Way of the Wicked Character Spotlight: Brand Pylgrim

Twenty years ago during the Asmodean Purges, Morganian the Younger a 10 year old squire of King Markadian IV the Zealot’s Knights of Alerion was caught up in a fierce battle with Asmodean priests and anti-paladins in the sewers beneath the ruins of House of Barca. One of the anti-paladins bore a Blade of Asmodeus, a powerful, intelligent, magical sword of Infernal make. As the tide turned against the Asmodeans, the bearer of the Blade lost faith in his dark overlord and with the next blow it shattered, the fragments piercing the boy, Morganian, who fell into waters of the sewer and was washed away. The squire and the accursed blade were thought lost.

But this is only the beginning of the tale of Brand Pylgrim. The boy was injured but did not die and the powerful blade was broken but not destroyed, the boy’s mind proved to be no contest to the ancient power of the Blade of Asmodeus in whole or in parts. The Blade of Asmodeus was no longer a weapon, so it created one in the man who would grow to hold it’s shards, building a weapon to appease it’s devilish creator. The blade called this creation Brand Pygrim and forged Brand’s body with Infernal arts of unarmed combat. And now this weapon is ready to take back what the House Darius and the line of Markadian has taken in the name of Mitra.

Would the Blade of Asmodeus wish to be free of it’s new existence?

Does Morganian’s psyche still exist?

Does the family of Morganian still seek their lost child?

Ill Met in Brandenscar

Brandenscar Prison, Talingarde: Three vile villains, the blasphemous rogue Lars von Woodsoul (called the Woodstick), the murdererous inquisitor Iltimacron the Dickish, and the heretical scarred monk Brand Pylgrim all faced death for their crimes. They were branded with a “F” glyph for felon and cast into the horrorific halls of Brandenscar Prison to await execution. They were aided by an ethereal, cold, beauty, the platinum haired Theodora who befuddled the guards and provided Lars with a veil of many things. While Iltimacron kept watch, the Woodstick and Brand used their superior agility, pleasure palace contortionist training, and epic level infernal mastication arts, to free the lock pick from the the veil secreted within the Woodstick's loin cloth. They made their escape from their cell and recruited the fiend blood ogre Grumblejack. While Lars clamored for the guards, Grumblejack and Brand lay in ambush, quickly slaying their tormenters with their bare hands as Iltimacron secured the alarm horn. Using a potion of cure moderate wounds they swore the gravely wounded Grumblejack to their service for one month.

Using the disposed of guards kit, Lars and Iltimacron pretended to escort Grumblejack to the lower levels of the prison (the famous Star Wars maneuver), surprising and slaying the guards at the exit. The dark quartet rapidly explored the prison, dispatching guards asleep in the barracks and gathering the necessary supplies need to escape, lantern oil to create a distraction and enough rope to safely make it to the sea. They also found intelligence that indicated the pass phrase for the guard tower as well as an illicit gambling session that most of the guards would be attending that evening. With this information Bran, Iltimacron, and Lars gained access to the guard tower and with the help of Grumblejack charging across the courtyard, were able to dispatch the guards. Spreading a large store of lamp oil in the tower, the frightful four set the tower ablaze and made their escape. Brand was able to deflect one arrow sent his way but was grievously injured by the second. At the bridge to the mainland, the evil doers were able to use the rope they had secured earlier to safely make it to the ocean below. From here they escaped to the moors, finding the house with the single lantern on the second floor on Old Moor Road as described by Theodora.

Marvel Civil War Scavenger Hunt

NOTE: Marvel and all characters herein are copyright and trademarks of Marvel, Inc. I hope in the spirit of imagination young and old that they understand the intended use is recreational and NOT commercial use of these characters in this party game.

For my son’s first birthday we did the Gummy Bear Pirate Captain Treasure Hunt, essentially due to his love of the Gummy Bear Song:

An annual series of inopportune family weddings have made celebration of his birthday a smaller event for the last few years. This year my wife and I decided to plan another scavenger hunt, using elements of the Amazing Race using the world of the Marvel Civil War. We sorted our son, nephews, and their parents into two teams, Team Captain America and Team Iron Man. Each team got a T-shirt as a party favor and team uniform. They were gathered to get a briefing from Agent Maria Hill (my wife) and myself, S.H.I.E.L.D. Executive Director Mick Fury (Samuel L Jackson’s brother from another mother). I told them that they had to find the missing Avengers and whichever team found the most would win. There would be three missions, each mission would cause the losing team to have a time penalty on the scavenger hunt that followed each mission.

My wife’s Maria Hill was accomplished with black workout gear. As props I bought a pirate eye patch and some Halloween military insignia. Combined with black EMT pants, shirt, and a trench coat round out my Mick Fury costume. Which I wore in public. But hey the little guys were wearing luchador masks, so I blended. Each mission came in a manila folder with the S.H.I.E.L.D. logo on the front. Each clue that Director Fury handed out came in a S.H.I.E.L.D. emblazoned envelope..

Mission #1: Escape from the Red Skull

The first mission occurred at a local park, each team member had to accomplish a task. The cumulative time giving one or the other the advantage in the scavenger hunt to follow. The tasks were:

1. Across the balance beam
2. Back across the balance beam
3. Across the monkey bars
4. Up the cliff wall
5. Down the escape slide

Back the house the teams got 25 minutes to solve their first clue:

Of all the things in the world, I am the shortest and the longest, the swiftest and the slowest. I am the thing people waste the most. Yet they need more than anything else, for without me nothing can be done.

The answer of course is “time”, which lead the teams to an alarm clock, under which their next clue lay:

Round and round I run, but nowhere do I go.

The answer for this clue was “treadmill” under which they found three figures from Cap’s side: Winter Soldier, Falcon, and Hawkeye. Of course this was misinterpreted as “fan” so they accidentally found a clue for Mission #2, which forced me to change the location of this later clue while everyone was distracted with another mission.

Mission #2: Secrets of the Submariner

My nephews and to a lesser extent my son, love fishing. The second mission was a competition between the two teams at who could catch four fish first or the most fish in 30 minutes. The fish weren’t really biting so only my father-in-law caught one, giving his team a one minute advantage. Back in the house the scavenger hunt continued with 25 minutes to solve:

Wind does not make me go, yet I spin round and round to let it blow.

The answer being “fan”. I moved the clue previously spotted in the last mission from one of our ceiling fans to one of the bathroom exhaust fans. Hilarity ensued when both teams ran to the original site and then accused each other of stealing their copy of the next clue. The clue here was:

I have eyes, but I see nothing. I have ears, but I hear nothing. I have a mouth, but i cannot speak. I always will look just as I look now. If I am young, I will stay young. If I am old, I will remain old. Nothing can change me.

The answer being “photograph” and behind one of our family photos they found three members of Iron Man’s faction: War Machine, Vision, and Black Panther. After this challenge the teams were neck and neck.

Mission #3: Action at Avengers Headquarters

The last mission utilized my son’s favorite toy, his electric Jeep, in which he raced for time in a lap around the outside of our house. This was followed by 10 baskets for time (dropped to 5 because of the aim of the players involved) and carrying an egg on a spoon around the outside of our home. The last event was the three-legged race using two members of each team. The team with the winning time got the difference as a time advantage for the next 25 minute scavenger hunt challenge. Previously, the S.H.I.E.L.D. logo bedecked envelopes they came in were without text but this time:

Inside the teams found this mysterious photograph:

Which is actually the “X” from the APEX logo on one of our television, the remainder being the bottom edge and television table. Underneath the base they found their last clue, a famous riddle from J.R.R. Tolkien’s the Hobbit:

A box without hinges, key, nor lid, yet golden treasure inside is hid.

Which of course is an “egg” (or eggses per Gollum). This clue was supposed to lead our staunch Avengers in-training to the egg cartoon in the fridge, inside which the last the figures could be found: Captain America, Iron Man, and Black Widow.

Both sets of little boys got gift cards and to keep the figurines they had found. Everyone got to keep their T-shirts. And fun was had by all…except complaints about the last riddle as being inaccurate. Which I attribute to geek illiteracy. All in all it took about two and a half hours to complete the missions. I fell victim to incorrect answers leading to clues again this time, something that is easier to correct in a role-playing campaign than it is in real time.

Chapter the Seventh, Part the Second: Completing the Cast Dungeon or Why Does the Cockatrice Cross the Room?

While recuperating from their ordeal with the sahguin shaman, Tyrian and Ulmo, began humming then reciting an old riddle-rhyme from their childhoods:

Look to your corners and you will see Drouss and Pharthas in familiar skies,

Lady Luck and her love have longed to gaze into each other's eyes.

The Great Mother, ever vigilant of her children’s plight, peers upon her spawn,

The Young Sun with haughty eyes cast high, sees not the love that begins to dawn.

Days of dungeoneering works on the mind in odd ways.  Despite the danger to their sanity, they explored the other half of the dungeon, wading into the flooded chambers at each end.  Once entirely submerged, Grey found a dim green light emanating from a tunnel in the center of ceiling.  Tyrian scaled the rusty metal ladder, past increasingly verdant but alien foliage previously seen when the party had explored the cast of the Queen of the Wilds.  The chamber they entered was overgrown with lush, emerald foliage, a warm but sickly light emanating from the smooth surface 15 feet above their heads.  The stirrings of animals could be heard and Background Snakes slithered away into the foliage.  At opposite corners of the room, the roots of trees, creepers, and vines had been woven into stairs curving up.

The party took to the left stair, ascending into a chamber similar to the one they had exited, except that here an abhorrent collection of animals, somehow unnaturally mixed together, as if the Queen of the Wild in a moment madness had taken a mixing spoon and bowl to her servants.  The monsters many eyes swiveled madly as multiple snouts babbled maddeningly.  The cacophony confused Grey leaving him to growl at a nearby wall. Ulmo threw magical bolts at the disturbing beast as Tyrian hewed it with his blade.  It’s acidic spittle flew but Tyrian was able to dodge and then the gibbering mouther reached its end.  After the abomination fell, Ulmo spied a fist-size sphere of an unnatural purple gem stone, four notches oriented in the same direction where a deliberate blemish upon it’s surface.

The Spectator Key

Two exits were woven in the vegetation in the corners perpendicular to the corner our heroes had entered from.  These stairs brought them to a level much like the previous two, except in the ceiling above a tunnel stretched to a room above, red flames casting off shadows from above.  The brave trio climbed the ladder only to find a room whose walls were wreathed in flame, standing too close led to burns, and they heroes remembered that they had to run from room to room to avoid being burnt alive in the passageways connecting them.  As they plotted their next move, the giant but familiar flaming skull of Probably Grigor appeared.  As benign but unhelpful as before the demented undead indicated that more of his brethren awaited them.  Tyrian and Ulmo began making noise in attempt to draw the more malignant flame skulls into battle in the relative safety of the middle of the room. First two flaming skulls then five more came hurtling down the passageway sloping into the fiery reaches of these hell spawned chambers.  The flaming skulls fell to Ulmo’s spells and Tyrian’s sword in seconds, and the party ran to the next room, with Ulmo getting singed along the way.  The next room they ran to was occupied by a humongous flaming skull, big enough to swallow Probably Grigor whole, but too big to escape the confines of the room.  Suicidally brave the party faced the behemoth burning cranium, and when Tyrian nearly died from the flaming assault of the creature, his Mark of the Efreet flared, healed him, and vanished.  In the end their valor prevailed and the dust of the shattered skull fell upon them.  They exited the room only to find another trapdoor in the next chamber leading to an antechamber built of skull and bones.  They entered the adjacent room and climbed the long ladder through thousands of grinning skulls, on one of these levels they found a slim bar of the same purple stone as the orb.  This bar was rounded of edges and had a small bump at one end, a rune for “1” was inscribed deep within when it was held up to the torch light.  The end opposite this quarter orb slid firmly into place on the purple sphere.  They ascended from this chamber only to exit back to the dicing room.

Back in the dicing room, Tyrian cast the dice three times again to obtain four of a kind.  They were transported to a room of multi-colored tile, a voice spoke:

Use the number that unlocked this room, join all the colors and escape this doom.

Above each tile was a silver bar, flat with the wall, of the right size to fit into the sphere.  Tyrian attempted to break one from the wall without success.  Guessing that four lines could connect all the colored squares and based on Ulmo’s knowledge of numeracy they connected light blue (9, wind), brown (10, earth), blue (11, water), green (12, “wild”), red (13, fire), and black (0, death).  They walked four lines along the colored tiles to find one of the bars pop free and small notch at one end of the bar.  They reappeared in the dicing room.

Four of a Kind Challenge

Their next cast yielded three kings and two queens, and a vast sum of gold fell cascading from the ceiling.  The adventures marveled at their luck and set about gathering their loot, before casting the dice once more.  This time they obtained a series of four and reappeared in a room built of skulls and mortared by bones, hanging from a ladder in the ceiling was a tall, predatory, ebon skinned fighter who appeared to be a vampiric version of Uncle Morgrin’s secretary, S’sabis!  He held his attack when they called him by name and revealed that they had met him a thousand years from now.  Intrigued and convinced by their argument that without them he would not escape, S’sabis joined forces with our heroes.  However, Tyrian was not at ease with the thought of an elder vampire, free to walk the days under a dying sun, at the right hand of one of the most powerful men in New Roeblini City. They had to traverse two rooms of flame before climbing the heights of an overgrown arboretum some 80’ in height.  As they did so they were attacked by two sentient combinations of vine, root, leaf, and stalk.  One they slew as it descended the wall, the other they drove back mortally injured and dripping a putrid gore.  They found a wet cave opening to a pool, and breathless S’sabis was sent to investigate the dark waters.  He returned without finding a foe, but as the party swam the dark waters multiple tentacles attached to an abominable piscine came tearing through the waters.  It’s foul mucous stirred in the waters but our heroes were able to repel its attacks until S’sabis dominated the beast and it let them pass. They escaped the pool and climbed through a long slopped room of earth to a tall chamber of blowing winds, in which floated a pentagonal rod of gold with a small spherical profusion at one end.  They exited back to the dice room.

Their next cast brought them three of a kind and they were teleported to a room with three suspended platforms backed by the blackest patch of midnight.  On one of the platforms lay a slumbering cachectic cross between a panther and an octopus, a bell hanging from its neck.  The next platform a great ugly featherless chicken with a snake’s tail lay sleeping, it’s tail suspended above the last platform bearing a large chest.  Investigation of the platforms showed that they could be moved one at a time, but that moving chest would ring the bell and moving the displacer beast would drop the cockatrice’s tail on the chest.  Opposite where three cones of silence.  They moved the cockatrice then the displacer beast and finally the chest.  Expecting the chest to be their prize, Tyrian and Ulmo were surprised when it turned out to be a mimic and struck at them with great clawing hands.  It fell moments later to Tyrian’s blade but yielded up a golden triangular rod with a quarter orb at one end.  They reappeared in the dice room.

 

Three of a Kind Challenge

With Ulmo’s halfling luck they received four casts to reach all five of the same, but were unsuccessful.  The dicing table vanished replaced with a door with a half-sphere receptacle and four deep notches.  Using the riddle-rhyme of their youth and Ulmo’s knowledge of numeracy they aligned the prongs of the Spectator Key and were about to unlock the door when S’smuliss appeared.  He was temporally our of phase and alternative futures spun all about him.  He thanked them for saving him from being fooled by the Master’s of Truth and dying at the hands of Orb Worshippers, and had taken up a new mission of protecting the time stream. He warned them that they could wait to unlock this door until their own time but that it might be difficult to find a portal to accept the key.  He told them that if they opened the door now, Korlo, the boy they had saved would never have existed.  Tyrian and Ulmo weighed this council but believed that their mission to save a god and end the decay brought on by Pharthas’ death outweighed the existence of any mortal even themselves.  With their decision made, S’smuliss came more into phase and the door clicked open.

They found themselves leagues within the world, revealed to be hollow with floating, orb-like creatures with four eye stalks awakening throughout the global cavern space.  An elder spectator, named Ordus, welcomed the group and asked about the Aberration War.  He told them that his kind had come to this world during the Third of such wars and made it a Hiveworld.  He did not know who had put them to sleep but when the acts of the illithid on the surface was revealed he deduced that they had some how infiltrated and incapacitated the spectators in their home.  He rewarded the group with magical items for freeing them and S’smuliss transported them back to the future, outside the weathered ruins of the Monastery of the Masterminds, two bright sun’s in the sky.

The Gummy Bear Pirate Captain Treasure Hunt

Pirate Captain Gummy Bear Green designed at www.heromachine.com

I have played role-playing games for many, many years.  One of my favorite parts of role-playing games is the problem solving, typically in the form of puzzles, riddles, and other brain teasers.  So it was only natural that I suggested a treasure hunt for my son's first birthday party.  Regardless of the fact that his guests, his cousins, 2, 3, and 5, can't read.  And have the attention span of a gnat on methamphetamines.  My son's own inability to walk and lack of real interest in anything but food, sparkly lights, and sleep precluded him from actively treasure hunting in any other capacity than napping through it.

However, in the true spirit of gaming groups I figured that solving the clues would entertain the adults who could direct the boys to near the next clue which they would have fun finding.  Like entertaining the problem solvers, min-maxers, and hack-n-slashers there would be problem solving for some, loot for others, and the shared joy of discovery.  I designed the challenge to be non-competitive, each boy had their own set of clues.  I didn't count on the eldest being able to solve most of the clues himself and the middle one to be lazy to the point of turpitude.  So much so that when he found his final prize, he made his grandfather "Get it!" despite being two feet away.  The youngest just had fun running around, the goodies being transiently enjoyable.

The birthday theme was Gummy Bears.  So I designed three pathways, Blue, Red, and Green.  Each team received an envelope color coordinated with a Gummy Bear Pirate Captain logo (see above) on it with their first clue.  This sent them to their first prize, a pack of Marvel Heroes Popping Candy With Lollipop.  As each color now had an associated character, Spider-Man, Iron Man, and the Hulk, respectively, the next prizes were an action figure and a vehicle.  In order to increase the difficulty, there were two clues to get to each prize.  The candy and action figure had word balloons containing the next clue.  Thus there were five clues (a total of fifteen) to find three prizes.

Some design notes:

• Do not have two clues for the same person be in the same generic classification as the other.  Two of my answers for the Red/Iron Man path was a tree (albeit different trees), which I thought did a good job of describing geographical location but instead described a tree.  Thus, the eldest cousin simply walked around looking at trees, missing the action figure and it's attendant clue, but accidentally stumbling upon the final prize, the vehicle.
• The innate familiarity with my yard made the answer to clues much more obvious to me than my victims...er...players.  Thus I wanted to have one group find the largest tree in the yard, which they had figured out, but they completely missed it, they were so busy looking for it they did not even see this tree in the front yard.  A blue rock was apparently not as blue or as obvious as I thought it was.
• Things are a lot more obvious when you hide them, than when you are looking for them.  It is hard to hide bright colors, such as yellow and red, however despite that items that I thought were ridiculously obvious were invisible to people as they searched.
• Clues that describe an object such as the green clue "I am a strong machine, but I do not smash but cut so clean" (lawn mower) or the red clue "In your teeth or where to cook that is your clue for where to look" (grill) were superior to those describing geographical locations, e.g. attempting to describe a specific tree.
• Children are easily satisfied, they were happy after finding the first prize.  So sometimes bigger is not better.

Things to consider for next year...

The Apocalypse Stone or "Lemme Tarrasque a Question"

Following Boris, Dorune, Goldune, and Warrick's retrieval of the ornate egg from Castle Brave and turning it over to Gareth, the world went mad. It rained soup, then frog demons. The village near the adventurers' keep was decimated by plague. Someone (or something) slaughtered the retainers of our hero's keep and stitched them back together into horrific flesh golems. Dwarves and elves started living together. The city of Greyhawk was sucked into a massive sink hole. In all the end was upon them.

At the doughty explorer's keep, our party was attacked. Invisible fiends lashed them with magics that froze all but Boris in place. Spells were spun from the empty air while unseen talons and transparent fangs gouged the party. Brave Boris was, despite censure of his divine might, able to break the enchantment, freeing the party. Immediately the dwarf-troll hybrids went to work, one-by-one disassembling the pit fiends as Warrick lashed them eldritch might. Boris imploded the demons with his divine powers. In the end one pit fiend hovered, still invisible, above the party, punitively striking the heroes with sorcerous talents. Goldune grabbed his creche-brother and threw him at the demon, Dorune grabbing a hold and raining axe blows upon the floating fiend. The pit fiend's overlord, Maloubaub, then unmasked himself...only to be summarily destroyed by Boris' dweomer craft.

That night the party shared a dream of a snowy vale with a trail of blood leading to a distant castle. They awoke in that same vale, except no castle or bloody trail. Convinced that this was a sign of further trials they journeyed in the direction of a tower of smoke roughly in the direction that castle should have been. They found a ruined village and there were beset upon by an old knight who terrasque'd them to fight a great horned beast. Much debate occurred within the party, in the end the benefits of stopping one marauding beast versus those of stopping the apocalypse, could not be outweighed. They politely declined the knight's offer, who rode off fuming. The party was joined by a young boy, Ned, from a neighboring village who guided them on their journey.

As they journeyed further they were caught between warring factions of centaurs and wemics. Each side bemoaned their woes at the hands, hooves, or paws of their foes and each side offered a king's ransom for the adventurers to join their cause. The brothers Warbreed derided both sides as having great financial wealth which could be used to solve their problems rather than fighting over scraps. The party left the cowed lion men and horse men in their wake.

They journeyed on, coming upon a frozen knight kneeling before a forgotten, holy spring, a hidden altar to the god of justice. As they approached, the massive armored form began to move, and the skeletal visage of a death knight peered down upon the party. A deep, sepulchral voice emanated from the lungless mouth, "I am Lucius".

This Lucius turned out to be the same Lucius of legend, who with advancing age had faltered in his quest, who became jealous of his two squires' youthful prowess and struck them down, the god of justice cursing him henceforth. Remorseful, Lucius had tried all means that he could to lift his curse, to no avail. In the end, centuries ago he had come to his spring where he had remained in thoughtful prayer and contemplation. The spring's curative waters had not then or now, had any reversing effect on the justice god's curse. Hearing that the party intended to recover the Apocalypse Stone, Lucius begged to join their quest. The brothers Warbreed drank from the spring and felt invigorated. Boris took a flask of the spring's sacred waters for future use.

Their final trial took them to Ned's village, where the party interrupted the villagers from hanging an old crone, an herbalist who lived near the village. The villagers believed that the crone had kidnapped a child and sacrificed him to a demon as well as engaging in mutilation of cattle. Halting the lynch mob with a demonstration of whole body flossing using the mob provided rope, the party investigated. They found the missing child, Timi, who had fallen in a shallow well. However on investigating the crone's hovel they found the remnants of a mutilated steer. Cleared of murder, but guilty of consorting with demons, the witch was executed as a planar traitor.

Having successfully solved the challenges put fourth by the God of Justice, they were spirited away to the ruins of Castle Brave. There they found the naked and butchered corpses of many people, corpses that bore the mark of familiar ax and spell craft. Deep in a crevasse they found the madman who they thought they had killed during the last battle of Castle Brave. Although gravely injured and his body broken, the madman gibbered on. Using the healing waters of the spring, they healed the man, not only in body but in mind.

The man, speaking in a sonorous wise voice, revealed himself to be Parshawn II, who had been ruler of Castle Brave. He told our heroes that Gareth was his brother, a man twisted so by jealousy, that he had made demonic allies and cast nefarious spells to bring down Castle Brave and wrest the Apocalypse Stone from its environs. Gareth had cursed his brother with madness and polymorphed his retainers into the beasts that had attacked our heros when they raided the castle. The removal of the Apocalypse Stone from Castle Brave had started the destruction of the terrestrial plane, knocking it off its axis and severing the connection to the other planes.

By restoring Parshawn II, Boris regained a measure of his divine might. Then the disciple of justice, Parshawn, Second of His Name, transported the party to Castle Craven, Gareth's twisted replica of the now shattered home of the Apocalypse Stone. The party approached the gates, carving through the giant guards at the gate like a razor through a gelatinous cube. Inside the castle they found a team of mercenary adventures, sworn to the service of Gareth. These they dispatched with ease, despite having to face the untapped reserves of Gareth's powerful guard. In the end, they cast down the twisted half-god and liberated the Apocalypse Stone.

This object of creation was hurriedly returned to Castle Brave where Parshawn could contain its planar warping powers. He offered the heroes positions to help guard the Stone from further depredation, for he who controlled the Apocalypse Stone, controlled the stability of the planes. And so the strange band was sundered, the Warbreed taking up a new task as guardians while Warrick and Boris continued back into the world looking to greater understand eldritch and necromantic craft.

And so our tale ends...for now

You Found A Scroll: The Half-Made World by Felix Gilman

The Half-Made World by Felix Gilman is a steampunk recreation of a Western. The world is literally half made, the East being like old Europe staid in its ways, while the middle is full of mixed and actively warring ideologies, and the West is unmade, i.e. animals are not animals and land is not land. It describes, through its protagonists and antagonists, the war between the two major factions; the ordered evil (i.e. lawful evil) Line and the anarchistic evil (i.e. chaotic evil) of the Gun, as well as smaller less puissant sects and the Hill Folk the original natives of the land. Although initially I thought these were silly names, the names are actually clever plays on each foes background. The Line is actually a collection of by the book demonic train engines that have subdued men to their mechanical bidding, while the Gun are devil possessed firearms whose bearers (hosts?) gain superlative powers. Due to their fundamental difference in worldview they are at war. In the immediate past the Red River Republic tried to raise man as a self-determining power not needing these greater powers, the Republic has been crushed, but apparently the last General had a secret that would bring both the Line and the Gun to their knees. Into this are thrust Liv a psychologist from the old East, Creedmore a disgruntled Agent of the Gun, and Lowry a dedicated soldier of the Line. Their actions will dictate who obtains the Generals secret and to what purpose it is used.
Gilman has skillfully developed not only a fantastic and original world, but unique, living characters who are taken through a complex story. For me each character had a baseline "likability" which Gilman managed to change throughout the novel. There were some slightly stagnant periods that were necessary to establish more background, but did sometimes slow the story down. Overall an enjoyable and worthwhile experience, I look forward to the sequel.