In October 2022 we continued the October Horrors with the all-new Weird Frontiers Bundle. The Lovecraftian Weird-West RPG Weird Frontiers from Stiff Whiskers Press is a standalone game based on the Dungeon Crawl Classics RPG from Goodman Games.
Originally crowdfunded in May 2019 under the name Dark Trails, Weird Frontiers is set in an alternate Wild West where a cabal of Nyarlathotep cultists awakened long-dormant Elder Gods. Like a creature fighting a sickness, Earth responded by activating long-dormant ley lines brimming with arcane energies, “kissing” common folks with extraordinary supernatural abilities. You are one such trailhand, fighting an ever-growing evil in a wounded country still recovering from the bloodiest war in American history. You can turn tail or take the fight to the night, and you ain’t about to be called yeller! Saddle your horses and clean those irons, ’cause there’s something slithering across the dark frontier and it’s dead set on making vittles out of you and your ragtag posse. Look sharp, because even well-meaning trailhands may stray from righteousness onto the path of the damned. There’s always a chance you’ll be hanging from the bad end of a rope by sundown.
The alternate 1865 of Weird Frontiers breaks with long-standing Weird-West RPG tradition by not resurrecting the Confederacy. Many of the travesties of American history have been avoided, as able persons of all colors and creeds stand united against an unrelenting horde. But whole towns have gone insane; in the dead of night, isolated settlers hear corrupting alien whispers; and in the hideously warped Spirit World, restless ghosts face many perils of being dead. Yet this frontier, befitting its Dungeon Crawl Classics origins, is uncommonly colorful by Mythos standards. You can play not only Gunslingers, Occultists, and Revelators, but also Mystic Monks, Mountebank con-artist alchemists, Sin Eaters, and (tada!) Luchador Mexican wrestlers. And many inventions in the copious 908-page (!) rulebook also fit easily in pulp-fantasy DCC RPG campaigns, including miracles, contraptions, alchemical potions, and the 120-page Cthulhoid bestiary.
This new Weird Frontiers Bundle included the corebook, adventures, and play aids – everything you need to stand against the darkness in a wilderness much wilder than you think. There were three titles in our Starter Collection (retail value $45) as DRM-free .PDF ebooks, including the complete 908-page standalone Weird Frontiers RPG core rulebook, the Weird Frontiers Judge’s Screen, and the Trail Map.
Those who paid more than the threshold (average) price also got our entire Bonus Collection with five complete adventures worth an additional $50 – many written by star DCC designers such as Harley Stroh and Michael Curtis: Never Swallow the Worm!, Not So Fast, Billy Ray!, Dig Three Graves, The Malevolent Seven, and Nest of Snakes.
Ten percent of each payment (after gateway fees) for this Weird Frontiers offer went to the charity designated by David Baity of Stiff Whiskers Press, the Paved Paws Animal League. Paved Paws is a nonprofit, volunteer-based organization in Greenville, South Carolina that provides medical attention, food, shelter, transportation, and forever homes for a high population of unwanted animals surrendered into high-kill shelters.
