Lost Frontier Tone Guide

Tone Guide
This page is intended to be a collection of thoughts, references, concepts, and examples to help keep new content for the Lost Frontier keep the right feel: that of a gritty, sweeping western, with some fantasy and horror elements.

Western themes vs. other genres
A good story uses elements from many genres, but most have a dominant theme or themes that categorize them as primarily one genre over the rest.

In a cyberpunk story, the world owns you - blanket oppression, global corruption, and brewing anarchy. Cyberpunk is Bladerunner, Shadowrun, Dredd, Deus Ex.

In sci-fi, exploration is king - whether that exploration is of space, of the impact of new technology, or of human nature itself. Sci-fi is Star Trek, District 9, Bioshock.

In fantasy, epic clashes of fate are the theme - ancient conflicts, primal forces of good and evil, titanic struggles to control the arc of history and destiny. Fantasy is The Lord of the Rings, Star Wars, Mistborn, The Witcher.

In a western, rugged self-reliance is the theme - one man stands tall against the odds, eschews ties and reliance on the systems of civilization, and makes his own way in the world. The hero is no child of destiny - she's just another trailhand who happened to be in the wrong place at the right time. There's no ancient prophecy of doom hovering just over the horizon - just the next bend in the trail, another set of opportunities, another set of troubles. And maybe, just maybe, a place to call home, where no man takes it upon himself to try and control your life.

A western takes in the sweep of a vast, lawless land, then zooms in tight on the people living there. It has exploration like sci-fi, but it's never for its own sake - rather, exploration for something specific, whether it's gold, a home, or the villain. Westerns take the titanic struggles of good and evil found in fantasy tales and stuffs them into the black and white hats of two men about to draw. The omnipresent corruption found in cyberpunk tales can be found in many westerns, but in a western there's always something meaningful a man with grit can do about it - even if it's just to get on his horse and leave it behind.

In a western, there is no civilized authority structure - or if there is, it's working for the enemy. A woman's gotta take things into her own hands if she wants something done.

Personal justice and honor are major factors. A man can't rely on the cowardly sheriff or any other authority to take care of business. Revenge is not a option, but a must - people get what's coming to them in a western.

Westerns as a genre also include the notion of sheep, wolves, and sheep dogs. Westerns put heroes of stories as the sheep dogs on guard against the barbaric wolves who prey on sheep civilization. Some westerns explore the idea that some sheep dogs spend so much time dealing with wolves that the sheep no longer accept them, and the find themselves caught between two worlds. Other westerns tell the story of a reformed wolf playing sheep dog.

The Fantasy Western
The Lost Frontier is a Fantasy Western - though perhaps it would be better written as Western Fantasy, as the "Western" element should dominate the "Fantasy."

In the Lost Frontier, characters are people first, fantasy elements second.

A villain is a vicious outlaw, who happens to be a nephilim. Being a nephilim influences and flavors his character, but does not define it.

A hero is a desperado first, a chosen one second. Destiny and fate can play a role, but they are secondary to themes of self-reliance and individualism.

A magical item is not ancient and mystical. It is some combination of dark, strange, bizarre. The backstory of the item does not matter as much as what it offers to the situation at hand. It does not glow with power as much as it hums with it; it does not tingle in the grip, but imparts a discomforting sense of not-belonging.

Alternatively, a magical item could be new-fangled, scientific wizardy, lightning in a bottle. Contraptions are not sleek and refined, but claptrap and jury rigged. Some few craftsmen are able to create items with a sense of steampunk-esque style, but never a sci-fi elegance.

Strange creatures are never fully sentient, though some may have a form of rudimentary intelligence (slightly more than would be expected from chimps in the real world). They are always creatures of the land - they can be normal animals, animals twisted by dark energy into new shapes (or combinations of shapes). They can also be literally creatures of the land - sand and rock golems, living cacti, and of course the barbarous wire fence beast.

Creatures are occasionally beings from the spiritual realm - angels and demons are rarely (if ever) seen, but non-sentient creatures that exist in spiritual form are seen sometimes. These creatures can be thought of as animals in terms of intelligence. They are typically aggressive, as the most common reason for a spiritual creature to crossover is that it has absorbed a hatred for mankind from the demons that dwell beyond the Veil.

Magical abilities are new to the world, and not truly magical in any case. Blood metal has unlocked strange potential in some folk, but it's new and not well practiced or understood.

A person who can make fire leap from his fingertips is not so uncommon as to shock and awe people, but rare enough to be far from an everyday occurrence. Only one in one hundred people show any meaningful ability to use blood metal. Only one in one thousand have real potential for power.

Major Influences:
Westerns are Stagecoach, High Noon, Magnificent Seven, 3:10 to Yuma, Unforgiven, Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid, True Grit, Deadwood, The Dollar Trilogy, Tombstone

Fantasy westerns are Firefly, Jonah Hex, Deadlands, The Dark Tower, Abraham Lincoln: Vampire Hunter, Westworld, Tall Tale, The Warrior's Way

Other influences: Fallout series, Mad Max: Fury Road, Book of Eli, Lovecraftian horror

This Reddit Post
''Written as advice for converting vanillia Pathfinder to a Cormac McCarthy type setting. Not a perfect fit for our setting, but some of the themes work.''
 * The landscape is bleak.  The desert ought to seem as if it goes forever, punctuated by settlements in the few places where there is water or where there is a rich deposit to support a mine.
 * Death is everywhere.  Any stone may hide a poisonous snake or a scorpion. Any rock on a canyon wall may break loose sending an explorer to his death. Scalphunters and savages raid settlements and mining camps, sowing the seeds of madness and blood.
 * Scalphunters.  A bounty on the scalp of orcs and elves in human settlements has birthed a handful of outlaw gangs whose primary business is bringing in scalps. If the scalps can at least pass as orkish or elvish, does it matter if they are actually dwarvish or human in origin?
 * Scalps as currency.  The orcs will trade elf scalps for weapons and armor. The elves will trade orc scalps for goods and services. The human authorities will take either and pay silver.
 * The Devil himself.  I would make one of the prominent members of a gang of scalphunters a fiend of considerable power who is biding his time. Waiting. Looking for something. No one can figure out what—no one among the few who even recognize him for what he is.
 * Settlement and exploration.  It's a hard wilderness with scant human settlers attempting to scratch a living where there is sufficient water. Growing meager crops as they can and grazing livestock. Prospectors comb the desert's mountains looking for gold, silver, and other valuable ores to mine.
 * The corrupt military.  The human settlements are protected by a mediocre army. This army is the instrument of a distant government (whether monarchy, democracy, or something else), but out here, they operate by their own set of rules. The first of which is to survive. The second of which is to ensure personal profit no matter the situation they stumble upon.

This Other Reddit Post
"Well, let's take a look at some early westerns and see what we find.

" High Noon  tells the story of a man who thought he knew where he stood in the world. He was the town marshal, the man who led a posse to take down Frank Miller, the most brutal criminal the area had ever seen. As he leaves town to set up a new life with his new bride, he learns that Miller got off on a technicality and is coming for him on the noon train. He tries to build a posse, but there's no marshal to replace him, and the townsfolk he once protected are too weak, cowardly, or self-centered to help him. He faces Miller's gang alone, and when the smoke has cleared and the only person to raise a hand to protect him is was his pacifist bride, he throws his badge in the dirt and leaves town forever.

"In  High Noon, governmental authority is either incompetent or completely absent. An unseen judge lets Miller loose, and there's no authority in town to compel people to act. Instead, it falls to a single man to act, making this a place in which competence and willpower are necessary to succeed.

"It answers the question of how people act when civilizing forces disappear by showing us a town of cowards and ambitious backstabbers. There are two people in that town with the will and the grit needed to overcome a world without laws, and they abandon this cowardly town in disgust. The loss of civilizing forces, has degraded the town, but the heroes overcome.

"In  Seven Samurai, we have a village of farmers in Sengoku Japan, a land torn apart by a century of civil war in which daimyo exert their will through force, and bandits and samurai cut their way through the country. While in  High Noon , the New Mexico town is on the edge of civilization, this village has seen civilization collapse around it.

"Anticipating a bandit attack after the harvest, the villagers try to hire any desperate samurai who will help them. They find seven ronin who overcome their differences and the villagers' suspicion to train the villagers and erect fortifications to protect it.

"At one point, the ronin realize that the armor the villagers supply them came from samurai they had killed after a battle, and become enraged. One of them stops the others, reveals himself the son of a farmer murdered by samurai, and calls them to terms. Samurai have been a scourge on the countryside, slaughtering civilians and imposing ridiculous taxes without ever providing protection or safety. He declares their supposed honor a sham if they cannot go through with the one decent thing they ever attempted. Eventually, though four of the samurai die, the village manages to fight off the bandits.

"In this film, the hard-edged men who arrive at the village aren't the paragons of virtue we see in  High Noon . They are veterans of an endless war that has ruined countless lives. They don't start out as heroes, but instead must earn that title and redeem themselves for their failings.

"As in  High Noon, there is no form of governmental authority. The government has collapsed, and the lords who once protected the people have fallen to infighting and destructive war. It does not even occur to the villagers to ask the daimyo for help. Again, like  High Noon , the villagers are unable to defend themselves from bandits, but unlike  High Noon , they have the will necessary to survive. They manage to overcome the bandits through great effort and dedication, with the help of seven heroes, triumphing over the chaos that was left when civilization stopped functioning.

"So what is a western? The heart of a western is not in its geography, but in the characters' relationship to civilization. A western is, at its core, about what happens in a society that exists outside of civilization. It's about hard-edged people scraping by, even excelling, in places where governments can no longer protect or control the population. Sometimes the government is wholly absent ( Yojimbo ,  High Plains Drifter ). Sometimes it's incompetent or obstructive ( Silverado ,  True Grit ). Sometimes it's a major antagonist ( The Outlaw Josie Whales ,  Star Wars ). But it's never helpful. In seeking justice, success, or protection, people cannot rely on civilization to protect them. Instead, they have to rely on themselves or, frequently, a wandering stranger.

"The worth of average people in a western varies. In  Pale Rider, the titular character is moved by the plight of the people and protects them. In  High Plains Drifter , the titular character exacts cruel vengeance on the cowardly townspeople. In a  Fistful of Dollars , the town is corrupt to the core, and the Man with No Name just wants to milk it. The important thing is the societies have grown without any real governing system to control them. The powerful abuse that power without any law to restrain them, but the average folk could be anything from collaborators to cowards to revolutionaries to people who just want to get by.

"Then you have the heroes. Western heroes are men and women who thrive in a lawless land. Maybe they're bold outlaws depriving the corrupt of their goods. Maybe their brave protectors defending the helpless. Maybe they're ranchers who are just clever enough to pull one over on the local cattle baron. But whoever they are, they have the grit they need to survive."