#American Frontier

[catsofyore]

Tiny pioneers. 1911. Source.

[miskatonicaquarium]

Just a little reminder that I wrote a book. It’s got murders! It’s got spiritualism! It’s got people spelling groceries wrong and a bunch of fun old west nicknames!

You can get it in the UK, America and Australia wherever you like to buy your books 💀📚

[drsunshines]

Marianne ❤️

[briefbestiary]

A large subterranean pest. The hole-boring augerino seem to seek to keep the already parched land they call home as dry as possible by draining bodies of water.

[newagevictorianorphan]

NO!!! YOU DONT UNDERSTAND!!! BLACK/LATINO COWBOYS WERE REALLY COOL!!! STOPPPPPPPPPP ERASING THEM FROM THE WEST’S HISTORY!!!

[mysteries-x-mistakes]

a little Q&A about the cowboy ttrpg I'm writing

What made you want to write this game?

So a card game I play (Magic the Gathering) came out with a wild west themed expansion set recently and I didn't pay too much attention to since it seemed a bit too... campy. But I randomly saw a card from the set and did a double take saying "Is that a SNORSE? (snake horse)". And it was! It was pretty cool creature design, I thought- like a centaur with the head and torso of a snake on a horse's body and legs. or like a whole snake with horse legs. And then I started thinking, ok what if we were all cowboys in a ttrpg riding snorses? And it all spiraled out from there since I couldn't find a cowboy game that I liked, that hit the vibes I was looking for.

What makes this game different from other cowboy ttrpgs?

Most cowboy ttrpgs that I could find were crunchy or gritty (or both) and I wasn't looking to play a game where everyone is covered in dirt and miserable all the time. And I'm so tired all of the time irl, I didn't want to play a system with dozens of things to keep track of or do math on. So that's a huge part of what sets my game apart. I designed this game to be light-hearted and rules-light. I wanted it to focus more on the narrative than the math. (But I also didn't want a game that was "cozy"; I still wanted there to be some combat since that's a huge part of the genre.) That's why I chose the Kids on Bikes system! It's so elegant in its simplicity and seemed like it would be a great fit, reflavoring the space ship mechanics (in Teens in Space) to be horse mechanics. (Or just mounts, you can make your friend any species!)

Speaking of mounts, that's also part of what makes this game unique. Many of the cowboy ttrpgs, despite being super crunchy, didn't focus much on the mount. Like sure it was there, but it felt more like an object or a character feature. I grew up on Horse Girl™ media; I wanted a cowboy game where you become friends with your mount, where it feels like it's its own character with thoughts and feelings and actions of its own. I wanted to design a game where your bond grows over time and is meaningful to the way the game works.

Who is the intended audience?

Adults. There is space in the rules to run games for kids/teens, but the intended audience is adults due to the inherent adult nature of many of the genre conventions. You know, things like drinking and gambling and visiting the brothel. In fact, one of the Tropes you can be is the Saloon Worker. I was not about to leave out something so important since the saloon girls were a significant part of any frontier town's economy, but I also don't want to imply that teens could be saloon girls. (Hence me not naming it "Teens on Horses".) Just the same, I don't want to encourage teens to be gamblers.

I'm also designing this for adults because I wanted there to be room for adult levels of nuance and to discuss mature topics. I'm an adult and want to engage with media for adults- I have been getting tired of having to choose between adult media with gratuitous violence or blood and children's media with often simplified storylines and messages. I recognize that there are outliers, but the vast majority of things fall into the binary. I was looking to make a game be any of the above, but be mainly designed for stories that fall into the middle- something that is neither "cozy" nor "gritty". I wanted to play a cowboy game that could be anywhere from a light-hearted romp to an emotionally heavy story following traditional western storylines where life is a struggle to survive. So this is for anyone else who feels similarly.

I'm particularly aiming this towards anyone else who grew up on Horse Girl™ media like Barbie Horse Adventures and The Phantom Stallion, on The Saddle Club or Horseland, on Heartland and The Black Stallion, on all the cheesy movies. People who want to play a game with horses where you can build a friendship with said horse, where the horse is its own character.

You mentioned the Kids on Bikes system- what did you add to it or change?

I explained a little about Kids on Bikes in my previous post so I won't rehash how the system works here. I reflavored the space ship to be a mount. So as you progress through the campaign you get points wit which you can purchase Improvements for you and your mount, to show the training you are going through together or new skills you have learned. But I have added a trust mechanic and a mechanic where your mount can help you on various skill checks while you are riding it. I'm pretty excited about how it feels!

I added and changed up the magic system to attempt to balance it with the guns and other physical weapons. Unlike in Kids on Brooms, magic is always reckless and impulsive since there's not really anyone to teach you magic out on the frontier. It has potentially deadly consequences and can kill you if you aren't careful. Magic is also not endless. I introduced a "spell slots" system, as reduced and simplified as possible, like the rules for the Powered character in Kids on Bikes.

I added a Reputation system based on- Honor, Notoriety, and Bounty. This changes how the other characters in the world see you. I also used this system to allow characters to make a name for themselves, a title or nickname they are famously (or infamously) known by. All of these are huge parts of the western genre.

I added a handful of optional rules if you did want a little more crunch for your game. One of them is for Survival, if you wanted to focus on how difficult life was out on the frontier. One is Cattle Drives, if you wanted to participate in this classic activity. One is the Rodeo. I came up with some little minigames for the events which also encourage everyone at the table to participate even if their character is not the one competing. One is owning property- if the players wanted to buy a ranch and do some base-building. (I've been doing a lot of research to find out the average costs for things in the american wild west (about 1880) and other various agricultural metrics (like how many calves to expect to sell vs how many do you need to keep to continue to grow the size of your herd))

The game starts off with some collaborative worldbuilding- I came up with some questions to ask the table so you can create your own frontier if you don't want to play in the traditional american wild west setting. You can make it as fantasy and as wild or as peaceful as you'd like. (I also added a sensitivity note about including indigenous people to your frontier.)

Lastly, I added a bunch of new Tropes and Improvements, both for you and your mount.

[crisp-autumnal-air]

The Poor Man's Pumpkin | Townsends

Who would have thought pumpkin would be an important survival food? In 18th century America, it was a staple for poor folks. Watch to see how they prepared pumpkins for food and what sort of folks were using them.

[cavalrycommand1876]

Union Cavalry Saber Charge

[asightsodivine]

NO TURNING BACK

by Veryl Goodnight

Too young and naive to think they could fail Too full of visions for the end of the trail They stored their silk dresses and donned calico To join in the cry of Westward Ho

Their diaries tell of the endless hours The vast sea of grass and bounty of wildflowers They tell of children conceived and born And of those who were buried in the gray silent morn

Still the wagons rolled on and the ruts got deeper The column moved westward as the route got steeper Teams dropped from exhaustion in the summer heat As the emigrants pressed on defying defeat

They met Indians who were friends and many that were foe They saw days of drought and blinding snow Only one thing was certain along this wagon track. There was absolutely No Turning Back

(Taken at Frontier Days in Cheyenne, Wyoming)

[prairie-tales]

US Census map showing the extent of settlement and frontier line in 1900.

[liberty1776]

The Complete Ballad of Davy Crockett

Once upon a time Disney made great movies, this was my favorite film when I was a boy in 1950s. Created a lifetime interest in history, gave kids real hgeros to look up to and admire. 

[drsunshines]

Have not posted in a while (forgot I had tumblr) here’s what I think an ocs art style looks like

[if-you-fan-a-fire]

"However, there were other equally important influences besides currents of thought that sanctioned the conservatism apparent in these laws. In the first place, the Canadian Shield imposed certain limitations upon the use to which the land might be put and, therefore, the manner in which it might be alienated. Secondly, the Shield supported an economy all its own and the strongest elements of that economy, the lumbermen, chose to protect and foster their interests by defending rather than reducing the power of the state. Finally and more tentatively, an aversion to direct taxation forced politicians to expand the authority of the state in those areas where indirect taxation in various forms might possibly produce a revenue sufficient to meet the costs of necessary services.

Precisely because the Shield laid down a definite and undeniable boundary to the limits of prime arable land, it frustrated the application in Ontario of a unitary socio-political conception of the environment similar to the agrarian homestead myth which so radically affected American resource alienation policies. Philosophers, poets and politicians, setting their republican, democratic political beliefs against a physical back drop of seemingly endless fertile land, magnified the image of the yeoman farmer to embody the political and social values of the nation. Rooted in the elemental faith that every man had a natural right to the land, that agriculture was the only true source of wealth, and that the labour spent on the land conferred the best title to it, the "agrarian myth" spawned a profusion of derivative values; the foremost being that land ownership carried status and self-respect, that the independence fostered by property afforded the basis for freedom and rational judgment, and the mystical notion that the farmer's communion with nature and the earth ensured the permanent happiness and purity of the republic. This cluster of values drawn from the pastoral poets and physiocrats seemed to be confirmed by the early interaction of men with their environment in America, with the result that the primary intent of American land policy by mid-century was the western extension of a "fee simple empire." The homestead system imposed that single conception of the environment as a Farmers' Frontier upon the public lands policy. Because the object in passing the entire public domain by 160-acre plots to professed cultivators for either cash or their labour in fee simple was the perpetuation of the Republic, all other forms of land tenure were quite naturally dismissed as alien. Thus, Senator Benton's denunciation of tenantry: "It lays the foundation for separate orders in society, annihilates the love of country, and weakens the spirit of independence." Thus also Frederick Jackson Turner's disquietude at the passing of the frontier of free land." 

- H. V. Nelles, The Politics of Development: Forests, Mines & Hydro-Electric Power in Ontario, 1849-1941. Second Edition. McGill-Queen’s University Press, 2005 (1974), p. 42-43

[cameracourt]

Review: "The Seamstress of Acadie" by Laura Frantz

It’s always a great day when you can read a new Laura Frantz novel — her 15th one! The Seamstress of Acadie is her latest historical romance, one that delves into a lesser-known historical event (at least, one I knew very little about). As 1754 is drawing to a close, tensions between the French and the British on Canada’s Acadian shore are reaching a fever pitch. Seamstress Sylvie Galant and her…

[unofficialchronicle]

Johnny Cash reading Robert Service’s poem “The Cremation of Sam McGee,” the American Frontier’s “Tell Tale Heart” story. (5:33 min recording)

Link to the poem as well: https://www.poetryfoundation.org/poems/45081/the-cremation-of-sam-mcgee

The Cremation of Sam McGeeBY 

ROBERT W. SERVICE

There are strange things done in the midnight sun      By the men who moil for gold; The Arctic trails have their secret tales      That would make your blood run cold; The Northern Lights have seen queer sights,      But the queerest they ever did see Was that night on the marge of Lake Lebarge      I cremated Sam McGee. Now Sam McGee was from Tennessee, where the cotton blooms and blows. Why he left his home in the South to roam 'round the Pole, God only knows. He was always cold, but the land of gold seemed to hold him like a spell; Though he'd often say in his homely way that "he'd sooner live in hell." On a Christmas Day we were mushing our way over the Dawson trail. Talk of your cold! through the parka's fold it stabbed like a driven nail. If our eyes we'd close, then the lashes froze till sometimes we couldn't see; It wasn't much fun, but the only one to whimper was Sam McGee. And that very night, as we lay packed tight in our robes beneath the snow, And the dogs were fed, and the stars o'erhead were dancing heel and toe, He turned to me, and "Cap," says he, "I'll cash in this trip, I guess; And if I do, I'm asking that you won't refuse my last request." Well, he seemed so low that I couldn't say no; then he says with a sort of moan: "It's the cursèd cold, and it's got right hold till I'm chilled clean through to the bone. Yet 'tain't being dead—it's my awful dread of the icy grave that pains; So I want you to swear that, foul or fair, you'll cremate my last remains." A pal's last need is a thing to heed, so I swore I would not fail; And we started on at the streak of dawn; but God! he looked ghastly pale. He crouched on the sleigh, and he raved all day of his home in Tennessee; And before nightfall a corpse was all that was left of Sam McGee. There wasn't a breath in that land of death, and I hurried, horror-driven, With a corpse half hid that I couldn't get rid, because of a promise given; It was lashed to the sleigh, and it seemed to say: "You may tax your brawn and brains, But you promised true, and it's up to you to cremate those last remains." Now a promise made is a debt unpaid, and the trail has its own stern code. In the days to come, though my lips were dumb, in my heart how I cursed that load. In the long, long night, by the lone firelight, while the huskies, round in a ring, Howled out their woes to the homeless snows— O God! how I loathed the thing. And every day that quiet clay seemed to heavy and heavier grow; And on I went, though the dogs were spent and the grub was getting low; The trail was bad, and I felt half mad, but I swore I would not give in; And I'd often sing to the hateful thing, and it hearkened with a grin. Till I came to the marge of Lake Lebarge, and a derelict there lay; It was jammed in the ice, but I saw in a trice it was called the "Alice May." And I looked at it, and I thought a bit, and I looked at my frozen chum; Then "Here," said I, with a sudden cry, "is my cre-ma-tor-eum." Some planks I tore from the cabin floor, and I lit the boiler fire; Some coal I found that was lying around, and I heaped the fuel higher; The flames just soared, and the furnace roared—such a blaze you seldom see; And I burrowed a hole in the glowing coal, and I stuffed in Sam McGee. Then I made a hike, for I didn't like to hear him sizzle so; And the heavens scowled, and the huskies howled, and the wind began to blow. It was icy cold, but the hot sweat rolled down my cheeks, and I don't know why; And the greasy smoke in an inky cloak went streaking down the sky. I do not know how long in the snow I wrestled with grisly fear; But the stars came out and they danced about ere again I ventured near; I was sick with dread, but I bravely said: "I'll just take a peep inside. I guess he's cooked, and it's time I looked"; ... then the door I opened wide. And there sat Sam, looking cool and calm, in the heart of the furnace roar; And he wore a smile you could see a mile, and he said: "Please close that door. It's fine in here, but I greatly fear you'll let in the cold and storm— Since I left Plumtree, down in Tennessee, it's the first time I've been warm." There are strange things done in the midnight sun      By the men who moil for gold; The Arctic trails have their secret tales      That would make your blood run cold; The Northern Lights have seen queer sights,      But the queerest they ever did see Was that night on the marge of Lake Lebarge      I cremated Sam McGee.

[crisp-autumnal-air]

Chocolate Instead of Coffee in Early America

  18th century breakfast chocolate from raw cacao beans.