🌍 Welcome to the World Builder's Workshop 🌍
Every great Deadlands campaign needs a world that feels alive, dangerous, and full of possibilities. This isn't just about drawing maps and naming towns—it's about creating a living, breathing setting where every shadow might hide a story and every sunset might be someone's last.
Think of world building as planting a garden where nightmares and legends grow side by side. You're not just creating geography; you're crafting the stage where heroes are born and villains meet their doom.
The Five Pillars of Weird West World Building
🏔️ Start with the Land
Geography shapes everything else. A town built in a box canyon has different concerns than one on a wide plain. Mountains hide secrets, rivers carry whispers, and deserts preserve things that should stay buried. Let the landscape tell you what kinds of stories want to be told there.
👻 Layer in the Weird
The supernatural isn't separate from the natural world—it's woven through it like veins of ghost rock through ordinary stone. Every normal location should have the potential for weirdness, and every weird location should feel grounded in reality.
🤝 People Make Places
Geography and history create the stage, but people write the drama. Focus on creating communities with their own cultures, conflicts, and concerns. A town isn't just buildings—it's the people who chose to make their lives there despite the dangers.
⚔️ Conflict Drives Story
Peace is boring in fiction. Your world needs tensions that create adventure opportunities: competing factions, resource disputes, old grudges, and new threats. But make sure the conflicts feel real and have stakes that matter to the people involved.
Building Memorable Locations
Every location in your Weird West should serve multiple purposes: it should advance the plot, reveal character, create atmosphere, and provide opportunities for different types of challenges. Think of each location as a character in its own right.
Location Templates
📍 Prosperity Creek
Foundation: Built around a ghost rock strike that happened six months ago
Population: 847 (and growing daily)
Normal Elements: Saloons, general stores, assay office, makeshift bank, tent city
Weird Elements: The ghost rock screams when extracted, miners report seeing dead relatives in the tunnels, claim jumpers who died violently keep returning
Key NPCs: "Lucky" Pete Morrison (strike discoverer with a dark secret), Sister Mary Catherine (nun running a field hospital), Zhang Wei (Chinese merchant with opium and stranger things)
Current Conflicts: Mining company wants to buy out independent prospectors, Native tribe claims the land is cursed, recent cave-ins releasing something ancient
Adventure Hooks: Sabotage in the mines, missing miners, supernatural guardians awakening
📍 Salvation's End
Foundation: Former railroad stop that was bypassed when the tracks were rerouted
Population: 73 (down from 300 five years ago)
Normal Elements: Abandoned buildings, struggling general store, one saloon, empty church
Weird Elements: Ghosts of former residents refuse to leave, time moves differently in certain buildings, the cemetery is overcrowded with people who aren't dead yet
Key NPCs: Mayor Augustus Hill (refuses to accept the town is dying), Widow Blackwood (keeper of dangerous secrets), Father Miguel Santos (lost his faith but not his calling)
Current Conflicts: Railroad wants to tear down the buildings, some residents want to leave but can't, supernatural forces keeping the town "alive"
Adventure Hooks: Investigation into why people can't leave, dealing with increasingly desperate residents, uncovering the town's dark founding
📍 Fort Perseverance
Foundation: Military outpost evolved into civilian settlement
Population: 234 (including 50 active soldiers)
Normal Elements: Stockade walls, barracks, commander's house, trader's post, blacksmith
Weird Elements: Walls are reinforced with blessed iron, garrison includes Agency operatives, underground tunnels hide mad science laboratory
Key NPCs: Colonel James Harrison (veteran of supernatural warfare), Dr. Sarah Chen (official doctor, unofficial mad scientist), Sergeant "Iron" Murphy (knows where all the bodies are buried—literally)
Current Conflicts: Military vs. civilian authority, budget cuts threatening closure, supernatural threats testing the defenses
Adventure Hooks: Escort missions, defending against supernatural siege, investigating security breaches
🛠️ Location Building Workshop
Exercise 1: Take a real historical Western town and add three supernatural elements that would change how people live there. Consider: What new jobs would exist? What new dangers? What new opportunities?
Exercise 2: Create a location that serves as both sanctuary and trap. Why do people come there for safety? What prevents them from leaving? How does this create story opportunities?
Exercise 3: Design a location that exists in two states simultaneously (normal and supernatural). How do different people experience it? What triggers the transition between states?
Creating Dynamic Factions
Factions are more than just groups of NPCs—they're forces that shape the world through their actions and conflicts. Good factions have clear goals, understandable motivations, and internal contradictions that create story opportunities.
🏛️ The Prosperity Valley Trading Company
Public Face: Legitimate trading company bringing civilization to the frontier
Hidden Truth: Front for smuggling operation dealing in ghost rock, cursed artifacts, and worse
Leadership: Board of directors in San Francisco (unaware of frontier operations), Regional Manager Vincent Cross (ambitious sociopath), Field Agents (mix of innocent employees and knowing criminals)
Goals: Maximize profits, establish monopolies, eliminate competition by any means necessary
Resources: Capital, political connections, legitimate business cover, hired guns
Weaknesses: Internal corruption, overextension, legal vulnerability if exposed
Relationship Web: Allies with corrupt officials, enemies of small businesses, neutral toward supernatural threats unless they affect profits
⛪ The Brotherhood of the Sacred Flame
Public Face: Traveling preachers bringing spiritual comfort to frontier communities
Hidden Truth: Militant religious order dedicated to purging supernatural corruption through any means necessary
Leadership: Father Superior Marcus Steel (genuine believer in extreme methods), Brother Knights (warrior-priests), Local Cells (autonomous groups with varying interpretations of the mission)
Goals: Eliminate supernatural threats, establish theocratic communities, prepare for supernatural apocalypse
Resources: Blessed weapons and artifacts, network of safe houses, fanatical dedication
Weaknesses: Extremist methods alienate potential allies, internal schisms over tactics, vulnerable to infiltration
Relationship Web: Allies with some blessed characters, enemies of supernatural practitioners, complicated relationship with military and civil authorities
🏹 The Red Mesa Confederation
Public Face: Alliance of Native tribes preserving traditional ways
Hidden Truth: Coalition working to contain ancient supernatural threats that predate European arrival
Leadership: Council of Chiefs (democratically elected), Spirit Speakers (shamans providing guidance), War Leaders (tactical commanders)
Goals: Protect tribal lands and people, maintain balance between natural and supernatural worlds, resist forced assimilation
Resources: Intimate knowledge of the land, powerful shamanic traditions, warrior culture, supernatural allies
Weaknesses: Limited numbers, conflicting tribal interests, external pressure from government and settlers
Relationship Web: Neutral to hostile toward settlers, pragmatic alliances with some federal agents, ancient enemies among supernatural threats
Faction Interaction Matrix
Dynamic Tensions: Each faction's success undermines another's goals, creating natural conflicts that don't require artificial villain behavior. Players can align with different factions based on their characters' values and goals.
Weaving in the Supernatural
The supernatural in Deadlands shouldn't feel like it was randomly sprinkled on top of a normal Western setting. It should feel organic, like it grew naturally from the soil and circumstances of your world.
Layered Mysteries
Create mysteries that have both mundane and supernatural explanations, where discovering one layer reveals another deeper mystery. The cattle mutilations might be the work of a mad scientist, but why is he doing it? And what attracted the real supernatural predators to his experiments?
Mystery Template: The Singing Hill
Surface Level: Locals report hearing beautiful singing from an empty hill at sunset
First Investigation: Discovery of hidden cave system with unusual acoustics
Deeper Mystery: Cave paintings depicting ancient rituals and warnings
Supernatural Truth: Trapped spirits of Native women killed during a cavalry massacre, their songs are both beautiful and deeply sad
Moral Complexity: The spirits aren't malevolent, but their presence is attracting darker entities. Do you help them find peace, relocate them, or seal them away?
🐺 Threat Ecology
Supernatural threats shouldn't exist in isolation. They should form ecosystems where different entities interact, compete, and influence each other. This creates dynamic situations where defeating one threat might unleash another.
Example Threat Ecosystem: The Bone Valley
- Primary Predator: Ancient wendigo (apex supernatural predator)
- Scavengers: Zombie animals animated by wendigo's presence
- Parasites: Manitous seeking fresh corpses to inhabit
- Competition: Cult of hunger-worshippers trying to appease the wendigo
- Natural Response: Local wildlife fleeing the area, creating a "dead zone"
- Human Impact: Trade routes avoiding the valley, increased prices for goods, opportunity for smugglers
Environmental Supernatural Effects
Let the supernatural change the environment in subtle ways that affect daily life:
🌾 The Backwards Farm
Crops grow in reverse seasonal order due to temporal disturbance. Harvest in spring, plant in fall. The farmer has adapted but visitors find it deeply unsettling. Creates unique trade opportunities but also supernatural attention from time-sensitive entities.
🏔️ Echo Canyon
Sounds made in the canyon are heard three days later, creating a communication delay that affects trade negotiations and emergency signals. Some echoes carry voices of people who haven't spoken yet, providing cryptic warnings about future events.
🌊 The Honest River
Water from this river makes lies impossible to tell for 24 hours. Local courts use it for testimony, creating a justice system unlike anywhere else. But some truths are dangerous, and not everyone wants absolute honesty in their community.
Building a Living Economy
A believable world needs a functioning economy where people can make a living, goods have realistic values, and economic pressures create story opportunities.
💰 The Ghost Rock Economy
Ghost rock changes everything about frontier economics. It's more valuable than gold, more dangerous than gunpowder, and more mysterious than magic. Structure your local economy around how ghost rock is found, extracted, processed, and used.
Price Structure Examples (1879 Dollars):
- Raw Ghost Rock: $50-200 per pound (depending on purity and local supply)
- Refined Ghost Rock: $500-1000 per pound (processed for specific uses)
- Ghost Rock Ammunition: $5-10 per round (for supernatural threats)
- Blessed Ammunition: $2-5 per round (holy water blessing)
- Mad Science Device: $100-10,000 (depending on complexity and reliability)
- Standard Colt .45: $15-25 (for comparison)
📊 Resource Scarcity and Abundance
Different regions should have different resource profiles that create trade opportunities and economic pressures.
Regional Resource Map:
🏔️ Mountain Regions
Abundant: Metals, stone, timber, ghost rock deposits
Scarce: Food, manufactured goods, medical supplies
Economic Drivers: Mining, logging, supernatural ore processing
🌾 Agricultural Valleys
Abundant: Food, livestock, textiles, normal labor
Scarce: Metals, advanced tools, supernatural protection
Economic Drivers: Farming, ranching, food processing
🏜️ Desert Regions
Abundant: Solitude, hidden locations, ancient artifacts
Scarce: Water, food, reliable shelter
Economic Drivers: Smuggling, archaeology, hermit services
🌊 River/Lake Towns
Abundant: Fresh water, fish, transportation, trade
Scarce: High ground, defense positions, dry storage
Economic Drivers: Shipping, fishing, ferry services
Creating Your Local Timeline
While Deadlands has an established global timeline, your local area needs its own history of events that shaped the current situation. Focus on events that created the current conflicts, established the major factions, and set up the mysteries your players will investigate.
📅 Local Timeline Template
The Founding Tragedy
Event: Prosperity Creek was founded by the Morrison family, who discovered the ghost rock vein while burying their youngest son, killed by cholera.
Immediate Consequences: The family used ghost rock sales to build a trading post and attract settlers.
Long-term Impact: The child's spirit was disturbed by the mining and now haunts the area. The Morrison family guilt drives many current decisions.
Hidden Secrets: The boy didn't die of cholera—he was possessed by a manitou and had to be killed by his own father.
The Railroad Betrayal
Event: Railroad surveyors promised the town would be on the main line, then rerouted around the area due to "difficult terrain."
Immediate Consequences: Economic depression, population loss, businesses failing.
Long-term Impact: Deep resentment toward railroad companies and eastern authority in general.
Hidden Secrets: The rerouting was actually due to supernatural phenomena that made construction impossible, but the company covered this up.
The Preacher's War
Event: Traveling preacher Father Martinez arrived and declared war on the supernatural, leading to violent confrontations with local shamans and hucksters.
Immediate Consequences: Community split into factions, several deaths, supernatural practitioners driven underground.
Long-term Impact: Ongoing religious tensions, secret supernatural practitioners, fear of religious authority.
Hidden Secrets: Martinez was actually hunting a specific demon that had possessed several town leaders, but his methods were too extreme for most people to accept.
The Stranger's Bargain
Event: Mysterious businessman Vincent Cross arrived with capital and connections, revitalizing the local economy through his trading company.
Immediate Consequences: Jobs returned, new businesses opened, prosperity resumed.
Long-term Impact: Economic dependence on Cross's company, gradual erosion of local independence.
Hidden Secrets: Cross is fronting for a larger conspiracy and his prosperity comes with hidden supernatural costs that haven't come due yet.
Present Day Tensions
Current Situation: Town appears prosperous but multiple factions are maneuvering for control. Strange incidents are increasing in frequency.
Immediate Pressures: Ghost rock vein showing signs of depletion, Cross's company demanding exclusive mining rights, supernatural manifestations becoming harder to hide.
Adventure Opportunities: Characters arrive just as these tensions are reaching a breaking point.
🛠️ Timeline Building Workshop
Exercise 1: Create a timeline for your setting where each major event creates the next one. How does the founding tragedy lead to the economic problems? How do the economic problems create the opportunity for the villain's arrival?
Exercise 2: Take each event and identify: What the public knows, what only some people know, and what nobody knows yet. These layers create investigation opportunities.
Exercise 3: Design events that connect to your players' character backgrounds. How might their families, mentors, or enemies be connected to your local history?
Making Your World Interactive
A good setting responds to player actions and changes based on their choices. Build in systems that make the world feel alive and reactive.
🗺️ Interactive World Systems
Reputation and Consequences
Track how different communities view the characters based on their actions. Word travels in the frontier, and today's heroics might become tomorrow's complications when exaggerated rumors reach the wrong ears.
Economic Impact
Player actions affect local economies. Solving the bandit problem increases trade revenues. Destroying the haunted mine costs jobs but increases safety. Every solution creates new situations.
Supernatural Responses
The supernatural world reacts to player interference. Destroying one threat might attract others to the power vacuum. Helping spirits find peace might encourage other lost souls to seek out the characters.
Faction Evolution
Factions adapt their strategies based on player actions. If the characters consistently support the Trading Company, the Brotherhood might see them as enemies. If they're known for discretion, various groups might approach them with sensitive problems.
Connecting Everything Together
The best world building creates connections between seemingly separate elements, so that learning about one aspect of the world reveals new depths in others.
🕸️ The Web of Connections
Notice how the founding tragedy creates multiple interconnected problems that reinforce each other, creating a complex situation where simple solutions won't work.
🛠️ Integration Workshop
Exercise 1: Take three seemingly unrelated elements in your world and find ways to connect them. How might the haunted cemetery relate to the economic depression and the arrival of the railroad company?
Exercise 2: Create a problem that requires multiple types of solutions: combat, investigation, negotiation, and supernatural intervention. How do the different approaches complement each other?
Exercise 3: Design a situation where helping one faction necessarily hurts another, but where both factions have legitimate concerns and sympathetic goals.
Keeping Your World Alive
World building doesn't end when the campaign starts—it evolves based on player actions and ongoing developments. The best settings feel like they exist even when the characters aren't around.
📝 Evolution Tracking Systems
The Weekly News
Create a simple system for generating ongoing events that happen whether the players are involved or not. The trading company expands its operations, the church builds a new school, bandits hit a different town, seasonal changes affect supernatural activity.
Consequence Chains
Track how player actions create new situations. They stopped the cattle rustlers, so now the ranchers are prosperous enough to expand their herds, which brings them into conflict with Native hunting grounds, which creates new diplomatic challenges.
Seasonal Cycles
Different seasons bring different challenges and opportunities. Winter isolates communities and makes travel dangerous. Spring brings flooding and supernatural awakenings. Summer increases bandit activity and trade. Fall is harvest time and preparation for winter's dangers.
Generational Changes
Characters age, NPCs retire or die, children grow up and take on new roles. The young hothead becomes the seasoned sheriff. The merchant's daughter inherits the business and has different priorities than her father. Time passing makes the world feel real and alive.
Your World Building Toolkit
🎯 Final Challenge: Design Your Region
Using everything you've learned, create a region for your Deadlands campaign:
- Choose Your Geography: Mountain valley, river confluence, desert crossroads, or coastal region
- Establish Your History: Three major events that shaped the current situation
- Create Your Locations: One major town, two smaller settlements, one dangerous location
- Design Your Factions: Three groups with conflicting goals but understandable motivations
- Layer in the Supernatural: One major threat, two mysteries, three weird environmental effects
- Connect Everything: Show how each element relates to and affects the others
- Plan for Evolution: How will this setting change based on player actions?
🌟 Remember: Imperfection is Perfect 🌟
Don't try to create a complete world before you start playing. Build what you need for the first few sessions, then let the world grow organically based on player interests and story needs. The best worlds feel lived-in because they've been shaped by actual play, not just planning.
Your world should feel like a place where real people try to live real lives despite extraordinary circumstances. It should have enough mystery to drive exploration, enough conflict to create drama, and enough hope to make heroism meaningful.