A Level 1 Weird West Bestiary & Wilderness Encounter Table

So here is the final bit of content I have made for the Weird West RPG that I thought about sharing. The adventure I am running my play-by-post game through is set around a town named Ridgewood. A significant portion of the module involves tracking a gang through the wilderness surrounding the town so I whipped up a small listing of antagonists for the area along with an accompanying wilderness encounter table to roll off of. I have always been a fan of such tables and I had a lot of fun designing one myself.

I was a bit reluctant to share this here since I know my players are aware of this blog. However, I have always felt that one of the truly lacking areas of Weird West was that there were no pre-made enemies presented for new people that were interested in playing to make use of . Since I imagine only about one or two will actually scope out this post and they tend to be the responsible type of players, I feel like it's more important to put this out there and share than keep it under wraps until the adventure concludes; play-by-post tends to run pretty slow.

So what follows is just a collection of enemy write-ups presented in alphabetical order. They are all pretty much geared around level 1 adventurers; though some are supposed to be considerable threats and are thus higher (one always needs to know when to fight and when to flee). Following that you'll find the wilderness encounter table I drafted up. The listing might be light on the "weird" element, but that is intentional. The adventure I am running is designed to mostly be straight spaghetti western barring the rare roll on the table and one forced encounter around the middle of the module. It is simply meant to slowly ween the party into the weirder elements that can appear in the setting before going full blast down the line. To give a bit more context, the adventure takes place in the Arizona Territory during the time of the civil war.

If you've stumbled across this blog or were referred here by someone and have an interest in running Weird West feel free to make use of these enemy write-ups and the encounter table. They are my own interpretations and I feel like they are pretty solid, but if they don't suit your tastes or needs then go ahead and tweak them to your liking:

Amateur Sharpshooter
Level: 1
Stamina: d8
Fighting: 2
Skill: 1
Magic: 0
Grit: 1
Attack: Rifle (d10) or Knife (d4)

Chupacabra
Level: 4
Stamina: d6
Fighting: 4
Skill: 2 (5)
Magic: 1
Grit: 4
Attack: Bite (d8) or Claw (d6)
Special: Quick Critter (Defense is +3)

Ghoul
Level: 1
Stamina: d4
Fighting: 1
Skill: 1
Magic: 1
Grit: 1
Attack: Bite or Claw (d4)
Special: Characters killed by a Ghoul will arise as a Ghoul themselves in 1d4 days.

Outlaw
Level: 1
Stamina: d6
Fighting: 1
Skill: 1
Magic: 0
Grit: 1
Attack: Handgun (d8) or Knife (d4)

Ronin
Level: 1
Stamina: d8
Fighting: 1
Skill: 1
Magic: 1
Grit: 1
Attack: Katana (d8)
Special: Iaido (Has "Fastest Gun in the West" Ability).

Wolf
Level: 1
Stamina: d4
Fighting: 1
Skill: 2
Magic: 0
Grit: 1
Attack: Bite (d6) or Claw (d4)

As mentioned, below is my wilderness encounter table designed to work alongside the above list of antagonists. In the adventure I am running, I have abstracted the wilderness movement merely requiring X number of checks on this table as the "distance" between important locations. Originally a 12 resulted in nothing happens, but it seemed to me that in a game like this something wild or interesting should always happen. The dice rolls notated after combat encounters denote what you should roll to determine the size of the enemy party. If you have particular ideas in mind you can always feel free to hand wave and pick an exact number. The Chupacabra, if encountered, is intended to be a pretty frightening experience so I would suggest maxing its Stamina rather than rolling for it.

A number of the results are difficult tasks and most are pretty straightforward from their description; with the required check notated in parenthesis. The only one that might need some context is number 6. I also happen to have a rumor table for the town (might share that down the line, but much of it is module specific and wouldn't be much use on its own) and one rumor talks about a confederate company active in the area that people say forcibly conscript anyone they come across. If used in your own games that could always be flavored as something else or swapped out entirely for a different difficult task:

Ridgewood Area Wilderness Encounters
1) Combat: Wolves (1d6)
2) Difficult Task: Desert Heat & Exposure (Grit 2)
3) Combat: Outlaws (1d6)
4) Difficult Task: One Party Member (chosen at random) is bitten by Rattlesnake (Grit 2)
5) Combat: Ronin (1d4)
6) Difficult Task: Hide from Confederate Company (Skill 1)
7) Combat: Outlaws (1d6) + Amateur Sharpshooter (1)
8) Difficult Task: Track Directions (Skill 2)
9) Combat: Ghoul (1d10)
10) Difficult Task: Clear Debris Blocking the Trail (Fight 1)
11) Combat: Chupacabra (1)
12) Wandering Merchant (Will sell mundane goods/supplies and/or gamble cards at Skill 5)