Here's a list of places that have been visited by or mentioned to the group:

The Grand Bull Saloon: The local popular saloon/restaurant/inn, specializing in Southern comfort food (and with Louisiana specials). The nice place in town. The bartender is Roland Frost, and his sister Audrey Frost waits tables. Most of the Posse is staying here while in town.

Underhill's House of Rest: The local undertaker's building, formerly run by Silas Underhill.

The Marshal's office: A small office, with a holding cell. This was where Dr. Evans, the local marshal, works and stores his gadgets. Currently blown up.

The Livery: Stables for horses. This is where Gabby has made his home.

The Oriental: A dance hall. Also rents rooms, but only on an hourly basis. this is where Marina Vanderholt and her seductive troupe dance.

The Old Church: A boxy church, used mostly as a meeting house these days since the previous preacher vanished. Now Father O'Rourke is cleaning the place up and getting it ready for services again.

The Circle W Ranch: Cattle ranch outside of town. Provides much of the work for the locals, either on it or supporting it. Owned by Dr. Ward. Gus Shaw, Tex Shaw, Dave Baines, and the rest of The Dust Adders work the herd here.

Lodge of The Enlightened Society of The Weeping Moon: Local masonic-style gentleman's society. Mayor Bruebaker, <b>Arthur Whateley</b>, and Dr. Ward are members. Mr. Lurch is the caretaker.

Blackthorn Creek: Creek outside of town. Gabby pans the stream for silver. The entrance to The Old Wendell Mine is nearby.

Old Wendell Mine: Once the town's lifeblood, a silver mine that closed up suddenly after some sort of horrible but vague "accident". The lands around the mine are now owned by Dr. Ward. Gus Shaw related an incident of some kind of bone monster down inside it to Gangatsu.

The Red Eye Saloon: The other saloon in town. A dive. Run by Old Crazy Pete. A meeting place and favored watering hole of the Dust Adders.

Sam Johnson's Dry Goods and General Store: The local General Store. run by Sam Johnson, slightly greedy shopkeep.

Robertson's Laundry: Run by the Robertsons. In the house behind the laundry lives Joel and Patty Robertson, as well as little Sally Robertson and Dandelion.

The Western Union Office: Local Western Union telegraph office. Also the local post office. A Telegraph Operator works here.

Miner's Association Offices: Former offices of the Wendell Mining Company Miner's Association, which began life as the First Bank Of Blackthorn. Now serving as a temporary jail.

City Hall: This is where Mayor Bruebaker works.
This message was last edited by the GM at 08:30, Mon 28 Nov 2011.

The area that would become Blackthorn was mostly unsettled land for much of the 19th century. The Karankawa avoided Blackthorn Creek, claiming the site was cursed. When the Karankawa were wiped out, no one was left to continue warning folk away, but the area had little interest to most. It was mostly forgotten until an enterprising panner named Gabriel Clarke followed silver deposits all the way to the bay in 1859. He struck a claim and pulled a prodigious amount of fundament from the area, leading others to try and find the lode.

Gabriel wasn't known as "Gabby" for nothing. He wasn't quite able to keep his mouth shut about the location of his find, and by 1860 a small band of prospectors began working Blackthorn Creek together for mutual defense and companionship. By '63, the miners were pulling enough silver out of the creek and silver-laden quartz out of the ground that the Wendell Mining Company took note of the find. The company established a trading post, then bought up all the claims and began digging into the ground to get at the more profitable silver quartz stones. They hit a huge lode of the stuff, and when word got out Blackthorn boomed.

The town swelled as miners came from all over, lured by the promise of easy money for the taking. Whores, saloons, and gambling halls came with them. Many families came to town, and construction became the town's second most profitable enterprise. By 1870 nearly 600 people lived and worked in Blackthorn.

The prosperity wasn't to last. Many of the smaller claims began to dry up. Weird tales and rumors began circulating among the miners, tales of things in the mine that hunted them, of crows watching from afar, of snakes hiding in every cellar, of strange accidents.

Then came the big disaster. On Good Friday, 1874, the Wendell Mine suffered the worst cave-in in it's history. Three dozen miners lost their lives that day, with many more injured or crippled. Scared by the bad PR and the slowly dwindling profitability of the mine prior to the accident, the Wendell Mining Company pulled up stakes and left town. With it went Blackthorn's heart.

What had once been a thriving boomtown of over 600 people shrank to a third of that over the next year. Many of Blackthorn's young left to find their fortune elsewhere, leaving only the stubborn behind.

But all was not lost. An enterprising cattle rancher by the name of Dr. Dexter C. Ward bought the land south of the creek as pasture land for his herd. Using revolutionary new methods, Dr. Ward managed to keep his herd free of the cattle diseases that had struck down many of his competitors. The money his ranch brought in saved the town from quiet strangulation, although it wasn't the force it had once been.

It's now 1879. Blackthorn struggles to survive. It's not even on any of the latest maps. It's been isolated so long from the outside world that the people have grown insular and suspicious. Dr. Ward's cattle hands, a band of home-grown thugs known as the Dust Adders, control the town with an iron fist. And dark things are beginning to appear in the surrounding area.

The law has come to reclaim the town. Dark and dangerous things rise to thwart them, even as the city resists the changes being worked on it. Can the Marshal and his posse save Blackthorn's soul before it is consumed completely? Only time will tell.