Death Valley - A Horror Western TTRPG

Howdy Yall!

It is Aaron here to give you the lowdown on the most down-to-earth undead there is. I would like to be a little sappy, though, before we get there. For those of you uninterested in fluff, skip down past the picture for the rest of you. Thanks for listening. I feared that I would never be here. I worried I would never get the chance to do the things I loved in any sort of significant way. But now nearly 150 people have a physical copy of a book I wrote coming to their door, and 50 more are reading it digitally. I don't know what to do with the emotions I feel other than try and thank you all. I hope that the game I offer you will be enough, even more though, I hope that the games to come give you just as much joy! Okay, saps done, let's get to Golems




A heap of grave dirt given life and form-pressed and polished by the life force. Given the humanoid shape, you are a grave golem. Most of your sort are hardy, sturdy, and even seen as “respectable” among the warmbloods. Most Grave Golems hold a deep respect for burial sites and feel a connection to any graveyard, even if it's outside of their own beliefs. 

Due to their innate guardian nature, Grave Golems rarely leave a place, preferring to stay in one graveyard and tend to it throughout their undeath. Golems that don't have a specific yard they return to are often bombarded by other Grave Golems with questions and requests for recitations from the rolling stone. Similarly, Golems tend to share their graveyards with traveling Golems, considering it an honor to share soil with one another, along with stories.

In an odd form of symbiosis, many ghouls and Golems work together. The ghoul facilitates proper burials for dead found near the golem's gravesite in exchange, the golem will allow the ghoul to rotate old bodies out for personal use. While the golem does respect rites of burial, most don't care what happens to a body after the ceremony, so long as the rituals and observances for that person's customs were observed. This relationship is further enriched when the golem is given riddles, puzzles, or other thought-provoking tasks that make it contemplate. 

Grave Golems choose graveyards based on their own personal preferences, but for most, the graveyard must be abandoned. Once they have it fixed up and the Golem has done an inventory of the plots, the Golem will begin filling in vacancies, with any dead they can find at first, but if unable to, they will feel an unearthly compulsion to fill those vacancies and begin looking in any place they can find. 

🪦Key Attribute: Strength (+1)

💀 Undead Boon — Earthbound: You start with rank 1 earth or sigil magic. Additionally, you do not need a tutor to learn higher ranks of this magic. Reduce all damage you take by 1 to a minimum of 1. 

🌙 Starting Banes: Silver, Magic (consecrated ground)

🪨 Stony hands: All quickdraw checks involving your hands are made at -2 

🩸 Healing — Loamy Grave: Once per new dawn, you can rest in grave soil to heal 1d6 life force. If you buried a living human here, heal 2d6 life force or a critical injury.

⚰️Post-Mortem Questions:

From a mechanical perspective, Grave Golems are neat magical tanks! I have also made a lot of their mechanics revolve around the Graves they make! So be sure to have plenty of bodies on standby if you wanna be strong! Thanks again, everyone. i worked really hard to make this world feel... alive for lack of a better word. I know you'll love making stories in it as much as I loved making it. Tomorrow we are covering one of the Classics! They are hungry for brains.

Yee-Haw,
Aaron 

Howdy Yall!

Aaron, again: after we were obsessed with The Revenant, let's switch to something a little less corporeal. THE GHOST!

This undead was pretty tricky, but I am happy where we landed on them.



Ephemeral, cold, and grasping for a touch of reality. When you died, your spirit shed the flesh of your previous life, and now you wander the in-between, the nothing that spreads across the desert, while still trapped on the mortal plane, unable to touch and move things like your undead siblings can. They see you as pure, though, undistilled and raw life force, moving and thinking without flesh to hold it back.  You are a ghost, capable of taking over the bodies of others and making them bend to your will, experiencing their life and senses, a being forced to live in a shadowed half-existence. Only truly feeling what is around them when they wear the skin of another. 

Ghosts are one of the only undead that can be formed even after a body has been burned to char and ash. If the life force holds together even after its container has been reduced to nothing, they still have a chance. Though this is a sporadic occurrence. As high undead, they represent one of the pillars of the black veil church. Ghouls are the body, Wights are control over life force, and Ghosts are life force itself. 

Ferality in ghosts comes from the act of possessing too frequently or losing oneself to the hodgepodge of information while trying to fight it and being unsuccessful. The belief that you are one person while fighting to stay another person tears the ghost apart mentally until they are scared, confused, and usually angry, trying to wander into mortal realms to experience a solid identity, if only for a while.


👻Key Attribute: Empathy (+1)

💀 Undead Boon — Possession: You may possess a willing living mortal and use their body as your own (though all your stats remain the same) if the target is unwilling, roll an Empathy check vs the target's Grit. While you are possessing a target, you have access to their memories. If the possessed takes damage, you will take that same Damage. If the possessed entity dies, you may continue puppeting the body, but it will become useless in D6 days, meaning the body will be unresponsive and non-moving. 

🌙 Starting Banes: Silver, Salt

🫥 Intangible: While you aren't possessing a mortal, you can't interact with the physical world.

🩸 Healing — Squatters life: Once per new dawn, if you are possessing a living body, heal 1d6 life force (the mortal heals to). If a body you are possessing dies, you may consume their life force and heal 1d6 immediately or heal a critical Injury. You may also kill a body you are possessing to heal 2d6 or a critical injury. 

⚰️Post-Mortem Questions:

Aside from the above, ghosts have a lot of unique abilities that alter their interactions with the world and magic. I hope you think the ghosts are cool! Tim should be coming forward with a Special announcement next week or so! Next time we will be getting a little more down to earth.

Yee-Haw,
Aaron

Howdy Yall!

Aaron Again, this time bringing you an update on the favorite form of the polls, The Revenant.


You know exactly who you were. You know exactly what happened to you. You have something that needs doing. One look in your dead eyes, burning with the need for swift revenge, and they'll know that you are a revenant. You are purpose in its truest form.

  Unlike other Undead, Revenants can only exist if they have a purpose. Most of the time, that purpose is bloody revenge, but if a Revenant is strong-willed enough, they can manage their nature through Obsession.  Older Revenants can even exist as dark protectors of some places if they fight through enough obsessions to learn to control their curse.

Undead only really fear two things most nights. One is a feral undead; there isn't much worse than that. Two is a Sane revenant. This fear tends to ostracize Revenants to the outskirts of Bardos Bluff, though occasionally, if a revenant gets into a position of authority, they tend to stay there.

Revenants as a people don't have much in the way of culture; their obsessions tend to make them loners by nature and incapable of putting down roots unless they are supremely strong-willed.

Revenants are the Spirits of Vengeance and Death Valley's most ruthless inhabitants.

⚡️Key Attribute: Agility (+1)

💀 Undead Boon — Goal-Oriented:  You and your law master come up with the purpose of your Revenant. This goal needs to be specific and capable of completion. Whenever you perform a check that leads to your goals' completion, you may push that roll once a day without spending a Resolve (rerolling woes still cost Resolve). As you complete goals and move on to new goals, they may become more vague and generalized. 

🌙 Starting Banes: Silver, Fire

❓Without purpose: When engaging in any activity that inhibits or impedes your goal suffer one Resolve damage. 

🩸 Healing — Unyielding will: 

Once per new dawn, if you are in pursuit of your goal, heal 1d6 life force. This may be done at any time and is instantaneous. (yes, even during combat). If you torture a Human standing between you and your goal, heal 2d6 or a critical injury. 

⚰️Post-Mortem Questions:

Hope you like the Revs! Tim says the quick start guides are nearly ready, and I'm excited to get that in everyone's hands. I think tomorrow I am gonna give you guys a little sneak peek at the Scenario that will be in the Core book and a chance to help me out a little ;).

Talk to Y'all later!

Yee-haw,
Aaron

P.S. Dont forget to check out the actual play!

https://youtu.be/d40IOdsB5kA?si=LRb8vU-Hb80wPpoI

Howdy!

Aaron here.

I apologize for the lack of updates over the last week the convention train is hitting hard! Anyway, I'm back with a ton of updates on the project. But first here is a pic of Team Critical Kit all over the world last week!



First up, the first two episodes of the Death Valley actual play are now up on YouTube. Go watch the creators attempt to find a powerful artefact in Scorpion Gulch.

Next, Tim is doing some final editing of the Quick Start guide so expect that imminently. That will be free for you to download and try.

Finally, we will have some big news next week about something that all backers are going to receive as part of the project. You don't want to miss that, so please ensure you're following the project (or back us) to keep updated.

That's all for now, but normal service will resume over the weekend with a close look at another type of undead you can play!

Yee-haw,

Aaron 

Hey there,

Tim here, back with another daily update introducing the undead forms you can play in Death Valley.

Yesterday things got heated with the Hellhounds… so today, let’s cool off with something that prefers to be away from sunlight: vampires

You look almost human, but just a little too pale, your eyes a little too sharp, your toothy smile a little too practiced; close enough to walk among the living, but unmistakably something else beneath the skin. Most folk won’t question it, which makes Vampires the perfect bridge between the living and the dead - charming, composed, and dangerous.

Vampires are the most venerated of the undead, the aristocracy of the Black Veil Church and the de facto leaders of the civilized undead world. Their control, their grace, and their resistance to ferality have made them the figureheads of unlife.

But power comes with its burdens. Vampires outside the Church’s grasp find few allies. Their reputation, their elegance, even their trust are all wrapped up in the institution that made them. To walk alone is to risk being hunted by your own kind.

Newly turned Vampires are often tragic. They may try to go back to families, lovers, old jobs and their former lives, unaware of how cruel the daylight is to them. The Church rushes to capture these fledglings not only to prevent chaos, but to fold them into its ranks before they can think too freely.

Their style mirrors their theology: black veils, layered robes, and garments heavy enough to shield from the hateful sun. The color is practical and devotional, a sign of reverence to the night that shelters them. Some, weary of the endless centuries, choose torpor, a self-imposed sleep that can last decades or centuries. They dream their griefs away, waking only when the world changes or the hunger becomes too much to ignore.

The vampires of Death Valley are the keepers of undead civilization and its most refined predators.

🩸 Key Attribute: Empathy (+1)

💀 Undead Boon — Charmer: Add +2 dice when persuading or lying with your Poker Face skill. Humans cannot tell you are undead unless exposed to a bane.

🌙 Starting Banes: Silver, Wooden (piercing) damage

☀️ Daylight Robbery: In daylight, all checks suffer –1. When struck in daylight, take +1 damage.

Once per dawn, drink blood from a human to recover 1d6 Life Force (or 2d6/one Critical Injury if drained to death). You may also drink at any time to regain 1d6 Resolve.

Tomorrow, we’ll meet another denizen of Death Valley.

Until then, stay in the shade.

Tim