A Heptaverse Setting

Madness & Dust

A Ribhian Games 2d10 Heptaverse Setting

🤠 Weird West

🃏 Deck of Fortune

🎲 2d10 Game System

👁 Cosmic Horror

The Sun

· · ·

The Moon

· · ·

The Phantom

Three celestial bodies hang in impossible configurations above the frontier — their alignment shapes the power of the Deck.

Dust swirls across the American frontier as reality bends at the edges of perception. Isolated towns huddle under skies that no longer behave as they should. Strange phenomena plague the territories — cattle found geometric arrangements, voices from dry wells, the unmistakable sense that something old and vast is paying attention.

"The winds of fortune blow fierce across these plains, carrying whispers from beyond. Some call it chance, others destiny — but those who've felt its touch know the truth. Fortune ain't just luck. It's a power that can be harnessed... if you're willing to pay the price."

The frontier has always been a place where civilization thins and the wild takes over. In Madness & Dust, that wildness goes deeper than wolves and outlaws. The Deck of Fortune manifests cosmic forces that gamblers, mystics, and desperate souls learn to read — and sometimes redirect. The land itself remembers things that happened before people arrived to name them.

Three celestial bodies in impossible configurations govern the ebb and flow of Fortune. Survival demands more than a quick draw. It demands understanding what's out there in the dark between the stars — and why it's started looking back.

Who You Are

Frontier Heritages

The frontier draws souls from every corner of the world. Each heritage carries its own relationship with the cosmic forces reshaping the territories — and one among them bears those forces directly.

🏘

American Settlers

"We came for land, for freedom, for a chance."

European descendants pushing into the territories, adapting to a frontier far stranger than the one in the pamphlets back east. Resourceful, resilient, and unsettled by things that defy their understanding of the world.

🦅

Native American Tribes

"We have always known the land listens."

Various indigenous peoples with deep spiritual traditions that predate the current strangeness — and in many cases, foresaw it. Carriers of knowledge about sacred sites, cosmic patterns, and the true nature of the frontier's power.

🐎

Mexican Vaqueros

"The old roads still run under the new ones."

Skilled horsemen and cattlemen from the south, where the land's supernatural character has a different name but the same weight. Folk magic traditions and deep familiarity with borderlands where natural rules wear thin.

🏮

Chinese Immigrants

"Wisdom travels further than iron rails."

Railroad workers, merchants, and scholars who brought eastern philosophies into the western chaos. Ancient frameworks for understanding cosmic forces find unexpected resonance with the frontier's strange geometries.

⭐

Freedmen

"New land, new name, new beginning — if the land allows it."

Freed people seeking lives in the territories, carrying resilience forged through generations of hardship. Many find that the frontier's cosmic strangeness treats them with more honesty than the society that built the rails to reach it.

👁

The Marked

"Something noticed you. Now you can't stop noticing it back."

Those touched directly by cosmic forces — regardless of origin. A traumatic encounter, a sacred site, a deal that went sideways. The Marked carry gifts that set them apart from ordinary folk.

Cosmic Gift (choose one): Dust Sight · Fortune's Whisper · Spirit Voice · Pattern Recognition
Cosmic Cost (choose one): Nightmares · Social Stigma · Unstable Fortune · Physical Mark

What You Become

Frontier Paths

Nine paths channel the cosmic forces of the frontier. Each follows the universal 2-1-1 ability pattern and expends Grit — the frontier's manifestation of cosmic power — to fuel its unique abilities.

✝️

The Devoted

The believer whose faith cracks the world open

Preachers, traveling ministers, and scholars of cosmic phenomena. Their dedication to a higher calling — whether divine or academic — opens pathways that pure willpower cannot.

Requirements

Presence or Smarts 12+ Intuition 12+ d8 Vitality

Specializations

Preacher Prophet Geometer Occultist

🌵

The Drifter

The survivor who moves faster than trouble

Wandering gunslingers, frontier scouts, bounty hunters. They've seen enough of the territories to know the difference between bad luck and something worse — and how to outrun both.

Requirements

Quickness 12+ Fortune 10+ d10 Vitality

Specializations

Gunslinger Tracker Survivor

⚒️

The Hardened

The laborer who built the frontier with bleeding hands

Railroad workers, miners, soldiers, and ranch hands. Shaped by brutal physical experience, they endure what would break others — and sometimes, digging deep enough, they find something that changes them.

Requirements

Brawn 12+ Grit 14+ d12 Vitality

Specializations

Soldier Railroad Worker Miner Farmer

🃏

The Huckster

The dealer in secrets, luck, and dangerous bargains

Traveling salesmen, card sharps, con artists. They understand that the Deck of Fortune isn't just a mechanic — it's a language, and they're fluent. Their manipulations tap forces larger than themselves.

Requirements

Presence 12+ Smarts 12+ Fortune 10+ d8 Vitality

Specializations

Cardsharp Snake Oil Salesman Con Artist Gambler

🔮

The Mystic

The seer who perceives what reality tries to hide

Fortune tellers, mediums, seers, and students of cosmic phenomena. Where others sense something wrong with the territories, Mystics see the pattern — and learn to pull its threads.

Requirements

Intuition 12+ Fortune 14+ d6 Vitality

Specializations

Seer Hexer Medium Fortune Teller

📚

The Scholar

The observer who names what others dare not look at

Eastern professors, government surveyors, documentarians of the weird. They came with notebooks to record the frontier's peculiarities — and discovered the peculiarities record back.

Requirements

Smarts 14+ Presence 10+ d8 Vitality

Specializations

Professor Researcher Frontier Educator Archivist

🎪

The Showman

The entertainer who bends crowds and cosmic forces alike

Carnival performers, stage magicians, spielers. Their art bleeds into something more — illusions that leave real marks, words that reshape reality, performances that the audience can never quite remember clearly.

Requirements

Presence 12+ Quickness or Smarts 12+ Fortune 10+ d8 Vitality

Specializations

Spieler Illusionist Contortionist

🌾

The Tribesman

The keeper of knowledge older than the frontier's name

Native American shamans, medicine people, tribal scouts. Their traditions were engaging with these cosmic forces long before settlers arrived to be frightened by them. The land's strangeness is not new — it was merely sleeping.

Requirements

Intuition 12+ Grit 12+ d8 Vitality

Specializations

Medicine Man Spirit Walker Windtalker Scout

🎖️

The Veteran

The survivor of wars both human and otherwise

Civil War veterans, Indian War survivors, those who've faced the frontier's supernatural violence directly. They came back — mostly. What they carry from those conflicts shapes how they navigate the territory's darker corners.

Requirements

Brawn 12+ Grit 12+ Intuition 10+ d10 Vitality

Specializations

Officer Scout Medic Heavy

⚡ Spending Grit

1 Grit — Frontier hexes, simple techniques

2 Grit — Class features, common manifestations

3–4 Grit — Powerful features, major manifestations

5+ Grit — Transformations, cosmic manifestations

🔄 Recovering Grit

Full Respite — Recover all Grit (full night's rest)

Brief Respite — Recover ⅓ total level (min. 2)

Rolling Doubles — Recover 1 Grit on class-related checks

Card Effects — Certain Deck cards restore Grit when played

The Cosmic Mechanic

The Deck of Fortune

Where ordinary gamblers shuffle shadows across saloon tables, the Deck of Fortune consists of 58 cards imbued with power that influences reality itself. It is both game mechanic and story device — a physical manifestation of cosmic forces that shape the frontier.

The cards don't simply tell your fortune. They are your fortune. And in the right hands, they can change it.

32 Minor Arcana (Cards 2–9)

20 Major Arcana (10, J, Q, K, A)

6 Cosmic Force Cards

The Four Suits

◼

Dust

Earth · Orange-Brown

Physical world, material concerns, stability and permanence.

Tangible objects · Protective barriers · Strengthened physical forms

△

Wind

Air · Yellow-White

Intellect, communication, travel and open spaces.

Mental effects · Enhanced perception · Movement abilities

○

Blood

Water · Red-Blue

Emotions, connections, intuition and flowing bonds.

Healing · Relationship influences · Emotional effects

◇

Flame

Fire · Red-Orange

Will, transformation, destruction and revelation.

Destructive power · Transformative effects · Illumination

⬡ The Six Cosmic Force Cards

⚙ The Wheel of Fortune

☠ Death

🤠 The Stranger

👁 The Oracle

🌪 Black Derechos

🪢 The Hanged Man

◆ How Doubles Summon Fortune

When a player rolls the same number on both dice, the Oracle draws from the Deck of Fortune — cosmic forces responding to the moment. Characters may also spend Fortune Points to influence the cosmic alignment: neutralize Dissonance (2 points), create Resonance (3 points), add +3 to any roll after seeing it (1 point), or automatically succeed a mortality check (1 point). The Deck is always present at the table, waiting to be consulted.

Powered by the Ribhian Games 2d10 System

Madness & Dust is a fully compatible Heptaverse setting. Characters may travel between all seven worlds — Grit converts 1:1 to the local cosmic resource wherever fortune takes them.