Tabletop Game / Deadlands: The Weird West

A whole new world.

Deadlands: The Weird West (2021) for Savage Worlds Adventure Edition is the latest version of the classic Deadlands Weird West roleplaying game. It radically altered the setting from the original and also updated the rules to reflect the changes.

The Reckoners (The Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse) have been defeated, or at least severely set back from their previous triumphs. Brother Grimme (Famine) has been killed along with most of his cannibal cult, one of the two Stones (Death) is permanently dead, Darius Hellstromme (Plague) has turned his back on his masters, and Raven (War) is currently in hiding. Oh and there's one other small change:

The Civil War ended in a Union victory.

Deadlands: The Weird West (2021) is noted for the fact that it retconned away the "draw" of the Civil War in the previous books that resulted in a Divided States of America. Unable to separate slavery or white supremacy from the Confederacy, developers believed it was better just to get rid of it retroactively. This massively changes the sociopolitical status quo of the setting while leaving others utterly unchanged.

• Deadlands: The Weird West
• Deadlands: The Weird West Companion
• Blood Drive
• The Crater Lake Chronicles
• The Horror at Headstone Hill
• Showdown at Sunset
• Hell on the High Plains

---

This series contains the following tropes:

• Adventure Towns: The game has a much bigger focus on these than previous editions, highlighting that smaller scale personal threats that PCs can handle are more to the edition's themes than the big international world-spanning conspiracies of before.
• Alternate Timeline: Is now one of these from the one that led to the events of Hell on Earth and Lost Colony. Ironically, this means it is the third timeline since the previously listed one was the result of the Reckoners altering time as well. While not conclusively defeated, the timeline is now far closer to the original one where their servitors were destroyed.
• And That's Terrible: Mr. Haruman has the evil scheme to have Hellstrom Industries dominate the mail-order catalog market. Somewhat justified in that it is the equivalent of Amazon back then.
• Arc Words: "A return to small town horror."
• The Artifact: The game still refers to evil spirits as Manitou but mentions this is just a crude misunderstanding of real-life religion by racists.
• Big Bad: Actually Downplayed from what it used to be. With one of the setting's major villains slain and the others lying low, there's now a much bigger focus on smaller scale villains.
• Big Good:
  • The Twilight Legion is a secret society existing since Camelot and which helped the Union defeat the Confederacy for good.
  • Coot Jenkins a.k.a the Prospector is one of the few living heroes other than the PCs and serves as The Mentor to many.
• Cattle Drive: The basis for the Blood Drive trilogy of adventures. The protagonists herd a thousand steers across the Weird West.
• City of Adventure: There are literally dozens of these detailed in the core book ranging from the City of Gloom (Salt Lake City) to Lost Angeles (guess) to Doge City and Tombstone.
• Corrupt Corporate Executive: While Darius Hellstrom used to occupy this position, he's since been replaced in his own company by Mr. Hanuman. While not an actual servant of the Devil, as far as anyone can tell, he is a much more conventional ruthless businessman who exploits workers and carrying on the environmentally unfriendly policies of his predecessor.
• Cosmic Retcon: In the Savage Worlds: Adventure Edition version, Morgana le Fay's resurrection has thrown time out of wack, creating a relatively new setting.
• Divided States of America: Now a Downplayed trope versus the Ur-Example. The United States has reabsorbed the South as well as California but several large Native American nations exist as well as an independent Utah that refuses to join the Union.
• Double Agent: The Texas Rangers served as this during the Civil War, undermining the Confederacy.
• Enemy Civil War: The majority of successes the world has had against the Reckoners is due to the fact they hate each other as well as themselves. Stone actually killed his older, more invincible, self after decades of imprisonment by Brother Grimes. Hellstrome actually thwarted a massive demonic invasion from Hell after being guilted by heroes regarding his actions.
• Expy:
  • Ginny Earp is a Gender Flip of her more famous brother, serving as the Marshal of Tombstone.
    • Similarly, the "Gal with No Name" for Clint Eastwood's famous character.
• Hot Witch: Formalized as a class for player character women with Mina Devlin's School for Girls. They love revealing tight leather outfits and sorcery.
• In Spite of a Nail: Despite the fact that the United States is once more united into one body, the majority of Deadlands history remains completely the same.
  • The Cold War between the Union and South that drove much of the previous metaplot turned out to have had a minimal effect on settlers.
  • In a more depressing note, the Chinese Exclusion Act was passed by racists and Reconstruction is floundering. Racism, previously thought to be a thing of the past, is apparently still an enormous force in the setting.
• Historical In-Joke: Roswell and Fort (Area) 51 get this as the former is a secret Confederate base while the latter's area is used by the Union as the basis for their investigation of the supernatural.
• Horsemen of the Apocalypse: Averted actually as the death of Brother Grimme has meant that the four are broken. Furthermore, the forces of evil have decided that they put too much faith in their chief servants. Now they are focused on making smaller-scale less apocalyptic threats.
• Intrepid Reporter: Lacy O'Malley is the Lois Lane of the setting, constantly getting into trouble while reporting on the supernatural for the Tombstone Epitaph.
• Irony: Brother Grimme's replacement, Reverend John Prosperi is a Good Shepherd who has reformed the Brother's Religion of Evil church into the charitable institution that it was originally meant to be - as the actual Grimme would have wanted, despite Prosperi's hatred of the man due to his Humanoid Abomination replacement.
• Lighter and Softer: The destruction of the Confederacy means that the Deadlands: Hell on Earth campaign setting is prevented, which is a post-nuclear war hellhole. The Servitors of the Reckoners are also dramatically weakened as a result of the various changes to the setting.
• The Men in Black: The Agency is now the sole government department that deals with the supernatural.
• Nice Job Fixing It, Villain: The Cackler's attempts to mess with time resulted in the Legion being able to help the Union defeat the South once and for all. This dramatically weakened the Reckoners as there's no attempt to paint the Confederacy as anything other than villains in this edition.
• Noble Savage: Averted with this edition as the game takes special care to state that Native Americans are just people like anyone else. They also comment on the idea that there are many who reject the "Old Ways" reverence of previous editions' portrayals and want to avail themselves to Ghost Rock technology.
• Politically Correct History: Played with and definitely a Downplayed Trope versus previous editions. Racism and sexism s now much more acknowledged with the South having been driven by it and still a problem in the setting. However, the additional ten years of the Civil War and supernatural events have made the setting more inclusive than historically. Native rights are also better off due to the use of magic to cripple American expansionism. It also acknowledges the Wild West was a pretty diverse place by itself historically. Still, there are things like the Chinese Exclusion Act to illustrate the setting is not suddenly egalitarian.
• Ranger: The Texas Rangers have now been replaced with the Territorial Rangers that have broader authority.
• Retgone:
  • The Confederacy of the older editions of Deadlands was conclusively defeated at the Battle of Washington due to the Morgana Effect. As such, history has resumed a course closer to the real world's timeline.
  • The Hell on Earth scenario has, if not completely been averted, has been greatly derailed from the Reckoners original plans.
• Sequel Escalation: Inverted. The game has been designed to move things down to a more personal episodic level.
• Steampunk: Hellstrom Industries and other Ghost Rock technologies are now widely enough available that they can be ordered from catalogs.
• Surprisingly Realistic Outcome: Part of the gameline's new edition is invoking this.
  • The Confederacy ultimately lost the Civil War due to a secret society manipulating events but it fought to preserve slavery as best it could. It is also actively opposing Reconstruction and trying to install racist laws via the new government. This is in sharp contrast to the previous games' zig-zagged idea that the war led to a post-racial society.
  • The Reckoners' Servitors have all more or less turned on their masters due to the fact that they're, well, evil and once granted power the Reckoners can't take it back. It helps they were mostly developed characters with goals beyond spreading misery. While Brother Grimme remained loyal to the end (being an Artificial Human), Stone has just gone off to be his own Wild Card mass murderer, Hellstromme has abandoned his masters after realizing he was being played for a fool, and Raven has gone to lick his wounds since his own people turned against him.
  • While not "realistic", once the Reckoners used time travel to Make Wrong What Once Went Right, it was only a matter of time before the good guys tried to do the same in reverse.
  • Not all Native Americans are actually interested in the Old Ways and find the attempt to reject modern (for the 19th century) technology to be a great idea. The Ravenite order has attracted some non-evil members who just want to modernize rather than rely on traditional ways.
• Updated Re Release: Blood Drive was a trio of adventures originally done up for Reloaded but was released in a hardback with new rules as well as placement in the Post-Morgana Effect timeline.
• We ARE Struggling Together: Most of the United States is this despite being reunited. Both the former Southern states and Union are willing to work together against the Reckoners but already there's people trying to oppose Reconstruction as well as integration like in the real world.
• Weird West: It wouldn't be Deadlands without this. In this case, the Wild West is much closer to the original boom period and Westward expansion versus being settled by two feuding powers. Many of the formerly independent states have since been reabsorbed into the Union.

---