History TabletopGame / Deadlands

The forthcoming {{Midquel}} ''Deadlands: Noir'' will be set in New Orleans in the 1930s. Expect zombies.

* Deadlands: Noir (upcoming)

* AbrahamLincoln: [[spoiler: Harrowed]] after his untimely death.

* HistoricalDomainCharacter: Almost every memorable western character makes an appearance. Wild Bill, Wyatt Earp, Doc Holliday, AbrahamLincoln, Calamity Jane, Seth Bullock, Jefferson Davis, Robert E. Lee, Ulysess S. Grant, Curly Bill Brocious, Santa Anna... the list goes on and on.

* AbsurdlyHighStakesGame: Hucksters rely on this- in ''Reloaded'', low mana gain is offset by their ability to bet bits of their soul on poker hands for free mana. Getting a high hand gives you increasing amounts of mana, but losing and not being able to pay for the spell can have any number of unpleasant consequences. In ''Deadlands Classic'' poker is part of the spellcasting mechanic, in play as well as in-'verse, and the critical failure table for huckster magic is the harshest one this troper has seen.

** Cankers are horrific critters with elements of spiders, crabs and octopi, which spontaneously manifest in the stomaches of people suffering depression, worry or stress. They grow bigger and bigger, eating the organs of their host until eventually they suck the eyes out from inside and replace them by extending their own eyestalks up to sit inside the hole. ''And the host is still alive through all this because the Canker grows appendages to replace the organs it eats''.

* SupportingLeader: Abraham Lincoln, Robert E. Lee, Alan Pinkerton, and Ulysses S. Grant are all important figures that command the forces of good and dole out missions to the player characters.

** The above is one of the official stances of the Agency, at least in-house, though they're much more inclined to shoot it if there's any doubt.

* DidNotDoTheResearch: One of the few ways to guarantee someone can't rise from the dead, even as Harrowed, is fatal brain trauma. Wild Bill and Abaraham Lincoln, both killed by this method, still rise as Harrowed in Deadlands canon.

* ThemagicComesBack: The return of magic is one of the major events that kicks off all of the weirdness.

* FossilRevival: Living Fossils

** Partially averted in the case of player-character and good NPC voodooists; a decent background on the actual religion is given in the rules. Some of the Hollywood imagery is still used for the rituals, though, and the spells include the venerable "voodoo doll."

* NiceJobBreakingItHero: Many characters (PC or otherwise) can easily get involved with things that indirectly speed up the reckoning, everything from [[spoiler:maintaining TheMasquerade]], to [[spoiler:being a Grifter, ''period'']] can help the manitou in small ways, though the good the PCs manage to do will still outweigh this over time.

* Deadlands: Doomtown (card game)

* SortingAlgorithmOfEvil: Averted. WordOfGod explicitly says there are no "levels" to indicate how a monster will fare against your party, specifically because they wanted to avoid this trope. * SpaceWestern: ''Deadlands: Lost Colony''

A mixture of MadMax and {{Terminator}}'s future-war setting with now-overt supernaturalism, the best of the Wasted West manages to hold on to the rugged Western feel of its predecessor while slathering on every AfterTheEnd schtick you can imagine, and ramping up the horror and violence to levels more outre than the {{Masquerade}}-ridden Weird West.

* GeniusBonus: As noted in the corebook, "Harrowed" means "Dragged (forth) from the earth". The word is used as the terminology for sentient undead.