhausted, Curts makes his way to his ranch for some much needed R&R with his wife. Instead of being greeted by his lover's arms, he finds his ranch tossed, Lilly missing, and a note attached to the front door reading: "We warned you"....

Char-Vell, it is your turn!

Premise: An unknown terror stalks the Old West

Starting Period:The First Attacks

--EVENT: The Red Ace Gang blitzkrieg's the sole village of the dwindling Taloqua Tribe. With the tribe's strongest warriors out on a hunt, the Red Ace Gang kills indiscriminately, takes anything of value and sets fire to the rest. High Chieftain Krag Tallshadow survives, but the tribe is crippled. It is rumored that the Taloqua practiced "dark magiks", mostly involving long ritualistic ceremonies.

EventStarved, dehydrated, and dying of exposure in the desert, Joshua Freeman is found arguing with a cactus by Cyrus Ford. Freeman's prints show him coming from the direction of the Taloqua camp Ford's gang has just raided. Knowing the value of a favor from a desperate gunslinger, Ford provides Freeman with enough food and water to survive, and a ride to the next village they come to. Once he is lucid, Freeman explains that he had heard that the Taloqua tribe had boasted of men that "would not die though they'd been hit with all the shells of a six-gun," and had attempted to find out more himself.

--EVENT: Cyrus Ford, the leader of the Red Ace Gang, pulls into Owlhoot Junction to sell scalps that they took from the Taloqua tribe. Drunk during a poker game, he becomes enraged at losing to the town's physician. Ford drags him out of the saloon, guns him down, and returns wearing the man's stethoscope. Ford demands that the saloon and the entire gang start addressing him as "Doctor Ford."

--EVENT: In the town of Horsetail, county Sheriff Orville Curts and town Marshall Roy Oatlash get into a brutal saloon brawl over the affections of Lilly Dunning--a dancing girl at the saloon. Lilly marries Curts the next day, but the two lawmen remain antagonistic towards each other.

--EVENT: After several missed trade attempts, Marshal Roy Oatlash leads a team to the Broken Axle Cattle Ranch. Approaching the ranch, they see that many of the fences have been broken and much of the herd is missing, doubtless wandered off. Entering the main house of the ranch, Marshal Oatlash and his men find every ranch hand hung upside down, disemboweled, and beheaded. There is no blood anywhere.

--Event: The infamous bandit Alejandro Villalobos Bustillo de la Sota (AKA El Barril) escapes form the territorial prison in Nogales.
He makes his way to his gang's secret hideout in a gorge 15 miles south of Horsetail.
He finds his gang, including his two brothers, butchered in a most appalling fashion. Evidence of a savage gun battle is evident, but no bodies are present aside from those of his men. he finds orange stains with a peculiar, cinnamon-like aroma in various places about the stronghold.
Recovering his prized Winchester model 1873 from the wrecked hideout, El Barril swears to avenge his comrades at any cost.

Period: The First Death of Sheriff Curts

--Event: Sheriff Curts finds a handwritten letter nailed to his door. It simply reads: Your wife, or your life. It appears to be written in blood. Curts tucks the letter in his boot, telling no one about it save for Deputy Miles Danson.

--Event: Sheriff Curts party, on its way to request help with the mysterious attacks, is ambushed during the night by the mysterious attackers. Deputy Danson insists they're some kind of wolves, but Curts replies by saying "Those aren't any wolves I've ever heard of." During their escape attempt, Deputy Danson is killed, after which Curts breaks off from the party to heroically draw the attackers attention and give the rest a chance to escape. The ploy works, and with Sheriff Orville Curts wife Lilly Curts left to drive the stagecoach, the rest of the party successfully gets away, but with Sheriff Orville Curts failing to catch up with them again, they fear the worst.

--Event: El Barril brazenly enters The 5 Aces saloon in Horsetail and begins intimidating the gringos he finds there, forcing the piano player and saloon patrons to accompany him on bawdy drinking songs. Marshal Oatlash arrives to restore order and arrest El Barril. The bandit accuses Oatlash of being behind the deaths of his gang and announces his intention "snap his neck like a twig". a savage brawl ensues.

Period: The Night of the Wolves

Event:Father Silas Bannon, the pasture and de-facto mayor of Dalton, orders the execution of Wilhemena "Crazy Eye" Hood. Bannon believes Hood to be practicing dark arts, and it is her that has brought about the evil spirits that plague the Texas plains. Hood is executed via hanging, without trail. Several witnesses claim to have seen Hood's shadow leave her body and hang itself over Bannon. The town awakens next morning to find that all of their livestock and family pets have died. Bannon writes it off as the death throes of a mad witch.

--Event: El Barill and Marshall Oatlash reach an uneasy truce. They will cooperate until the unseen attackers have been eliminated. Once that is accomplished, there will be "a settling of accounts".

--Event: After weeks of fear, madness, and blood, Father Silas Bannon throws oil onto the doors of every building in Dalton, Texas. He burns the entire town to ash on the coldest, driest February night in memory. The handful of survivors report seeing him riding north into a blizzard, alternately singing hymns and shrieking.

--EVENT: A pack of wolves takes up residence in the burned-out ruins of Dalton. One night, the wolves begin to act strangely, forgoing hunting to gather together and howl at the rising moon. Then the pack divides into three groups, with one group each heading for the towns of Horsetail, Angel's Prairie and Owlhoot Junction.


--EVENT: In a night of terror and bloodshed, the wolves attack the three towns. Owlhoot Junction and Angel's Prairie suffer a dozen people dead each before the citizens organize and gun down the seemingly fearless and crazed creatures. In Horsetail, Marshall Oatlash and the Kinney sisters respond more quickly, killing the wolves with the loss of only the elderly schoolmarm and the town drunk. There is no apparent explanation for the wolves' strange and savage behavior.


Period: The Return of Sheriff Curts
--EVENT: Twenty-two days after the disappearance of Sheriff Curts, The Red Ace Gang rides into Horsetail. With Sheriff Curts still missing and Deputy Danson pushing up daisies, there is little law remaining in the town. The gang quickly realizes this and terrorizes the town. Doc Ford catches Lilly Curts attempting to telegraph Marshall Oatlash. After cutting the telegraph lines, Ford attempts to have her way with the wayward sheriff's wife. Lilly is able to smash an oil lamp across Ford's face, leaving him scarred and blinded in his right eye. Furious and embarrassed, Doc Ford orders his men to pillage Horsetail. Before riding off he threatens "We'll be back, we just needed more bullets".

--EVENT: Twenty-six days after his disappearance, Sheriff Curts returns to Horsetail astride his horse. He is beaten, scarred, and strangest of all, his right arm is now scaly, black, and clawed. When asked about this, Curts answers "They took my arm. I took one a' theirs."

--EVENT: Ruth and Esther Kinney, sister bounty-hunters originally from Chicago, ride into Angel's Prairie dragging the entire Red Ace Gang behind them.

Period: The Destruction of Angel's Prairie

--EVENT: Famed gunslinger Joshua Freeman, the Black Blur of Angel's Prairie, learns of the Red Ace Gang's impending execution. Recalling the debt he owes the Red Ace leader, "Doctor" Cyrus Ford, he resolves to save them from the noose by day's end.

--EVENT: On the same day, Father Bannon rides into town, his body appearing to have decayed over time. A murder of crows trails his arrival.

--Event: On his way to Angel's Prairie, Joshua Freeman is ambushed by a number of the mysterious attackers that have been causing the chaos and panic in the surrounding area. However, rather than killing Freeman, the creatures bring him before High Chieftain Krag Tallshadow, who says something about how Freeman will help them before performing a mysterious ritual on the man. Soon after the ritual begins, Freeman screams can be heard for miles until some time after Tallshadow finishes.

--EVENT: Father Bannon meets Joshua Freeman outside the town of Angel's Prairie just two hours before the Red Ace Gang is to be hanged. How Bannon knew when and where to meet Freeman is unknown. Something nearly transparent flows from Bannon's mouth and seeps into Freeman. Bannon's body then collapses into ash, while Freeman's body grows scales and his fingernails become claws. The murder of crows begins to follow Freeman.

--Event: With their execution having been postponed until the following day, the Red Ace Gang spends the night in jail again. However, as the full moon waits overhead, the Gang members are visited by Joshua Freeman, who kills the guards to get inside. Once there, some mystical force causes the members of the Red Ace Gang to transform into hideous monsters that the jail is unable to contain. The former gang members, no longer possessing a will of their own, break out and begin to attack the town and its townspeople.

Period: The Nightmare Beneath Crawley Canyon

--EVENT: With Angel's Prairie leveled, and the men behind the massacre of their people now dead, the Taloqua Tribe feels confident in their victory over their oppressors. Chieftan Tallshadow, however, knows better, and begins preparing the rituals necessary to bring forth 'The Storm That Slumbers Beneath the Earth.'

Period: Battle of Owlhoot Junction.

--EVENT: The telegraph office in Horsetail receives a frenzied, disjointed message from the train station in Owlhoot Junction. Initially the messages describes a train derailment, then an "attack" by "things" or "varmints". the message ends in a frantic call for assistance as the "critters are breaking in the windows".

****EVENT: Marshall Oatlash hastily assembles a posse to aid the besieged Owlhoot Junction. They find the town overrun by what appear to bloated carcasses of various animals, wolves, horses, cattle, coyotes. All decayed and scuttling about on bony, crab-like appendages sprouting from the putrefying flesh. The streets are littered with the corpses of Owlhoot junction residents, savagely mutilated by the things.


--EVENT: In the wreckage of Owlhoot Junction, Marshal Outlash finds Joshua Freeman, who's body has decayed to what seems to be a still-living corpse. Freeman cackles just before Outlash puts a bullet in the gunslinger's brain. With the immediate threat taken care of, Outlash and Curts agree to put aside their differences and, with the help of the Kinney sisters and El Barril, vow to put an end to this evil at the source: the Teloqua Tribe in Crawley Canyon.

Ending Period: The Last Ride of the Crawley Canyon Posse

--EVENT: Following the destruction of Owlhoot Junction, Sheriff Curts rallies together a posse from the survivors who are willing and able to take up arms. This posses heads for Crawley Canyon with all due speed to try to set up an ambush.

--EVENT: The posse, consisting of Curts, Oatlash, El Barril, the Kinney Sisters and a half dozen cowboys unwisely wearing Red Shirts, approach the Crawley Canyon bridge. They are ambushed by a force consisting of the zombified things that used to be the Red Ace Gang, along with several of the monsters that had been summoned up from beneath Crawley Canyon. In the terrible fight that follows, four of the cowboys and Esther Kinney are killed. The posse is forced to flee towards the Crawley Canyon bridge.

--Event: The remnants of Sherriff Curts' posse flees across the Crawley Canyon bridge, pursued by the Taloqua's Eldritch army. El Barril, dying from the sorcerous poison burning in his veins, holds back the abysmal horde at a choke point near the south end of the bridge with his sharpshooting, as the rest of the posse rigs the bridge with dynamite.
At last, his ammunition spent, the fierce bandito wields his Winchester like a club, smashing skulls and spattering brains. High Chieftain Krag Tallshadow leaps forward and buries a knife in El Barril's chest, only to be gut-shot by the outlaw's concealed derringer. Chuckling with grim mirth, El Barril mutters "jaque mate." and slumps to the ground. The things swarm past his corpse and onto the bridge.

--Event Marshal Oatlash looks back across the bridge in time to see El Barril's last stand. He takes the unconscious Sheriff Curts and places him on the back of Ruth's horse, locks eyes with her, and says "Make sure he gets back to Lilly," before swatting the stallion and sending it racing away. He limps back across the bridge, patiently alternating firing his Colts between the monstrosities and the dynamite. It is the last words anyone will hear him say.

--Event: High Chieftan Tallshadow, with regret in his heart, casts the final incantation to summon the Storm That Slumbers Beneath the Earth. A giant, indescribable horror beaks through the ground and begins to lumber towards the remnants of the retreating Crawley Canyon Posse. When he does, Sheriff Curts awakens on the back of Ruth Kinney's horse, and insists that she turn back. She does, and Curts faces down the terrible Storm, which swallows him whole...allowing Curts to claw his way through the horor's innards and plunge his inhuman arm into its heart.

--EVENT: With their numbers dwindled to near nothing and their "dark magik" powered army finally stopped, High Chieftain Krag Tallshadow and warrior Sih Swiftfoot - the very last of the Taloqua Tribe - make their retreat. With Tallshadow mortally wounded, he appoints Swiftfoot the new High Chieftain, then passes on what knowledge he can so that their army might rise again some day. Tallshadow then tasks Swiftfoot with surviving and rebuilding the tribe so that one day, whether in this generation or many generations in the future, the Taloqua Tribe might finally have its revenge.

EVENT: After clawing his way out of the beast known only as "The Storm", Sheriff Curts makes his way back to Horsetail. He is greeted with the fanfare and gratitude of the legend he has become. Curts, never one for such pomp, quickly reminds everyone that it wouldn't have been a success it if weren't for the remainder of the Crawley Canyon Posse. Exhausted, Curts makes his way to his ranch for some much needed R&R with his wife. Instead of being greeted by his lover's arms, he finds his ranch tossed, Lilly missing, and a note attached to the front door reading: "We warned you"....

Space Jawa is next.

Premise: An unknown terror stalks the Old West

Starting Period:The First Attacks

--EVENT: The Red Ace Gang blitzkrieg's the sole village of the dwindling Taloqua Tribe. With the tribe's strongest warriors out on a hunt, the Red Ace Gang kills indiscriminately, takes anything of value and sets fire to the rest. High Chieftain Krag Tallshadow survives, but the tribe is crippled. It is rumored that the Taloqua practiced "dark magiks", mostly involving long ritualistic ceremonies.

EventStarved, dehydrated, and dying of exposure in the desert, Joshua Freeman is found arguing with a cactus by Cyrus Ford. Freeman's prints show him coming from the direction of the Taloqua camp Ford's gang has just raided. Knowing the value of a favor from a desperate gunslinger, Ford provides Freeman with enough food and water to survive, and a ride to the next village they come to. Once he is lucid, Freeman explains that he had heard that the Taloqua tribe had boasted of men that "would not die though they'd been hit with all the shells of a six-gun," and had attempted to find out more himself.

--EVENT: Cyrus Ford, the leader of the Red Ace Gang, pulls into Owlhoot Junction to sell scalps that they took from the Taloqua tribe. Drunk during a poker game, he becomes enraged at losing to the town's physician. Ford drags him out of the saloon, guns him down, and returns wearing the man's stethoscope. Ford demands that the saloon and the entire gang start addressing him as "Doctor Ford."

--EVENT: In the town of Horsetail, county Sheriff Orville Curts and town Marshall Roy Oatlash get into a brutal saloon brawl over the affections of Lilly Dunning--a dancing girl at the saloon. Lilly marries Curts the next day, but the two lawmen remain antagonistic towards each other.

--EVENT: After several missed trade attempts, Marshal Roy Oatlash leads a team to the Broken Axle Cattle Ranch. Approaching the ranch, they see that many of the fences have been broken and much of the herd is missing, doubtless wandered off. Entering the main house of the ranch, Marshal Oatlash and his men find every ranch hand hung upside down, disemboweled, and beheaded. There is no blood anywhere.

--Event: The infamous bandit Alejandro Villalobos Bustillo de la Sota (AKA El Barril) escapes form the territorial prison in Nogales.
He makes his way to his gang's secret hideout in a gorge 15 miles south of Horsetail.
He finds his gang, including his two brothers, butchered in a most appalling fashion. Evidence of a savage gun battle is evident, but no bodies are present aside from those of his men. he finds orange stains with a peculiar, cinnamon-like aroma in various places about the stronghold.
Recovering his prized Winchester model 1873 from the wrecked hideout, El Barril swears to avenge his comrades at any cost.

Period: The First Death of Sheriff Curts

--Event: Sheriff Curts finds a handwritten letter nailed to his door. It simply reads: Your wife, or your life. It appears to be written in blood. Curts tucks the letter in his boot, telling no one about it save for Deputy Miles Danson.

--Event: Sheriff Curts party, on its way to request help with the mysterious attacks, is ambushed during the night by the mysterious attackers. Deputy Danson insists they're some kind of wolves, but Curts replies by saying "Those aren't any wolves I've ever heard of." During their escape attempt, Deputy Danson is killed, after which Curts breaks off from the party to heroically draw the attackers attention and give the rest a chance to escape. The ploy works, and with Sheriff Orville Curts wife Lilly Curts left to drive the stagecoach, the rest of the party successfully gets away, but with Sheriff Orville Curts failing to catch up with them again, they fear the worst.

--Event: El Barril brazenly enters The 5 Aces saloon in Horsetail and begins intimidating the gringos he finds there, forcing the piano player and saloon patrons to accompany him on bawdy drinking songs. Marshal Oatlash arrives to restore order and arrest El Barril. The bandit accuses Oatlash of being behind the deaths of his gang and announces his intention "snap his neck like a twig". a savage brawl ensues.

Period: The Night of the Wolves

Event:Father Silas Bannon, the pasture and de-facto mayor of Dalton, orders the execution of Wilhemena "Crazy Eye" Hood. Bannon believes Hood to be practicing dark arts, and it is her that has brought about the evil spirits that plague the Texas plains. Hood is executed via hanging, without trail. Several witnesses claim to have seen Hood's shadow leave her body and hang itself over Bannon. The town awakens next morning to find that all of their livestock and family pets have died. Bannon writes it off as the death throes of a mad witch.

--Event: El Barill and Marshall Oatlash reach an uneasy truce. They will cooperate until the unseen attackers have been eliminated. Once that is accomplished, there will be "a settling of accounts".

--Event: After weeks of fear, madness, and blood, Father Silas Bannon throws oil onto the doors of every building in Dalton, Texas. He burns the entire town to ash on the coldest, driest February night in memory. The handful of survivors report seeing him riding north into a blizzard, alternately singing hymns and shrieking.

--EVENT: A pack of wolves takes up residence in the burned-out ruins of Dalton. One night, the wolves begin to act strangely, forgoing hunting to gather together and howl at the rising moon. Then the pack divides into three groups, with one group each heading for the towns of Horsetail, Angel's Prairie and Owlhoot Junction.


--EVENT: In a night of terror and bloodshed, the wolves attack the three towns. Owlhoot Junction and Angel's Prairie suffer a dozen people dead each before the citizens organize and gun down the seemingly fearless and crazed creatures. In Horsetail, Marshall Oatlash and the Kinney sisters respond more quickly, killing the wolves with the loss of only the elderly schoolmarm and the town drunk. There is no apparent explanation for the wolves' strange and savage behavior.


Period: The Return of Sheriff Curts
--EVENT: Twenty-two days after the disappearance of Sheriff Curts, The Red Ace Gang rides into Horsetail. With Sheriff Curts still missing and Deputy Danson pushing up daisies, there is little law remaining in the town. The gang quickly realizes this and terrorizes the town. Doc Ford catches Lilly Curts attempting to telegraph Marshall Oatlash. After cutting the telegraph lines, Ford attempts to have her way with the wayward sheriff's wife. Lilly is able to smash an oil lamp across Ford's face, leaving him scarred and blinded in his right eye. Furious and embarrassed, Doc Ford orders his men to pillage Horsetail. Before riding off he threatens "We'll be back, we just needed more bullets".

--EVENT: Twenty-six days after his disappearance, Sheriff Curts returns to Horsetail astride his horse. He is beaten, scarred, and strangest of all, his right arm is now scaly, black, and clawed. When asked about this, Curts answers "They took my arm. I took one a' theirs."

--EVENT: Ruth and Esther Kinney, sister bounty-hunters originally from Chicago, ride into Angel's Prairie dragging the entire Red Ace Gang behind them.

Period: The Destruction of Angel's Prairie

--EVENT: Famed gunslinger Joshua Freeman, the Black Blur of Angel's Prairie, learns of the Red Ace Gang's impending execution. Recalling the debt he owes the Red Ace leader, "Doctor" Cyrus Ford, he resolves to save them from the noose by day's end.

--EVENT: On the same day, Father Bannon rides into town, his body appearing to have decayed over time. A murder of crows trails his arrival.

--Event: On his way to Angel's Prairie, Joshua Freeman is ambushed by a number of the mysterious attackers that have been causing the chaos and panic in the surrounding area. However, rather than killing Freeman, the creatures bring him before High Chieftain Krag Tallshadow, who says something about how Freeman will help them before performing a mysterious ritual on the man. Soon after the ritual begins, Freeman screams can be heard for miles until some time after Tallshadow finishes.

--EVENT: Father Bannon meets Joshua Freeman outside the town of Angel's Prairie just two hours before the Red Ace Gang is to be hanged. How Bannon knew when and where to meet Freeman is unknown. Something nearly transparent flows from Bannon's mouth and seeps into Freeman. Bannon's body then collapses into ash, while Freeman's body grows scales and his fingernails become claws. The murder of crows begins to follow Freeman.

--Event: With their execution having been postponed until the following day, the Red Ace Gang spends the night in jail again. However, as the full moon waits overhead, the Gang members are visited by Joshua Freeman, who kills the guards to get inside. Once there, some mystical force causes the members of the Red Ace Gang to transform into hideous monsters that the jail is unable to contain. The former gang members, no longer possessing a will of their own, break out and begin to attack the town and its townspeople.

Period: The Nightmare Beneath Crawley Canyon

--EVENT: With Angel's Prairie leveled, and the men behind the massacre of their people now dead, the Taloqua Tribe feels confident in their victory over their oppressors. Chieftan Tallshadow, however, knows better, and begins preparing the rituals necessary to bring forth 'The Storm That Slumbers Beneath the Earth.'

Period: Battle of Owlhoot Junction.

--EVENT: The telegraph office in Horsetail receives a frenzied, disjointed message from the train station in Owlhoot Junction. Initially the messages describes a train derailment, then an "attack" by "things" or "varmints". the message ends in a frantic call for assistance as the "critters are breaking in the windows".

--EVENT: Marshall Oatlash hastily assembles a posse to aid the besieged Owlhoot Junction. They find the town overrun by what appear to bloated carcasses of various animals, wolves, horses, cattle, coyotes. All decayed and scuttling about on bony, crab-like appendages sprouting from the putrefying flesh. The streets are littered with the corpses of Owlhoot junction residents, savagely mutilated by the things.

****EVENT: Marshall Oatlash's posse divides into three teams - the first team works find, gather up, and evacuate whatever survivors there might yet be in town. The second team tries to distract the creatures that are still rampaging through town. The third team gathers up dynamite and heads for the ol' mine shaft that leads under town, then rigs Owlhoot Junction to explode, hoping they can take out the attackers in the process.

--EVENT: In the wreckage of Owlhoot Junction, Marshal Outlash finds Joshua Freeman, who's body has decayed to what seems to be a still-living corpse. Freeman cackles just before Outlash puts a bullet in the gunslinger's brain. With the immediate threat taken care of, Outlash and Curts agree to put aside their differences and, with the help of the Kinney sisters and El Barril, vow to put an end to this evil at the source: the Teloqua Tribe in Crawley Canyon.

Ending Period: The Last Ride of the Crawley Canyon Posse

--EVENT: Following the destruction of Owlhoot Junction, Sheriff Curts rallies together a posse from the survivors who are willing and able to take up arms. This posses heads for Crawley Canyon with all due speed to try to set up an ambush.

--EVENT: The posse, consisting of Curts, Oatlash, El Barril, the Kinney Sisters and a half dozen cowboys unwisely wearing Red Shirts, approach the Crawley Canyon bridge. They are ambushed by a force consisting of the zombified things that used to be the Red Ace Gang, along with several of the monsters that had been summoned up from beneath Crawley Canyon. In the terrible fight that follows, four of the cowboys and Esther Kinney are killed. The posse is forced to flee towards the Crawley Canyon bridge.

--Event: The remnants of Sherriff Curts' posse flees across the Crawley Canyon bridge, pursued by the Taloqua's Eldritch army. El Barril, dying from the sorcerous poison burning in his veins, holds back the abysmal horde at a choke point near the south end of the bridge with his sharpshooting, as the rest of the posse rigs the bridge with dynamite.
At last, his ammunition spent, the fierce bandito wields his Winchester like a club, smashing skulls and spattering brains. High Chieftain Krag Tallshadow leaps forward and buries a knife in El Barril's chest, only to be gut-shot by the outlaw's concealed derringer. Chuckling with grim mirth, El Barril mutters "jaque mate." and slumps to the ground. The things swarm past his corpse and onto the bridge.

--Event Marshal Oatlash looks back across the bridge in time to see El Barril's last stand. He takes the unconscious Sheriff Curts and places him on the back of Ruth's horse, locks eyes with her, and says "Make sure he gets back to Lilly," before swatting the stallion and sending it racing away. He limps back across the bridge, patiently alternating firing his Colts between the monstrosities and the dynamite. It is the last words anyone will hear him say.

--Event: High Chieftan Tallshadow, with regret in his heart, casts the final incantation to summon the Storm That Slumbers Beneath the Earth. A giant, indescribable horror beaks through the ground and begins to lumber towards the remnants of the retreating Crawley Canyon Posse. When he does, Sheriff Curts awakens on the back of Ruth Kinney's horse, and insists that she turn back. She does, and Curts faces down the terrible Storm, which swallows him whole...allowing Curts to claw his way through the horor's innards and plunge his inhuman arm into its heart.

--EVENT: With their numbers dwindled to near nothing and their "dark magik" powered army finally stopped, High Chieftain Krag Tallshadow and warrior Sih Swiftfoot - the very last of the Taloqua Tribe - make their retreat. With Tallshadow mortally wounded, he appoints Swiftfoot the new High Chieftain, then passes on what knowledge he can so that their army might rise again some day. Tallshadow then tasks Swiftfoot with surviving and rebuilding the tribe so that one day, whether in this generation or many generations in the future, the Taloqua Tribe might finally have its revenge.

EVENT: After clawing his way out of the beast known only as "The Storm", Sheriff Curts makes his way back to Horsetail. He is greeted with the fanfare and gratitude of the legend he has become. Curts, never one for such pomp, quickly reminds everyone that it wouldn't have been a success it if weren't for the remainder of the Crawley Canyon Posse. Exhausted, Curts makes his way to his ranch for some much needed R&R with his wife. Instead of being greeted by his lover's arms, he finds his ranch tossed, Lilly missing, and a note attached to the front door reading: "We warned you"....

Premise: An unknown terror stalks the Old West

Starting Period:The First Attacks

--EVENT: The Red Ace Gang blitzkrieg's the sole village of the dwindling Taloqua Tribe. With the tribe's strongest warriors out on a hunt, the Red Ace Gang kills indiscriminately, takes anything of value and sets fire to the rest. High Chieftain Krag Tallshadow survives, but the tribe is crippled. It is rumored that the Taloqua practiced "dark magiks", mostly involving long ritualistic ceremonies.

EventStarved, dehydrated, and dying of exposure in the desert, Joshua Freeman is found arguing with a cactus by Cyrus Ford. Freeman's prints show him coming from the direction of the Taloqua camp Ford's gang has just raided. Knowing the value of a favor from a desperate gunslinger, Ford provides Freeman with enough food and water to survive, and a ride to the next village they come to. Once he is lucid, Freeman explains that he had heard that the Taloqua tribe had boasted of men that "would not die though they'd been hit with all the shells of a six-gun," and had attempted to find out more himself.

--EVENT: Cyrus Ford, the leader of the Red Ace Gang, pulls into Owlhoot Junction to sell scalps that they took from the Taloqua tribe. Drunk during a poker game, he becomes enraged at losing to the town's physician. Ford drags him out of the saloon, guns him down, and returns wearing the man's stethoscope. Ford demands that the saloon and the entire gang start addressing him as "Doctor Ford."

--EVENT: In the town of Horsetail, county Sheriff Orville Curts and town Marshall Roy Oatlash get into a brutal saloon brawl over the affections of Lilly Dunning--a dancing girl at the saloon. Lilly marries Curts the next day, but the two lawmen remain antagonistic towards each other.

--EVENT: After several missed trade attempts, Marshal Roy Oatlash leads a team to the Broken Axle Cattle Ranch. Approaching the ranch, they see that many of the fences have been broken and much of the herd is missing, doubtless wandered off. Entering the main house of the ranch, Marshal Oatlash and his men find every ranch hand hung upside down, disemboweled, and beheaded. There is no blood anywhere.

--Event: The infamous bandit Alejandro Villalobos Bustillo de la Sota (AKA El Barril) escapes form the territorial prison in Nogales.
He makes his way to his gang's secret hideout in a gorge 15 miles south of Horsetail.
He finds his gang, including his two brothers, butchered in a most appalling fashion. Evidence of a savage gun battle is evident, but no bodies are present aside from those of his men. he finds orange stains with a peculiar, cinnamon-like aroma in various places about the stronghold.
Recovering his prized Winchester model 1873 from the wrecked hideout, El Barril swears to avenge his comrades at any cost.

Period: The First Death of Sheriff Curts

--Event: Sheriff Curts finds a handwritten letter nailed to his door. It simply reads: Your wife, or your life. It appears to be written in blood. Curts tucks the letter in his boot, telling no one about it save for Deputy Miles Danson.

--Event: Sheriff Curts party, on its way to request help with the mysterious attacks, is ambushed during the night by the mysterious attackers. Deputy Danson insists they're some kind of wolves, but Curts replies by saying "Those aren't any wolves I've ever heard of." During their escape attempt, Deputy Danson is killed, after which Curts breaks off from the party to heroically draw the attackers attention and give the rest a chance to escape. The ploy works, and with Sheriff Orville Curts wife Lilly Curts left to drive the stagecoach, the rest of the party successfully gets away, but with Sheriff Orville Curts failing to catch up with them again, they fear the worst.

--Event: El Barril brazenly enters The 5 Aces saloon in Horsetail and begins intimidating the gringos he finds there, forcing the piano player and saloon patrons to accompany him on bawdy drinking songs. Marshal Oatlash arrives to restore order and arrest El Barril. The bandit accuses Oatlash of being behind the deaths of his gang and announces his intention "snap his neck like a twig". a savage brawl ensues.

Period: The Night of the Wolves

Event:Father Silas Bannon, the pasture and de-facto mayor of Dalton, orders the execution of Wilhemena "Crazy Eye" Hood. Bannon believes Hood to be practicing dark arts, and it is her that has brought about the evil spirits that plague the Texas plains. Hood is executed via hanging, without trail. Several witnesses claim to have seen Hood's shadow leave her body and hang itself over Bannon. The town awakens next morning to find that all of their livestock and family pets have died. Bannon writes it off as the death throes of a mad witch.

--Event: El Barill and Marshall Oatlash reach an uneasy truce. They will cooperate until the unseen attackers have been eliminated. Once that is accomplished, there will be "a settling of accounts".

--Event: After weeks of fear, madness, and blood, Father Silas Bannon throws oil onto the doors of every building in Dalton, Texas. He burns the entire town to ash on the coldest, driest February night in memory. The handful of survivors report seeing him riding north into a blizzard, alternately singing hymns and shrieking.

--EVENT: A pack of wolves takes up residence in the burned-out ruins of Dalton. One night, the wolves begin to act strangely, forgoing hunting to gather together and howl at the rising moon. Then the pack divides into three groups, with one group each heading for the towns of Horsetail, Angel's Prairie and Owlhoot Junction.


--EVENT: In a night of terror and bloodshed, the wolves attack the three towns. Owlhoot Junction and Angel's Prairie suffer a dozen people dead each before the citizens organize and gun down the seemingly fearless and crazed creatures. In Horsetail, Marshall Oatlash and the Kinney sisters respond more quickly, killing the wolves with the loss of only the elderly schoolmarm and the town drunk. There is no apparent explanation for the wolves' strange and savage behavior.


Period: The Return of Sheriff Curts
--EVENT: Twenty-two days after the disappearance of Sheriff Curts, The Red Ace Gang rides into Horsetail. With Sheriff Curts still missing and Deputy Danson pushing up daisies, there is little law remaining in the town. The gang quickly realizes this and terrorizes the town. Doc Ford catches Lilly Curts attempting to telegraph Marshall Oatlash. After cutting the telegraph lines, Ford attempts to have her way with the wayward sheriff's wife. Lilly is able to smash an oil lamp across Ford's face, leaving him scarred and blinded in his right eye. Furious and embarrassed, Doc Ford orders his men to pillage Horsetail. Before riding off he threatens "We'll be back, we just needed more bullets".

--EVENT: Twenty-six days after his disappearance, Sheriff Curts returns to Horsetail astride his horse. He is beaten, scarred, and strangest of all, his right arm is now scaly, black, and clawed. When asked about this, Curts answers "They took my arm. I took one a' theirs."

--EVENT: Ruth and Esther Kinney, sister bounty-hunters originally from Chicago, ride into Angel's Prairie dragging the entire Red Ace Gang behind them.

Period: The Destruction of Angel's Prairie

--EVENT: Famed gunslinger Joshua Freeman, the Black Blur of Angel's Prairie, learns of the Red Ace Gang's impending execution. Recalling the debt he owes the Red Ace leader, "Doctor" Cyrus Ford, he resolves to save them from the noose by day's end.

--EVENT: On the same day, Father Bannon rides into town, his body appearing to have decayed over time. A murder of crows trails his arrival.

--Event: On his way to Angel's Prairie, Joshua Freeman is ambushed by a number of the mysterious attackers that have been causing the chaos and panic in the surrounding area. However, rather than killing Freeman, the creatures bring him before High Chieftain Krag Tallshadow, who says something about how Freeman will help them before performing a mysterious ritual on the man. Soon after the ritual begins, Freeman screams can be heard for miles until some time after Tallshadow finishes.

--EVENT: Father Bannon meets Joshua Freeman outside the town of Angel's Prairie just two hours before the Red Ace Gang is to be hanged. How Bannon knew when and where to meet Freeman is unknown. Something nearly transparent flows from Bannon's mouth and seeps into Freeman. Bannon's body then collapses into ash, while Freeman's body grows scales and his fingernails become claws. The murder of crows begins to follow Freeman.

--Event: With their execution having been postponed until the following day, the Red Ace Gang spends the night in jail again. However, as the full moon waits overhead, the Gang members are visited by Joshua Freeman, who kills the guards to get inside. Once there, some mystical force causes the members of the Red Ace Gang to transform into hideous monsters that the jail is unable to contain. The former gang members, no longer possessing a will of their own, break out and begin to attack the town and its townspeople.

Period: The Nightmare Beneath Crawley Canyon

--EVENT: With Angel's Prairie leveled, and the men behind the massacre of their people now dead, the Taloqua Tribe feels confident in their victory over their oppressors. Chieftan Tallshadow, however, knows better, and begins preparing the rituals necessary to bring forth 'The Storm That Slumbers Beneath the Earth.'

Period: Battle of Owlhoot Junction.

--EVENT: The telegraph office in Horsetail receives a frenzied, disjointed message from the train station in Owlhoot Junction. Initially the messages describes a train derailment, then an "attack" by "things" or "varmints". the message ends in a frantic call for assistance as the "critters are breaking in the windows".

--EVENT: Marshall Oatlash hastily assembles a posse to aid the besieged Owlhoot Junction. They find the town overrun by what appear to bloated carcasses of various animals, wolves, horses, cattle, coyotes. All decayed and scuttling about on bony, crab-like appendages sprouting from the putrefying flesh. The streets are littered with the corpses of Owlhoot junction residents, savagely mutilated by the things.

EVENT: Marshall Oatlash's posse divides into three teams - the first team works find, gather up, and evacuate whatever survivors there might yet be in town. The second team tries to distract the creatures that are still rampaging through town. The third team gathers up dynamite and heads for the ol' mine shaft that leads under town, then rigs Owlhoot Junction to explode, hoping they can take out the attackers in the process.

***--EVENT: Oatlash's plan goes well at first, but the arrival of additional monsters cuts off the dynamite team from the town before they can set the explosives. Only the arrival of El Barril--in a horseback charge with shotgun blazing--gives them the opening they need. Owlhoot Junction explodes, destroying the monsters.

--EVENT: In the wreckage of Owlhoot Junction, Marshal Outlash finds Joshua Freeman, who's body has decayed to what seems to be a still-living corpse. Freeman cackles just before Outlash puts a bullet in the gunslinger's brain. With the immediate threat taken care of, Outlash and Curts agree to put aside their differences and, with the help of the Kinney sisters and El Barril, vow to put an end to this evil at the source: the Teloqua Tribe in Crawley Canyon.

Ending Period: The Last Ride of the Crawley Canyon Posse

--EVENT: Following the destruction of Owlhoot Junction, Sheriff Curts rallies together a posse from the survivors who are willing and able to take up arms. This posses heads for Crawley Canyon with all due speed to try to set up an ambush.

--EVENT: The posse, consisting of Curts, Oatlash, El Barril, the Kinney Sisters and a half dozen cowboys unwisely wearing Red Shirts, approach the Crawley Canyon bridge. They are ambushed by a force consisting of the zombified things that used to be the Red Ace Gang, along with several of the monsters that had been summoned up from beneath Crawley Canyon. In the terrible fight that follows, four of the cowboys and Esther Kinney are killed. The posse is forced to flee towards the Crawley Canyon bridge.

--Event: The remnants of Sherriff Curts' posse flees across the Crawley Canyon bridge, pursued by the Taloqua's Eldritch army. El Barril, dying from the sorcerous poison burning in his veins, holds back the abysmal horde at a choke point near the south end of the bridge with his sharpshooting, as the rest of the posse rigs the bridge with dynamite.
At last, his ammunition spent, the fierce bandito wields his Winchester like a club, smashing skulls and spattering brains. High Chieftain Krag Tallshadow leaps forward and buries a knife in El Barril's chest, only to be gut-shot by the outlaw's concealed derringer. Chuckling with grim mirth, El Barril mutters "jaque mate." and slumps to the ground. The things swarm past his corpse and onto the bridge.

--Event Marshal Oatlash looks back across the bridge in time to see El Barril's last stand. He takes the unconscious Sheriff Curts and places him on the back of Ruth's horse, locks eyes with her, and says "Make sure he gets back to Lilly," before swatting the stallion and sending it racing away. He limps back across the bridge, patiently alternating firing his Colts between the monstrosities and the dynamite. It is the last words anyone will hear him say.

--Event: High Chieftan Tallshadow, with regret in his heart, casts the final incantation to summon the Storm That Slumbers Beneath the Earth. A giant, indescribable horror beaks through the ground and begins to lumber towards the remnants of the retreating Crawley Canyon Posse. When he does, Sheriff Curts awakens on the back of Ruth Kinney's horse, and insists that she turn back. She does, and Curts faces down the terrible Storm, which swallows him whole...allowing Curts to claw his way through the horor's innards and plunge his inhuman arm into its heart.

--EVENT: With their numbers dwindled to near nothing and their "dark magik" powered army finally stopped, High Chieftain Krag Tallshadow and warrior Sih Swiftfoot - the very last of the Taloqua Tribe - make their retreat. With Tallshadow mortally wounded, he appoints Swiftfoot the new High Chieftain, then passes on what knowledge he can so that their army might rise again some day. Tallshadow then tasks Swiftfoot with surviving and rebuilding the tribe so that one day, whether in this generation or many generations in the future, the Taloqua Tribe might finally have its revenge.

EVENT: After clawing his way out of the beast known only as "The Storm", Sheriff Curts makes his way back to Horsetail. He is greeted with the fanfare and gratitude of the legend he has become. Curts, never one for such pomp, quickly reminds everyone that it wouldn't have been a success it if weren't for the remainder of the Crawley Canyon Posse. Exhausted, Curts makes his way to his ranch for some much needed R&R with his wife. Instead of being greeted by his lover's arms, he finds his ranch tossed, Lilly missing, and a note attached to the front door reading: "We warned you"....[/quote]

Premise: An unknown terror stalks the Old West

Starting Period:The First Attacks

--EVENT: The Red Ace Gang blitzkrieg's the sole village of the dwindling Taloqua Tribe. With the tribe's strongest warriors out on a hunt, the Red Ace Gang kills indiscriminately, takes anything of value and sets fire to the rest. High Chieftain Krag Tallshadow survives, but the tribe is crippled. It is rumored that the Taloqua practiced "dark magiks", mostly involving long ritualistic ceremonies.

EventStarved, dehydrated, and dying of exposure in the desert, Joshua Freeman is found arguing with a cactus by Cyrus Ford. Freeman's prints show him coming from the direction of the Taloqua camp Ford's gang has just raided. Knowing the value of a favor from a desperate gunslinger, Ford provides Freeman with enough food and water to survive, and a ride to the next village they come to. Once he is lucid, Freeman explains that he had heard that the Taloqua tribe had boasted of men that "would not die though they'd been hit with all the shells of a six-gun," and had attempted to find out more himself.

--EVENT: Cyrus Ford, the leader of the Red Ace Gang, pulls into Owlhoot Junction to sell scalps that they took from the Taloqua tribe. Drunk during a poker game, he becomes enraged at losing to the town's physician. Ford drags him out of the saloon, guns him down, and returns wearing the man's stethoscope. Ford demands that the saloon and the entire gang start addressing him as "Doctor Ford."

--EVENT: In the town of Horsetail, county Sheriff Orville Curts and town Marshall Roy Oatlash get into a brutal saloon brawl over the affections of Lilly Dunning--a dancing girl at the saloon. Lilly marries Curts the next day, but the two lawmen remain antagonistic towards each other.

--EVENT: After several missed trade attempts, Marshal Roy Oatlash leads a team to the Broken Axle Cattle Ranch. Approaching the ranch, they see that many of the fences have been broken and much of the herd is missing, doubtless wandered off. Entering the main house of the ranch, Marshal Oatlash and his men find every ranch hand hung upside down, disemboweled, and beheaded. There is no blood anywhere.

--Event: The infamous bandit Alejandro Villalobos Bustillo de la Sota (AKA El Barril) escapes form the territorial prison in Nogales.
He makes his way to his gang's secret hideout in a gorge 15 miles south of Horsetail.
He finds his gang, including his two brothers, butchered in a most appalling fashion. Evidence of a savage gun battle is evident, but no bodies are present aside from those of his men. he finds orange stains with a peculiar, cinnamon-like aroma in various places about the stronghold.
Recovering his prized Winchester model 1873 from the wrecked hideout, El Barril swears to avenge his comrades at any cost.

Period: The First Death of Sheriff Curts

--Event: Sheriff Curts finds a handwritten letter nailed to his door. It simply reads: Your wife, or your life. It appears to be written in blood. Curts tucks the letter in his boot, telling no one about it save for Deputy Miles Danson.

--Event: Sheriff Curts party, on its way to request help with the mysterious attacks, is ambushed during the night by the mysterious attackers. Deputy Danson insists they're some kind of wolves, but Curts replies by saying "Those aren't any wolves I've ever heard of." During their escape attempt, Deputy Danson is killed, after which Curts breaks off from the party to heroically draw the attackers attention and give the rest a chance to escape. The ploy works, and with Sheriff Orville Curts wife Lilly Curts left to drive the stagecoach, the rest of the party successfully gets away, but with Sheriff Orville Curts failing to catch up with them again, they fear the worst.

--Event: El Barril brazenly enters The 5 Aces saloon in Horsetail and begins intimidating the gringos he finds there, forcing the piano player and saloon patrons to accompany him on bawdy drinking songs. Marshal Oatlash arrives to restore order and arrest El Barril. The bandit accuses Oatlash of being behind the deaths of his gang and announces his intention "snap his neck like a twig". a savage brawl ensues.

Period: The Night of the Wolves

Event:Father Silas Bannon, the pasture and de-facto mayor of Dalton, orders the execution of Wilhemena "Crazy Eye" Hood. Bannon believes Hood to be practicing dark arts, and it is her that has brought about the evil spirits that plague the Texas plains. Hood is executed via hanging, without trail. Several witnesses claim to have seen Hood's shadow leave her body and hang itself over Bannon. The town awakens next morning to find that all of their livestock and family pets have died. Bannon writes it off as the death throes of a mad witch.

--Event: El Barill and Marshall Oatlash reach an uneasy truce. They will cooperate until the unseen attackers have been eliminated. Once that is accomplished, there will be "a settling of accounts".

--Event: After weeks of fear, madness, and blood, Father Silas Bannon throws oil onto the doors of every building in Dalton, Texas. He burns the entire town to ash on the coldest, driest February night in memory. The handful of survivors report seeing him riding north into a blizzard, alternately singing hymns and shrieking.

--EVENT: A pack of wolves takes up residence in the burned-out ruins of Dalton. One night, the wolves begin to act strangely, forgoing hunting to gather together and howl at the rising moon. Then the pack divides into three groups, with one group each heading for the towns of Horsetail, Angel's Prairie and Owlhoot Junction.


--EVENT: In a night of terror and bloodshed, the wolves attack the three towns. Owlhoot Junction and Angel's Prairie suffer a dozen people dead each before the citizens organize and gun down the seemingly fearless and crazed creatures. In Horsetail, Marshall Oatlash and the Kinney sisters respond more quickly, killing the wolves with the loss of only the elderly schoolmarm and the town drunk. There is no apparent explanation for the wolves' strange and savage behavior.


Period: The Return of Sheriff Curts
--EVENT: Twenty-two days after the disappearance of Sheriff Curts, The Red Ace Gang rides into Horsetail. With Sheriff Curts still missing and Deputy Danson pushing up daisies, there is little law remaining in the town. The gang quickly realizes this and terrorizes the town. Doc Ford catches Lilly Curts attempting to telegraph Marshall Oatlash. After cutting the telegraph lines, Ford attempts to have her way with the wayward sheriff's wife. Lilly is able to smash an oil lamp across Ford's face, leaving him scarred and blinded in his right eye. Furious and embarrassed, Doc Ford orders his men to pillage Horsetail. Before riding off he threatens "We'll be back, we just needed more bullets".

--EVENT: Twenty-six days after his disappearance, Sheriff Curts returns to Horsetail astride his horse. He is beaten, scarred, and strangest of all, his right arm is now scaly, black, and clawed. When asked about this, Curts answers "They took my arm. I took one a' theirs."

--EVENT: Ruth and Esther Kinney, sister bounty-hunters originally from Chicago, ride into Angel's Prairie dragging the entire Red Ace Gang behind them.

Period: The Destruction of Angel's Prairie

--EVENT: Famed gunslinger Joshua Freeman, the Black Blur of Angel's Prairie, learns of the Red Ace Gang's impending execution. Recalling the debt he owes the Red Ace leader, "Doctor" Cyrus Ford, he resolves to save them from the noose by day's end.

--EVENT: On the same day, Father Bannon rides into town, his body appearing to have decayed over time. A murder of crows trails his arrival.

--Event: On his way to Angel's Prairie, Joshua Freeman is ambushed by a number of the mysterious attackers that have been causing the chaos and panic in the surrounding area. However, rather than killing Freeman, the creatures bring him before High Chieftain Krag Tallshadow, who says something about how Freeman will help them before performing a mysterious ritual on the man. Soon after the ritual begins, Freeman screams can be heard for miles until some time after Tallshadow finishes.

--EVENT: Father Bannon meets Joshua Freeman outside the town of Angel's Prairie just two hours before the Red Ace Gang is to be hanged. How Bannon knew when and where to meet Freeman is unknown. Something nearly transparent flows from Bannon's mouth and seeps into Freeman. Bannon's body then collapses into ash, while Freeman's body grows scales and his fingernails become claws. The murder of crows begins to follow Freeman.

--Event: With their execution having been postponed until the following day, the Red Ace Gang spends the night in jail again. However, as the full moon waits overhead, the Gang members are visited by Joshua Freeman, who kills the guards to get inside. Once there, some mystical force causes the members of the Red Ace Gang to transform into hideous monsters that the jail is unable to contain. The former gang members, no longer possessing a will of their own, break out and begin to attack the town and its townspeople.

Period: The Nightmare Beneath Crawley Canyon

--EVENT: With Angel's Prairie leveled, and the men behind the massacre of their people now dead, the Taloqua Tribe feels confident in their victory over their oppressors. Chieftan Tallshadow, however, knows better, and begins preparing the rituals necessary to bring forth 'The Storm That Slumbers Beneath the Earth.'

Period: Battle of Owlhoot Junction.

--EVENT: The telegraph office in Horsetail receives a frenzied, disjointed message from the train station in Owlhoot Junction. Initially the messages describes a train derailment, then an "attack" by "things" or "varmints". the message ends in a frantic call for assistance as the "critters are breaking in the windows".

--EVENT: Marshall Oatlash hastily assembles a posse to aid the besieged Owlhoot Junction. They find the town overrun by what appear to bloated carcasses of various animals, wolves, horses, cattle, coyotes. All decayed and scuttling about on bony, crab-like appendages sprouting from the putrefying flesh. The streets are littered with the corpses of Owlhoot junction residents, savagely mutilated by the things.

EVENT: Marshall Oatlash's posse divides into three teams - the first team works find, gather up, and evacuate whatever survivors there might yet be in town. The second team tries to distract the creatures that are still rampaging through town. The third team gathers up dynamite and heads for the ol' mine shaft that leads under town, then rigs Owlhoot Junction to explode, hoping they can take out the attackers in the process.

--EVENT: Oatlash's plan goes well at first, but the arrival of additional monsters cuts off the dynamite team from the town before they can set the explosives. Only the arrival of El Barril--in a horseback charge with shotgun blazing--gives them the opening they need. Owlhoot Junction explodes, destroying the monsters.

--EVENT: In the wreckage of Owlhoot Junction, Marshal Outlash finds Joshua Freeman, who's body has decayed to what seems to be a still-living corpse. Freeman cackles just before Outlash puts a bullet in the gunslinger's brain. With the immediate threat taken care of, Outlash and Curts agree to put aside their differences and, with the help of the Kinney sisters and El Barril, vow to put an end to this evil at the source: the Teloqua Tribe in Crawley Canyon.

Ending Period: The Last Ride of the Crawley Canyon Posse

--EVENT: Following the destruction of Owlhoot Junction, Sheriff Curts rallies together a posse from the survivors who are willing and able to take up arms. This posses heads for Crawley Canyon with all due speed to try to set up an ambush.

--EVENT: The posse, consisting of Curts, Oatlash, El Barril, the Kinney Sisters and a half dozen cowboys unwisely wearing Red Shirts, approach the Crawley Canyon bridge. They are ambushed by a force consisting of the zombified things that used to be the Red Ace Gang, along with several of the monsters that had been summoned up from beneath Crawley Canyon. In the terrible fight that follows, four of the cowboys and Esther Kinney are killed. The posse is forced to flee towards the Crawley Canyon bridge.

--Event: The remnants of Sherriff Curts' posse flees across the Crawley Canyon bridge, pursued by the Taloqua's Eldritch army. El Barril, dying from the sorcerous poison burning in his veins, holds back the abysmal horde at a choke point near the south end of the bridge with his sharpshooting, as the rest of the posse rigs the bridge with dynamite.
At last, his ammunition spent, the fierce bandito wields his Winchester like a club, smashing skulls and spattering brains. High Chieftain Krag Tallshadow leaps forward and buries a knife in El Barril's chest, only to be gut-shot by the outlaw's concealed derringer. Chuckling with grim mirth, El Barril mutters "jaque mate." and slumps to the ground. The things swarm past his corpse and onto the bridge.

--Event Marshal Oatlash looks back across the bridge in time to see El Barril's last stand. He takes the unconscious Sheriff Curts and places him on the back of Ruth's horse, locks eyes with her, and says "Make sure he gets back to Lilly," before swatting the stallion and sending it racing away. He limps back across the bridge, patiently alternating firing his Colts between the monstrosities and the dynamite. It is the last words anyone will hear him say.

--Event: High Chieftan Tallshadow, with regret in his heart, casts the final incantation to summon the Storm That Slumbers Beneath the Earth. A giant, indescribable horror beaks through the ground and begins to lumber towards the remnants of the retreating Crawley Canyon Posse. When he does, Sheriff Curts awakens on the back of Ruth Kinney's horse, and insists that she turn back. She does, and Curts faces down the terrible Storm, which swallows him whole...allowing Curts to claw his way through the horor's innards and plunge his inhuman arm into its heart.

--Event: As the Storm falls, it massive form crushes much of the Taloqua's monstrosities. Inspired by Sheriff Curts' actions and spurred by revenge, Ruth Kinney takes advantage of the confusion and rides at the army, firing at them with pistol and shotgun. Survivors of the battle will call "Big Sister's Revenge" one of the most amazing sights of gunplay and marksmanship they've ever seen.

--EVENT: With their numbers dwindled to near nothing and their "dark magik" powered army finally stopped, High Chieftain Krag Tallshadow and warrior Sih Swiftfoot - the very last of the Taloqua Tribe - make their retreat. With Tallshadow mortally wounded, he appoints Swiftfoot the new High Chieftain, then passes on what knowledge he can so that their army might rise again some day. Tallshadow then tasks Swiftfoot with surviving and rebuilding the tribe so that one day, whether in this generation or many generations in the future, the Taloqua Tribe might finally have its revenge.

EVENT: After clawing his way out of the beast known only as "The Storm", Sheriff Curts makes his way back to Horsetail. He is greeted with the fanfare and gratitude of the legend he has become. Curts, never one for such pomp, quickly reminds everyone that it wouldn't have been a success it if weren't for the remainder of the Crawley Canyon Posse. Exhausted, Curts makes his way to his ranch for some much needed R&R with his wife. Instead of being greeted by his lover's arms, he finds his ranch tossed, Lilly missing, and a note attached to the front door reading: "We warned you"....