The Marshal’s Codex

“God left a long time ago. You’re just the poor bastard sweeping up the glass afterward. Make their deaths mean something. That’s the whole job.”

Advice Found in a Dead Marshal’s Journal

The Marshal’s Codex belongs to whoever runs the table. It holds the truth behind the stories players hear, the places they will ride through, and the tools that make the Frontier frightening and fair at the same time. Players never need to read it, and most of what it contains is meant to be discovered in play rather than on the page.

This page is a preview. The full Codex is part of the planned release.

What’s Inside

Chapter 1: Before and After

A History of the Frontier, from the Gilded Age to the Present Hour

• The Gilded Age through The Present Hour: two centuries of history, from the world before the Rupture to the uneasy balance your campaign begins in. Every era closes with notes on running a table there.
• The Shape of the Current: what the Current is, how Erosion was discovered, and what the Frontier’s scholars still cannot agree on.
• The Scarred Land, Born of the Break, and The Broken Wild: why cursed places form, where the Veil-Born come from, and how the ordinary wild changed.

Chapter 2: The Atlas

The Frontier

• The Five Killing Grounds: the Ash Belt, the Scorchveil, the Stormrise Bluffs, the Graven Plain, and the Fen, each with its hazards, settlements, and hooks.
• Major Settlements: Rustwater, Orvain, Palomera, Greystone, Kessick, and Bellhaven, with services and how they connect.
• Cursed Landmarks: ten named places where the land itself remembers what happened there.
• Travel Routes and The Journey Mechanic: the roads, rails, and rivers between, and how a journey is run at the table.
• The Faction Relationship Map: the Relationship Matrix, pairwise breakdowns, territorial control, and flashpoints ready to light.
• The Five Powers, Unmasked: what each faction shows the world, what it hides, and the people who keep its secrets.

Chapter 3: Almanac of the Frontiers

Being a Compilation of Voices, Songs, Notices, and Daily Record Gathered from Across the Frontier

• Part One, Voices of the Frontier: ballads, notices, letters, and journals in the Frontier’s own words, ready to hand to players as found documents.
• Part Two, Daily Life and Culture: how ordinary people eat, dress, celebrate, mourn, and get through a day.
• Part Three, The Almanac Proper: the calendar, a day in each settlement, legends, proverbs, recipes, and the arguments the Frontier never finishes having.

Chapter 4: Managing the Nightmare

Game Marshal’s Guide

• The Tension Pool: the engine of dread, how it fills, and what happens when it ruptures.
• Pacing the Horror and Managing Failure: keeping fear rationed, and making a failed roll move the story instead of stalling it.
• Difficulty, Rewards, and the Legend Track: calibrating Target Numbers, awarding experience, and tracking reputation.
• Downtime: what characters do between jobs, and how to run it quickly.
• Safety, Tone, and Atmosphere: Lines and Veils, the X-Card, and the craft of making the Frontier feel the way it should.
• Quick Encounter Generator: a fast way to put something on the road when the table wanders off the map.

Chapter 5: Tolls and Treasures

A Hazard and Trap Subsystem, and a Reward Framework Beyond the Salt Economy

• The Reaping Ground: why traps exist on the Frontier, and how to detect, disarm, and trigger them.
• A Bestiary of Traps: ready-to-use hazards built by every faction for its own reasons.
• Environmental Hazards and Anomalies: the dangers each Killing Ground produces on its own, and the places where the rules bend.
• What the Land Remembers and Rewards at the Table: rewards beyond the loot pile, and how to roll for them when you need one fast.

Chapter 6: Running the Frontier

A Game Marshal’s Companion to the Almanac of the Frontiers

• Using This Book and the Naming Guide: how this Codex is ordered, and how to create new material that sounds like it belongs.
• The Campaign Frame and The Marshal’s Hidden Truths: deciding what story your Frontier is telling, and the secrets underneath it.
• Structuring a Campaign: arcs, escalation, the antagonist roster, and the web of NPCs that ties them together.
• Open Threads and A Sample Campaign Arc: loose ends worth pulling, and one full campaign shape to borrow or break.
• Marshal’s Quick Reference: the tables you will reach for most often during play.

Preview: The Tension Pool

The most critical tool in your arsenal is The Tension Pool.

It is a visual representation of the world’s patience running out. It sits in the center of the table, a bowl, a tray, or a marked zone, holding a growing number of d6s.

The Concept

The Veil is not a static wall; it is a rotting fabric. Every gunshot vibrates the threads. Every spell burns a hole. The Tension Pool tracks this cumulative stress.

Capacity

The Tension Pool holds a maximum of 6 dice. When the sixth die enters the pool, you must roll immediately.

Feeding the Pool

Add dice to the pool visibly. Let the players hear the clatter. Let them count.

Automatic Triggers (+1 Die)

Situational Triggers (+1 Die)

Heavy Triggers (+2 Dice)

Rolling the Pool

You do not roll every time a die is added. You roll when pressure becomes untenable.

Roll Triggers

The Mechanic

Roll all dice in the pool. Count the 1s or 6s.

When the Pool ruptures, the Frontier answers. What answers, and how badly, is laid out on the Rupture Table in the Marshal’s Codex, along with ways for players to ward the Pool, what a Rupture looks like inside a settlement, and how to pace the dread across a whole campaign.

The Marshal’s Three Promises

• Be Fair: Target Numbers are stated, consequences are telegraphed, and the dice are allowed to fall where they fall.
• Be Frightening: fear is rationed, not spent. The quiet scenes are what make the loud ones land.
• Keep the Table Safe: Lines and Veils are honored without debate, and the X-Card never needs an explanation.