[UA] New artefact and ritual

[Stuart Anderson]

Cassady Toles wrote:

> I don't see a feasable way that the gun could be well known.  There could be
> a theory that desperate people tend to find guns, perhaps guns with seven
> chambers, perhaps a single gun with seven chambers, but that would be the
> famous part, not the caliber that most wouldn't recognize...

This may screw with the story a little, but here's how I would do it. Take anything
helpful and leave the rest:

    Have the gun be a "hidden in plain sight" artifact. In other words, an artifact
already famous and well-known to the general public, but as a legend or a story,
rather than a magic item. First, I have to change the manufacturer to Buntline--a
famous customizer of guns who provided signature models to Wyatt Earp and other
famous western figures. That establishes the mythic aspect of the gun, and gives you
a nifty alliteration: "The Buntline .29."
    This is how the story unfolds in my head, and it's way off from what you
wanted--so just use it for what it's worth. The story is that the devil commissioned
Buntline for a special revolver, then was held up by a bandit, who fell in love with
the gun and took it. He rode into Nicodemus KS, a cowtown founded entirely by former
slaves, and hid among them. The devil rode into town, and didn't recognize the
bandit, since he was disguised as a black cowboy. Through a Rube Goldberg plot
contrivance positioning everyone just so, in the resulting gunfight, a single bullet
from the Buntline .29 kills 36 men. That's the folk tale. We know it as well as the
Devil and Daniel Webster or John Henry, or any other tall tale. Nicodemus is a
historical site, and the Buntline .29 is mentioned there.

 There's a folk song, roughly to the tune of John Henry:
The devil pulled his pistol,
And mercy how it did gleam,
He said, "If you don't bring that bandit out,
I'm gonna blow some steam, Lordy Lord,
I'm gonna blow some steam

Herny asked the devil,
What is one bandit worth?
If you don't bring that bandit out,
I'm gonna bring down hell on earth, Lordy Lord,
I'm gonna bring down hell on earth.

You can run with that as far as you want, or show them the following video:

"Buntline .29"
****
1960, John Ford
Starring Glenn Ford, Sidney Poitier, Lena Horne, and Henry Fonda as the devil.
short, intense cameo by Jimmy Stewart as Ned Buntline.

    Derived from the folksong, Buntline .29 tells the story of a western outlaw who
steals a unique revolver from the devil and takes it on the lamb to an all-black
frontier town in Kansas. He meets his old friend Henry (Poitier) who agrees to hide
him. They dye his hair and skin with elderberries, and play one of the earliest
sexually charged interracial scenes in film between Horne and Ford. The devil and
his men ride into town, but don't recognize Ford. As he takes abuse from the devil's
men, the bandit confronts his own prejudices and finally, when Horne is in danger,
stands up to the devil, forcing the crucial gunfight which results in an lengthy
series of ricochets and collateral damage causing the deaths of thirty-six of the
black townspeople.
    The film is best remembered for photographic effects John Ford wouldn't
typically use, including slow motion at the end of the film, and elaborate plays of
light on the Buntline .29 itself, giving the pistol a greasy, malevolent life of its
own. Fonda's expression after the single fatal shot shows that even the devil fears
what he's had created. Sam Peckinpaw later cited the ground-breaking slow motion
photography at the end of the film, tracing the bullet's fatal route through
thirty-six men, as the most powerful influence on his career.
    The film is justly criticized for its mixed presentation of race, attempting to
make a civil rights statement, yet catering to many of the stereotypes it was
opposing. It is often cited as a cold war message movie, as well, likening the
devil's pistol to the atomic bomb, offering Stewart's impassioned appeal against its
use. Despite the intermingling messages, Buntline .29 works best as exactly what it
was intended to be--a desperado western in the grand tradition. Unquestionably worth
the rental.


Now--that's the story. Whatever the pistol actually is, that gets the unusual
caliber, the occult connection, and the reason anyone would've heard about it, all
out in the open. The players can make their own connections about the incomplete
evidence lending credence to the story, and speculations about what the pistol
really was if it was real. They'll undoubtedly be made fun of by anyone
knowledgeable enough to help them.
--Stu



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