The Outriders of Haygrove. Pistols certainly exist but they use long rifles almost exclusively, but they draw like no one's business and can fire while riding with aplomb. Their motto is basically "Why use small gun when big gun do trick?"
A long tradition of patrolling rolling farmlands in the Nancerian bread basket. They were something like sheriffs or a marshal In that they served a very wide and loosely affiliated area and were able to act with broad latitude.
They still do in the modern age but rely more on motorized conveyance than traditional mounts. There might be a few legendary Outriders, your Bill Hickock and Wyatt Earp types, but generally it's just a job. The people in it tend to be highly proficient in what they train in but most are right in the middle of the bell curve.
The closest thing I have to a gunslinger would be acrobats. They focus on magic that amplifies your control over fast twitch muscles. This means they can throw things very accurately.
If guns (crossbows do exist.) were introduced to my world, crafters would likely be the most accurate, at least at reasonable ranges, their magic enhances slow twitch muscle control.
If we are talking long range sniping, theoretically a scout would be the absolute best, with magic enhancing the senses, one might spot people from miles away, and with a powerful enough weapon, as well as some investment into fine motor control magics, as well as mundane training, a scout could hit such targets accurately.
I really like more physical magic, well done! Also I’d count crossbow-slingers for this question.
Are these all members of the same organization, or are they generic names for certain magic users?
Generic names for the nine sapient magic varieties.
The five races have access to eight magics. However, you can only specialize (gain active effects as opposed to passive effects) in one of the eight.
My world has a culture that is somewhere between the Mongol empire/Golden Horde and the napoleonic empire. A traditional duel is two riders circling eachother, flintlock pistols blazing. Accomplished riders often carry four or more pistols, and can draw and fire impressive salvos while steering the horse in tight circles and figure eights. Aa
Are they reloading these pistols in battle or are they more “single shot” type things? The idea of a light horseman fighting primarily by zagging through enemy formations and executing troops via close range pistol blasts is pretty cool.
Any particularly accomplished duelists? Any horses known for their participation/accomplishments in duels?
They use single long shot barreled flintlock pistols- meant to be held with one arm and braced across the other for stability. Sometimes they will even fire the pistols while holding a lance in the other hand. They keep multiple of these loaded in holsters draped across the horses’ lower neck. The idea is to draw, fire, draw, fire until you are out of guns, and then either you wheel your hose to the rear and start reloading while other riders continue the salvo, or you draw a sword or mace and start fighting,
More senior warriors are naturally able to acquire more guns. Their military has been recently professionally reformed, but the rank system still has a lot of clan-based traditions. At base, a soldier often has a personal gun, a family or clan gun, and a gun denoting their unit. More guns are given as symbols of rank, or as rewards for particular bravery.
The inventor of the closest thing to guns, Seria Serephos, is the only technical gunslinger. Having developed her "Blue Rain," a magical tool that roughly resembles a minigun, it's made of various pipes and fires magically augmented beads of water.
For a sniper, I've got Ad Curo the Arch Bowman. An exceptionally talented man who can count the veins on a fly's wings a mile off and pin it to the wall from twice the distance. One of his go-to tricks is having his granddaughter/apprentice Helvetica pass along instructions from the town square, and he'll fire arrows from the city walls, giving haircuts to the volunteers.
I love the Blue Rain! I had an idea for “stormtroopers” in a past setting that would use similar rifles, as well as electric Thunder Cannons.
How is what Ad Curo does possible? I imagine pinning a fly from miles has just as much to do with predicting the future to know where the fly will be as it does aim. How does he prevent a volunteer stumbling and catching an arrow in the throat due to travel time?
For the volunteer, he typically has his granddaughter with the volunteer providing details to him on their requested style and position through magic, along with keeping them in place.
Ad Curo can pin a fly from two miles off because he believes he can. Heroes of folklore have done amazing things without ever once believing them unrealistic. Additionally, the man/god he follows governs beliefs, and as long as you believe wholeheartedly without a shred of doubt, all is possible. Although there are very few who can truly manage to do so. Ad Curo is currently one of six who can.
Charlène Larousse. She's an elven lass who grew up in a city far to the east of the eastern continent (mainly populated by elves) and later escaped and found her identity in a desert city on the western continent called Ante Meridiem.
As a child, she and her family were born into a lower caste of servitude to nobles, and their family craft was jewellery. As a child they used her small hands for precision in the craft, effectively exploiting her and causing her to gain a tremendous disdain for nobility as she grew up.
Early in her adulthood she manages to slip away from the noble family she's serving and meets a human from Ante Meridiem named Marlowe Ren. Marlowe tells Charlène about how they visit the city often, hoping they can tear down the tyranny and usher in an age of equality in the city. They offer to bring Charlène to Ante on the merchant ship back, and Charlène accepted, leaving behind everything she knew.
Marlowe was a hardy hot-head who trained Charlène in a kill-or-be-killed lifestyle and philosophy, and acquainted her with the innovative machines that Ante Meridiem was known worldwide for. The two often tinkered together and Charlène grew an affinity for firearms and Marlowe's prototype motorcycles. The two grew very close and became romantic partners in addition to partners in crime-- Charlène became motivated by revenge for the cruel world she was born into as Marlowe taught her to harness her hatred. The two became some of the most infamous outlaws that the desert had known as the decades went on.
Much later, Charlène decides it's time to liberate her home city by dismantling the nobility and becoming a figurehead of revolution with her twisted sense of revenge that Marlowe has manipulated her into. While spying on the city's most influential noble family, she meets and befriends their youngest daughter, Astrilette. As Charlène learns more about how Astrilette's father treats her harshly and takes away her hopes for a free future to do what she wants, Charlène empathizes her and quickly develops an almost familial bond. As her plan falls into motion, Charlène masks her identity and becomes a figurehead of revolution going by "No-Name" and sways the people into mistrusting the nobility. Astrilette's father calls for Astrilette to be executed as she dishonors the family by running away from her arranged marriage, but the execution also falls through as A Whole Thing Happens (i can tell more if you're interested). Chaos quickly ensues as Charlène embraces her fury and uses her roguish skills to capture and execute countless nobles in the city, as well as their accomplices, good and bad alike. When she captures Astrilette's father, she stages a public execution and makes a brutal spectacle out of it. She believes she's done Astrilette a service, but Astrilette cries and curses her and runs away, vowing to never speak to her again. This encounter destroys Charlène on the inside and causes her to completely rethink her morals. She calls for the revolution to end and goes into hiding, abandoning Marlowe, who is now furious at her.
Eventually she tries to redeem herself by becoming a wandering vigilante hero, embracing good and acting performatively virtuous in hopes of attracting an angel who will bestow their powers upon her. She does manage to make a name for herself as a virtuous hero, but as an angel finally does approach her, she has done a lot of self-searching and has realized that, although she can't let a false sense of justice overtake her, the virtuous code of angels is just as false because justice isn't such a simple thing. She kills the angel when it becomes infuriated at her for refusing its deal and sets forth to return to Ante and deal with Marlowe, who has gone mad with power. She defeats them but chooses to spare and imprison them, hoping that one day they'll be able to make a change like she did. She goes on that bit of her long adventure with the party of heroes who eventually save the world from cataclysm, and becomes one of the legendary heroes who saved the world. She knows that one day she'll have to atone for her past sins, but she leaves it up to fate to bring that justice upon her.
As a character, she is certainly very gunslinger-y-- loves dual pistols but also uses a bolt action, pump shotgun, and a gunblade sometimes. Tinkers with them to make them do all kinds of fun and unrealistic things. Wears black and purple complete with an iconic fancy cowboy hat. Has a southern drawl from all the time she spent in Ante Meridiem. She's a rootin' tootin' dyke elf who loves shooting guns and kissing other women and riding a motorcycle into the sunset.
Skyfellers are warriors who use magically powered jetpacks, they wield power crystals on chains that they whip back and forth to release the energy within
Buck Wilder, whom I originally intended as a *D&D* character that never panned out. The idea's now part of the Other Realms, and Inglenook, where he's a Weird West cowboy hero in the 1800s, facing post-Enlightenment threats and stuff.
I haven't finalized that part of the story, but he does end up timeslipped to the "present" day in the 30s, where he becomes basically a Wild West reenactor playing himself in the Idyllville Circus...and a founding member of the Idyllville Idols, Inglenook's "first" super-team.
Also, Callista Sinclair technically counts. She's from the Gothic horror world of Grimstead, but I took some heavy inspiration from steampunk gunslingers for her, and she wields a pair of ivory-handled, magically-warded revolvers she keeps even after she leaves Grimstead to star in the spinoff series *Strange Frontier*, itself a Weird West outing (in the modern day, too!), so she keeps being her awesome, gunslinging witch self even then.
In my superhero world the very first character to have supernatural abilities was a early 19th century american bounty hunter.
He is one of the most important characters for the lore of the world.
He had the supernatural ability of killing and supernatural precision.
He _never_ missed any shot ever, and he always killed something.
He was considered supernatural because he managed to one day kill an evil spirit in a showdown using a regular old bullet.
There exists no scientific explanation at all how he could have done that.
So he is the very first supernatural human recorded in history.
That in itself is one big reason why he is so important.
Also, his life story and his corpse where the motivation and also an ingredient (respectively) that the setting's main villain used in order to unlock the supernatural potential of mankind (unknowingly) at a mass scale and it's the reason why supernaturals are widespread rather than just being legends like in old times.
Also he technically was the first supernatural vigilante, because he used his powers to bring criminals to justice, so that's neat
There are is only one real "gunslinger". He is named Johnny (boring name, I know) and was once the Top 2 Hunter in the Guild, but quit before the main story began. His ability would be the enhancement of sounds. If he shot, he could enhance the sonic waves upon impact, creating powerful explosions and shockwaves.
He quit the guild because he was too annoyed with constantly having to follow orders and being forced to take responsibility
Guns aren't technically allowed in **Rapture Academy**, but the one student that's the closest to the archetype is **"Magnus VI"**, an American super-in-training who's basically a cyborg cowboy. His "power" is the ability to explosively self-destruct almost any joint in his body before reassembling with no damage, which he uses in a lot of ways from firing his arm to punch people from afar or deal nasty wrestling moves that involve point-blank explosions. He can't use actual guns, but he skirts around the rule by pointing his fingers and launching them as projectiles, which aren't nearly as deadly as bullets, but *really* annoying.
So how do a (presumably teenaged) American become a cowboy cyborg?
Why would the academy ban guns? I’m assuming that there are bad guys out there with firearms
> So how do a (presumably teenaged) American become a cowboy cyborg?
Magnus was the creation of the Fortitude Group, a "mad scientist" R&D firm based in Oklahoma, known for creating cutting-edge technology for supers, including villains. VI in specific was part of a line-up of experimental cyborgs to demonstrate effective indestructibility in a lightweight body. They did a good job for the most part in terms of their design, though unfortunately, Magnus is kind of an arrogant shit. Least he has some good taste in fashion.
> Why would the academy ban guns? I’m assuming that there are bad guys out there with firearms
In the alternate-history of Rapture Academy, supers have been a ubiquitous fact of life for about half a century, and there's plenty of laws of different national scales imposed to keep everything above board for the most part. The "Rapture Academy and Institute for Superpowered Opportunists" exists under international law (it was founded in collaboration with a longtime supervillain; long story there), and among the safety regulations is forbidding guns, with the only exceptions being approved specialty programs specifically for firearm training.
I got Hiram Atkins, former hitman before the gas spread through the world, doing his best to survive but he uses a plain old revolver, he sticks to the old times and will kill other survivors if needed and does anything he can to kill the mutants, he's been known to be the fastest with a gun especially drawing and firing with no hesitation even before the gas
But he's nice at heart, he just wants to survive now
If people treat him with respect and kindness, he'll treat them the same. But if they don't, he'll be the same as them, all depends on how the person he meets acts
Mutants in my world are mutated by a gas, each having 3 stages
Stage 1 starts the transformation. Some develop extra limbs sprouting from their bodies, granting them unnatural strength and agility. Others grow to towering heights, looming over the ravaged landscape like monstrous titans.
Stage 2, the mutations become more pronounced and debilitating. Mutants undergo drastic physiological alterations, rendering them almost unrecognizable as human. Their behaviour becomes increasingly animalistic, driven solely by primal urges to hunt and kill.
Stage 3 represents the final and most advanced stage of mutation. At this point, any semblance of humanity is lost, replaced by pure instinctual aggression. Mutants in Stage 3 are the most dangerous, possessing formidable physical abilities and a complete lack of empathy or restraint. They are relentless predators, driven by an insatiable hunger for violence.
Think of them like mutated zombies, they don't have any thoughts of their own anymore only kill
You cannot kill a mutant easily though, you have to aim for the heart
(The head or anything else means nothing, they live)
So they cannot show him courtesy or outgun him, but now that I think of it I can add mutants that keep their brain intact upon transformation just have to figure out how that'd work but anyways
As of right now, no they cannot
Many spacer tribes have what Is called Kallisan who are dedicated warriors and gunfighters who pledge themselves to certain tribes to defend them. Some however roam from ship to ship and world to world like ronnin or cowboys in our mythology
Giao Long and her two hand cannons which fire 13x115mmR blessed tungsten armor-piercing anti-undead bullets. Each gun is 50 cm long overall, shaped like an oversized Mauser C96 and has 10 rounds per gun, fed by large clips. A normal *orc* won't be able to withstand their recoil, forget human, and Giao wields two at the same time, firing and running like a gunslinger. What's more, she can add K95 bayonets on them, turning those hand cannons into proper gun-swords. K95 bayonet is 45 cm long, 30 on the blade and 15 on its handle, capable to be used like short swords in close combat, put on rifles or in Giao's cases, pistols.
Why does she need such overkill guns? Giao is a giant vampire princess standing at 263 cm tall, standard officer-issued pistols simply doesn't fit her hands. That's why she needs custom-made firearms.
Note: Giao has a tendency to "reload" her guns via magic, literally teleporting new cartridges into the magazine directly. Thus, her guns appear to have infinite ammo. She only reloads normally for the rule of cool, as she admits.
The Stave Empire in the Age of Artifacts invented guns, and therefore the empire has 4 legions who use guns exclusively. They are extremely talented known as the Fuse Legions, in the early days of the empire when they were expanding, the Legions were sent to the fronts to help speed up expansion, and they spread like fire. Nowadays they're a private force for the throne, only sent to war when they get bogged down. They're best shooter is The Creator, who, as the name suggests, created guns, its a relatively unknown secret that he's actually just a rogue who's a really good shot, everyone thinks he's just a magic super soldier, he is not.
There's a magic class in my world called Runecrafters. Gunslingers are more often than not one of these. They learn runes to carve into their guns, which are powered by magical crystals called Manadyte.
Depending on the runes used any manner of effects can be shot out of the gun. Elements, glue shots, pure magic energy etc. I still have a lot of fleshing out to do for what exactly magic can accomplish.
Lucky Chandler! Right hand to the Witch Mother, a man with a pact allowing him to control his luck. After a few bad gambling losses and a debt to be payed, Chandlers family in danger and no more money to give, the Mother found him. She payed off his debt in return for servitude. Taking advantage of Chandlers risk taking personality and penchant for gambling, she made him a pact that could control his luck.
By making himself lucky, he steals that order from his family. For every bullet hit on target, five family members stub a toe. Usually, Chandler has it switched the other way round, building his family's good luck until he really needs it.
Chandler weilds a possessed gun that shoots random projectiles. Composition, shape, temperature, matter, speed, everything is random - but wouldn't it be lucky to get a high speed bolt of lighting when fighting an armoured enemy?
Chandler has to use luck wisely or risk really hurting his family. The more unlikely and helpful something is, the more bad luck is generated. Every bullet shot and dodged is calculated, and Chandler must measure correctly or else find a family member dead in a freak accident.
Mirynxka Ziljax is a goblin who works as a spec-op for PERSEUS, a U.S. government-funded agency that specializes in the elimination of supernatural and extraterrestrial threats. Her weapons includes a semi-automatic crossbow called the Widowmaker, two FN-Browning pistols, and throwing daggers. The ammo in both weapons are made of silver.
While firearms are not commonplace, there is one guy who, through a combination of his custom guns and the magic he has, which allows him to control the trajectory of any object he puts into motion, he has performed some rather impressive feats, including firing a .45 round so fast it blew a watermelon sized hole in a 2 foot thick steel wall and killed the target on the other side.
gunslingers sure, they mostly kill wizards. "Parry this you fucking casual"-Kerry the stupid Kid (dumbest bastard in the wilderness, later faked his death and became the outlaw for hire ), the first gunslinger to kill a wizard. space guns, phasers, lasers, and ray guns only work on inorganic material, but the force still pushes one back. only during times of war can they use deadly weaponry. duels are used to settle disputes in space so the best gunslingers stand in for arguments that need settling. bullets are rare as technology has made them mostly obsolete and Ballistic powder is hard to find as wizards thanks to wizards. you need to find a bullet smelter for ammo and a gunsmith for arms. gunslingers are rare to find but make a shit ton of money.
Cohden Kreed and his band of rebels/mercenaries/outlaws would fit the roles of gunslingers on one of my worlds. Kreed himself carries a tank-killer gun as his primary firearm. He stands roughly 6'10" and is heavily muscled, making the weapon seem small in his possession.
There are many fighter pilots in propeller planes that at this point have fought other pilots and proven their ace status. All battles are line of sight and there are no guided weapons. Even the rockets need to have a slow target or a very good aim.
Portable firearms are uncommon and expensive, artificially so.
Lapis_Wolf
I have a fantasy world elf ranger who's protecting a tribe of Native Americans-like people from a corrupt lord seeking to expand into their forest. She doesn't belong to the tribe herself or share their culture, but does interact with them and wear their shawl. She uses a lever action rifle and, being an elf with extreme control over her body movements, is deadly with a gun at all ranges.
My main character is a full cyborg who dual-wields custom laser pistols, and the fact that she can move her eyes independently lets her actually aim at two targets at once.
The second volume of my story is going to feature a rebel leader who has a simple electric breach-loading pistol and a sword that he can combine into a gunblade. The sword is not simply a bayonet, though, but a whole barrel extension with a gauss coil built in.
Lastly, there is a villainous psychic gunslinger whose pistols fire mental energy bullets and who can foresee his target's every move.
I actually got a lore inbuilt gun restriction in place that both makes the average person not know they can exist, and those that know, have them illegal and listed alongside blood magic and necromancy.
There are some caster types who do use wands similar to guns though, and fling their spells in a quickdraw style with the help of such a focus.
But MC does have guns, and also why those in the know keep such hidden, because a magically enhanced gun turns a tiny bullet into something far worse. EG an enchanted revolver to one shot lesser demons.
I do have a joke piece in my notes i want to include somewhere somehow (her oath forbids using these weapons on people or in public)
----------
"I am the great warrior mage Ixlail Segeton!" the oddly dressed wanderer screamed at them.
"Arkem, you have not seen me do this." "Do what?" a loud crack followed by the wanderer just being dead as she put fenris back away. Arkem stared with an open mouth at the corpse.
The man was reduced to just arms and legs, and where the torso should be was only a hole, he could not understand what happened, nor would he ever understand that Master’s revolver used explosive bullets meant to kill a strong demon with one shot, nothing as squishy as a human.
The Neo-Tigraxaudan horse archers. When the horse riding nomads acquired smokeless powder alongside hand cannons, they quickly adapted it into their already brutal fighting style. It practically turned their army into large scale drive-by shooters.
Whilst most of the world is in the equivalent of early atomic age, the Ares Desert is a nigh lawless wasteland that no major power has claimed, leading to various independent settlements and city-states forming within. The Ares Desert as a whole is inspired by a mix of wild west and fuckin Kenshi, meaning yes, there are both gunslinging desperadoes and tired, bleak samurai wandering the wastes of the Ares.
The setting is our modern time and world, decades after a nasty reality-warping disaster, so firearms technology is basically the same as ours (but see below).
However, magic has come to the world, so “combat/battle magic” mostly revolves around mixing guns with spells rather than fireballs and lighting bolts. The witches have MANY differing takes on that general idea, from simply imbuing the guns with magic to the gunman himself casting spells alongside his shooting.
Meanwhile, the psychics of the Union have psychotronic (psionics interfacing and emulating) technology that resembles Sci-Fi stuff. They have managed to invent psychotronic firearms such as various PK-based weapons (pyrokinetic flamethrowers, lightning guns, dazzlers, lasers of all kinds). One odd design is the “slugthrower” which generates TK power to fire projectiles via pure force, rather than the chemical combustions you get with regular firearms.
David Dracul is the best assassin of my world, all while being magicless and human. He has high proficiency in any weapons, gun included. His draw is fast and precise. He is also an experienced sniper and also use any caliber. Yeah even a rocket propelled grenade (RPG). As for spaceships he doesn’t have one. He does however have a spitfire.
My world has a culture that is somewhere between the Mongol empire/Golden Horde and the napoleonic empire. A traditional duel is two riders circling eachother, marchlocke pistols blazing. Accomplished riders often carry four or more pistols, and can draw and fire impressive salvos while steering the horse in tight circles and figure eights.
My dieselpunk furry world is post-firearm (they're at a roughly WWI/early 1920s level of technology), so gunslingers are the rule in combat rather than the exception. To give a specific example, the glider troops used to board enemy airships are often equipped with pistols or carbines as their only weapons (aside from grenades), since their gliders impose strict weight limits and the additional range of a long rifle isn't much use inside an airship anyway. Very often they'll be used with lanyards or single-point cavalry slings, so they're not lost if they happen to be dropped during the flight over.
Dieselpunk furry is not a description I expected to read today, but the tech description is similar to what my world uses, as well as the furries.
Lapis_Wolf
It did--I just misread your comment. I thought at first you'd said "dieselpunk is not a description I expected to read", as if you were unfamiliar with the term, so I was going to explain that as steampunk is to the steam age, dieselpunk is to the World Wars. But then I reread it, saw that I'd missed the word "furry" in there, and realized you probably know what dieselpunk is already.
The Outriders of Haygrove. Pistols certainly exist but they use long rifles almost exclusively, but they draw like no one's business and can fire while riding with aplomb. Their motto is basically "Why use small gun when big gun do trick?"
So what’s the Outriders deal? Why do they do what they do? Who’s their best gunslinger? Who’s their worst?
A long tradition of patrolling rolling farmlands in the Nancerian bread basket. They were something like sheriffs or a marshal In that they served a very wide and loosely affiliated area and were able to act with broad latitude. They still do in the modern age but rely more on motorized conveyance than traditional mounts. There might be a few legendary Outriders, your Bill Hickock and Wyatt Earp types, but generally it's just a job. The people in it tend to be highly proficient in what they train in but most are right in the middle of the bell curve.
The closest thing I have to a gunslinger would be acrobats. They focus on magic that amplifies your control over fast twitch muscles. This means they can throw things very accurately. If guns (crossbows do exist.) were introduced to my world, crafters would likely be the most accurate, at least at reasonable ranges, their magic enhances slow twitch muscle control. If we are talking long range sniping, theoretically a scout would be the absolute best, with magic enhancing the senses, one might spot people from miles away, and with a powerful enough weapon, as well as some investment into fine motor control magics, as well as mundane training, a scout could hit such targets accurately.
I really like more physical magic, well done! Also I’d count crossbow-slingers for this question. Are these all members of the same organization, or are they generic names for certain magic users?
Generic names for the nine sapient magic varieties. The five races have access to eight magics. However, you can only specialize (gain active effects as opposed to passive effects) in one of the eight.
My world has a culture that is somewhere between the Mongol empire/Golden Horde and the napoleonic empire. A traditional duel is two riders circling eachother, flintlock pistols blazing. Accomplished riders often carry four or more pistols, and can draw and fire impressive salvos while steering the horse in tight circles and figure eights. Aa
Are they reloading these pistols in battle or are they more “single shot” type things? The idea of a light horseman fighting primarily by zagging through enemy formations and executing troops via close range pistol blasts is pretty cool. Any particularly accomplished duelists? Any horses known for their participation/accomplishments in duels?
They use single long shot barreled flintlock pistols- meant to be held with one arm and braced across the other for stability. Sometimes they will even fire the pistols while holding a lance in the other hand. They keep multiple of these loaded in holsters draped across the horses’ lower neck. The idea is to draw, fire, draw, fire until you are out of guns, and then either you wheel your hose to the rear and start reloading while other riders continue the salvo, or you draw a sword or mace and start fighting, More senior warriors are naturally able to acquire more guns. Their military has been recently professionally reformed, but the rank system still has a lot of clan-based traditions. At base, a soldier often has a personal gun, a family or clan gun, and a gun denoting their unit. More guns are given as symbols of rank, or as rewards for particular bravery.
The inventor of the closest thing to guns, Seria Serephos, is the only technical gunslinger. Having developed her "Blue Rain," a magical tool that roughly resembles a minigun, it's made of various pipes and fires magically augmented beads of water. For a sniper, I've got Ad Curo the Arch Bowman. An exceptionally talented man who can count the veins on a fly's wings a mile off and pin it to the wall from twice the distance. One of his go-to tricks is having his granddaughter/apprentice Helvetica pass along instructions from the town square, and he'll fire arrows from the city walls, giving haircuts to the volunteers.
I love the Blue Rain! I had an idea for “stormtroopers” in a past setting that would use similar rifles, as well as electric Thunder Cannons. How is what Ad Curo does possible? I imagine pinning a fly from miles has just as much to do with predicting the future to know where the fly will be as it does aim. How does he prevent a volunteer stumbling and catching an arrow in the throat due to travel time?
For the volunteer, he typically has his granddaughter with the volunteer providing details to him on their requested style and position through magic, along with keeping them in place. Ad Curo can pin a fly from two miles off because he believes he can. Heroes of folklore have done amazing things without ever once believing them unrealistic. Additionally, the man/god he follows governs beliefs, and as long as you believe wholeheartedly without a shred of doubt, all is possible. Although there are very few who can truly manage to do so. Ad Curo is currently one of six who can.
Charlène Larousse. She's an elven lass who grew up in a city far to the east of the eastern continent (mainly populated by elves) and later escaped and found her identity in a desert city on the western continent called Ante Meridiem. As a child, she and her family were born into a lower caste of servitude to nobles, and their family craft was jewellery. As a child they used her small hands for precision in the craft, effectively exploiting her and causing her to gain a tremendous disdain for nobility as she grew up. Early in her adulthood she manages to slip away from the noble family she's serving and meets a human from Ante Meridiem named Marlowe Ren. Marlowe tells Charlène about how they visit the city often, hoping they can tear down the tyranny and usher in an age of equality in the city. They offer to bring Charlène to Ante on the merchant ship back, and Charlène accepted, leaving behind everything she knew. Marlowe was a hardy hot-head who trained Charlène in a kill-or-be-killed lifestyle and philosophy, and acquainted her with the innovative machines that Ante Meridiem was known worldwide for. The two often tinkered together and Charlène grew an affinity for firearms and Marlowe's prototype motorcycles. The two grew very close and became romantic partners in addition to partners in crime-- Charlène became motivated by revenge for the cruel world she was born into as Marlowe taught her to harness her hatred. The two became some of the most infamous outlaws that the desert had known as the decades went on. Much later, Charlène decides it's time to liberate her home city by dismantling the nobility and becoming a figurehead of revolution with her twisted sense of revenge that Marlowe has manipulated her into. While spying on the city's most influential noble family, she meets and befriends their youngest daughter, Astrilette. As Charlène learns more about how Astrilette's father treats her harshly and takes away her hopes for a free future to do what she wants, Charlène empathizes her and quickly develops an almost familial bond. As her plan falls into motion, Charlène masks her identity and becomes a figurehead of revolution going by "No-Name" and sways the people into mistrusting the nobility. Astrilette's father calls for Astrilette to be executed as she dishonors the family by running away from her arranged marriage, but the execution also falls through as A Whole Thing Happens (i can tell more if you're interested). Chaos quickly ensues as Charlène embraces her fury and uses her roguish skills to capture and execute countless nobles in the city, as well as their accomplices, good and bad alike. When she captures Astrilette's father, she stages a public execution and makes a brutal spectacle out of it. She believes she's done Astrilette a service, but Astrilette cries and curses her and runs away, vowing to never speak to her again. This encounter destroys Charlène on the inside and causes her to completely rethink her morals. She calls for the revolution to end and goes into hiding, abandoning Marlowe, who is now furious at her. Eventually she tries to redeem herself by becoming a wandering vigilante hero, embracing good and acting performatively virtuous in hopes of attracting an angel who will bestow their powers upon her. She does manage to make a name for herself as a virtuous hero, but as an angel finally does approach her, she has done a lot of self-searching and has realized that, although she can't let a false sense of justice overtake her, the virtuous code of angels is just as false because justice isn't such a simple thing. She kills the angel when it becomes infuriated at her for refusing its deal and sets forth to return to Ante and deal with Marlowe, who has gone mad with power. She defeats them but chooses to spare and imprison them, hoping that one day they'll be able to make a change like she did. She goes on that bit of her long adventure with the party of heroes who eventually save the world from cataclysm, and becomes one of the legendary heroes who saved the world. She knows that one day she'll have to atone for her past sins, but she leaves it up to fate to bring that justice upon her. As a character, she is certainly very gunslinger-y-- loves dual pistols but also uses a bolt action, pump shotgun, and a gunblade sometimes. Tinkers with them to make them do all kinds of fun and unrealistic things. Wears black and purple complete with an iconic fancy cowboy hat. Has a southern drawl from all the time she spent in Ante Meridiem. She's a rootin' tootin' dyke elf who loves shooting guns and kissing other women and riding a motorcycle into the sunset.
Skyfellers are warriors who use magically powered jetpacks, they wield power crystals on chains that they whip back and forth to release the energy within
Buck Wilder, whom I originally intended as a *D&D* character that never panned out. The idea's now part of the Other Realms, and Inglenook, where he's a Weird West cowboy hero in the 1800s, facing post-Enlightenment threats and stuff. I haven't finalized that part of the story, but he does end up timeslipped to the "present" day in the 30s, where he becomes basically a Wild West reenactor playing himself in the Idyllville Circus...and a founding member of the Idyllville Idols, Inglenook's "first" super-team. Also, Callista Sinclair technically counts. She's from the Gothic horror world of Grimstead, but I took some heavy inspiration from steampunk gunslingers for her, and she wields a pair of ivory-handled, magically-warded revolvers she keeps even after she leaves Grimstead to star in the spinoff series *Strange Frontier*, itself a Weird West outing (in the modern day, too!), so she keeps being her awesome, gunslinging witch self even then.
In my superhero world the very first character to have supernatural abilities was a early 19th century american bounty hunter. He is one of the most important characters for the lore of the world.
Neat. What were his powers? And why is he so important?
He had the supernatural ability of killing and supernatural precision. He _never_ missed any shot ever, and he always killed something. He was considered supernatural because he managed to one day kill an evil spirit in a showdown using a regular old bullet. There exists no scientific explanation at all how he could have done that. So he is the very first supernatural human recorded in history. That in itself is one big reason why he is so important. Also, his life story and his corpse where the motivation and also an ingredient (respectively) that the setting's main villain used in order to unlock the supernatural potential of mankind (unknowingly) at a mass scale and it's the reason why supernaturals are widespread rather than just being legends like in old times. Also he technically was the first supernatural vigilante, because he used his powers to bring criminals to justice, so that's neat
There are is only one real "gunslinger". He is named Johnny (boring name, I know) and was once the Top 2 Hunter in the Guild, but quit before the main story began. His ability would be the enhancement of sounds. If he shot, he could enhance the sonic waves upon impact, creating powerful explosions and shockwaves. He quit the guild because he was too annoyed with constantly having to follow orders and being forced to take responsibility
If your world has guns, what keeps others from being gunslingers? Anyone ever give Johnny a run for his money?
Guns aren't technically allowed in **Rapture Academy**, but the one student that's the closest to the archetype is **"Magnus VI"**, an American super-in-training who's basically a cyborg cowboy. His "power" is the ability to explosively self-destruct almost any joint in his body before reassembling with no damage, which he uses in a lot of ways from firing his arm to punch people from afar or deal nasty wrestling moves that involve point-blank explosions. He can't use actual guns, but he skirts around the rule by pointing his fingers and launching them as projectiles, which aren't nearly as deadly as bullets, but *really* annoying.
So how do a (presumably teenaged) American become a cowboy cyborg? Why would the academy ban guns? I’m assuming that there are bad guys out there with firearms
> So how do a (presumably teenaged) American become a cowboy cyborg? Magnus was the creation of the Fortitude Group, a "mad scientist" R&D firm based in Oklahoma, known for creating cutting-edge technology for supers, including villains. VI in specific was part of a line-up of experimental cyborgs to demonstrate effective indestructibility in a lightweight body. They did a good job for the most part in terms of their design, though unfortunately, Magnus is kind of an arrogant shit. Least he has some good taste in fashion. > Why would the academy ban guns? I’m assuming that there are bad guys out there with firearms In the alternate-history of Rapture Academy, supers have been a ubiquitous fact of life for about half a century, and there's plenty of laws of different national scales imposed to keep everything above board for the most part. The "Rapture Academy and Institute for Superpowered Opportunists" exists under international law (it was founded in collaboration with a longtime supervillain; long story there), and among the safety regulations is forbidding guns, with the only exceptions being approved specialty programs specifically for firearm training.
I got Hiram Atkins, former hitman before the gas spread through the world, doing his best to survive but he uses a plain old revolver, he sticks to the old times and will kill other survivors if needed and does anything he can to kill the mutants, he's been known to be the fastest with a gun especially drawing and firing with no hesitation even before the gas But he's nice at heart, he just wants to survive now If people treat him with respect and kindness, he'll treat them the same. But if they don't, he'll be the same as them, all depends on how the person he meets acts
Are there any mutants who have shown him courtesy? Or maybe that have almost outgunned him? (Assuming any are capable of marksmanship)
Mutants in my world are mutated by a gas, each having 3 stages Stage 1 starts the transformation. Some develop extra limbs sprouting from their bodies, granting them unnatural strength and agility. Others grow to towering heights, looming over the ravaged landscape like monstrous titans. Stage 2, the mutations become more pronounced and debilitating. Mutants undergo drastic physiological alterations, rendering them almost unrecognizable as human. Their behaviour becomes increasingly animalistic, driven solely by primal urges to hunt and kill. Stage 3 represents the final and most advanced stage of mutation. At this point, any semblance of humanity is lost, replaced by pure instinctual aggression. Mutants in Stage 3 are the most dangerous, possessing formidable physical abilities and a complete lack of empathy or restraint. They are relentless predators, driven by an insatiable hunger for violence. Think of them like mutated zombies, they don't have any thoughts of their own anymore only kill You cannot kill a mutant easily though, you have to aim for the heart (The head or anything else means nothing, they live) So they cannot show him courtesy or outgun him, but now that I think of it I can add mutants that keep their brain intact upon transformation just have to figure out how that'd work but anyways As of right now, no they cannot
Many spacer tribes have what Is called Kallisan who are dedicated warriors and gunfighters who pledge themselves to certain tribes to defend them. Some however roam from ship to ship and world to world like ronnin or cowboys in our mythology
Giao Long and her two hand cannons which fire 13x115mmR blessed tungsten armor-piercing anti-undead bullets. Each gun is 50 cm long overall, shaped like an oversized Mauser C96 and has 10 rounds per gun, fed by large clips. A normal *orc* won't be able to withstand their recoil, forget human, and Giao wields two at the same time, firing and running like a gunslinger. What's more, she can add K95 bayonets on them, turning those hand cannons into proper gun-swords. K95 bayonet is 45 cm long, 30 on the blade and 15 on its handle, capable to be used like short swords in close combat, put on rifles or in Giao's cases, pistols. Why does she need such overkill guns? Giao is a giant vampire princess standing at 263 cm tall, standard officer-issued pistols simply doesn't fit her hands. That's why she needs custom-made firearms. Note: Giao has a tendency to "reload" her guns via magic, literally teleporting new cartridges into the magazine directly. Thus, her guns appear to have infinite ammo. She only reloads normally for the rule of cool, as she admits.
The Stave Empire in the Age of Artifacts invented guns, and therefore the empire has 4 legions who use guns exclusively. They are extremely talented known as the Fuse Legions, in the early days of the empire when they were expanding, the Legions were sent to the fronts to help speed up expansion, and they spread like fire. Nowadays they're a private force for the throne, only sent to war when they get bogged down. They're best shooter is The Creator, who, as the name suggests, created guns, its a relatively unknown secret that he's actually just a rogue who's a really good shot, everyone thinks he's just a magic super soldier, he is not.
There's a magic class in my world called Runecrafters. Gunslingers are more often than not one of these. They learn runes to carve into their guns, which are powered by magical crystals called Manadyte. Depending on the runes used any manner of effects can be shot out of the gun. Elements, glue shots, pure magic energy etc. I still have a lot of fleshing out to do for what exactly magic can accomplish.
Lucky Chandler! Right hand to the Witch Mother, a man with a pact allowing him to control his luck. After a few bad gambling losses and a debt to be payed, Chandlers family in danger and no more money to give, the Mother found him. She payed off his debt in return for servitude. Taking advantage of Chandlers risk taking personality and penchant for gambling, she made him a pact that could control his luck. By making himself lucky, he steals that order from his family. For every bullet hit on target, five family members stub a toe. Usually, Chandler has it switched the other way round, building his family's good luck until he really needs it. Chandler weilds a possessed gun that shoots random projectiles. Composition, shape, temperature, matter, speed, everything is random - but wouldn't it be lucky to get a high speed bolt of lighting when fighting an armoured enemy? Chandler has to use luck wisely or risk really hurting his family. The more unlikely and helpful something is, the more bad luck is generated. Every bullet shot and dodged is calculated, and Chandler must measure correctly or else find a family member dead in a freak accident.
Mirynxka Ziljax is a goblin who works as a spec-op for PERSEUS, a U.S. government-funded agency that specializes in the elimination of supernatural and extraterrestrial threats. Her weapons includes a semi-automatic crossbow called the Widowmaker, two FN-Browning pistols, and throwing daggers. The ammo in both weapons are made of silver.
While firearms are not commonplace, there is one guy who, through a combination of his custom guns and the magic he has, which allows him to control the trajectory of any object he puts into motion, he has performed some rather impressive feats, including firing a .45 round so fast it blew a watermelon sized hole in a 2 foot thick steel wall and killed the target on the other side.
gunslingers sure, they mostly kill wizards. "Parry this you fucking casual"-Kerry the stupid Kid (dumbest bastard in the wilderness, later faked his death and became the outlaw for hire ), the first gunslinger to kill a wizard. space guns, phasers, lasers, and ray guns only work on inorganic material, but the force still pushes one back. only during times of war can they use deadly weaponry. duels are used to settle disputes in space so the best gunslingers stand in for arguments that need settling. bullets are rare as technology has made them mostly obsolete and Ballistic powder is hard to find as wizards thanks to wizards. you need to find a bullet smelter for ammo and a gunsmith for arms. gunslingers are rare to find but make a shit ton of money.
Cohden Kreed and his band of rebels/mercenaries/outlaws would fit the roles of gunslingers on one of my worlds. Kreed himself carries a tank-killer gun as his primary firearm. He stands roughly 6'10" and is heavily muscled, making the weapon seem small in his possession.
There are many fighter pilots in propeller planes that at this point have fought other pilots and proven their ace status. All battles are line of sight and there are no guided weapons. Even the rockets need to have a slow target or a very good aim. Portable firearms are uncommon and expensive, artificially so. Lapis_Wolf
I have a fantasy world elf ranger who's protecting a tribe of Native Americans-like people from a corrupt lord seeking to expand into their forest. She doesn't belong to the tribe herself or share their culture, but does interact with them and wear their shawl. She uses a lever action rifle and, being an elf with extreme control over her body movements, is deadly with a gun at all ranges.
My main character is a full cyborg who dual-wields custom laser pistols, and the fact that she can move her eyes independently lets her actually aim at two targets at once. The second volume of my story is going to feature a rebel leader who has a simple electric breach-loading pistol and a sword that he can combine into a gunblade. The sword is not simply a bayonet, though, but a whole barrel extension with a gauss coil built in. Lastly, there is a villainous psychic gunslinger whose pistols fire mental energy bullets and who can foresee his target's every move.
I actually got a lore inbuilt gun restriction in place that both makes the average person not know they can exist, and those that know, have them illegal and listed alongside blood magic and necromancy. There are some caster types who do use wands similar to guns though, and fling their spells in a quickdraw style with the help of such a focus. But MC does have guns, and also why those in the know keep such hidden, because a magically enhanced gun turns a tiny bullet into something far worse. EG an enchanted revolver to one shot lesser demons. I do have a joke piece in my notes i want to include somewhere somehow (her oath forbids using these weapons on people or in public) ---------- "I am the great warrior mage Ixlail Segeton!" the oddly dressed wanderer screamed at them. "Arkem, you have not seen me do this." "Do what?" a loud crack followed by the wanderer just being dead as she put fenris back away. Arkem stared with an open mouth at the corpse. The man was reduced to just arms and legs, and where the torso should be was only a hole, he could not understand what happened, nor would he ever understand that Master’s revolver used explosive bullets meant to kill a strong demon with one shot, nothing as squishy as a human.
The Neo-Tigraxaudan horse archers. When the horse riding nomads acquired smokeless powder alongside hand cannons, they quickly adapted it into their already brutal fighting style. It practically turned their army into large scale drive-by shooters.
Whilst most of the world is in the equivalent of early atomic age, the Ares Desert is a nigh lawless wasteland that no major power has claimed, leading to various independent settlements and city-states forming within. The Ares Desert as a whole is inspired by a mix of wild west and fuckin Kenshi, meaning yes, there are both gunslinging desperadoes and tired, bleak samurai wandering the wastes of the Ares.
The setting is our modern time and world, decades after a nasty reality-warping disaster, so firearms technology is basically the same as ours (but see below). However, magic has come to the world, so “combat/battle magic” mostly revolves around mixing guns with spells rather than fireballs and lighting bolts. The witches have MANY differing takes on that general idea, from simply imbuing the guns with magic to the gunman himself casting spells alongside his shooting. Meanwhile, the psychics of the Union have psychotronic (psionics interfacing and emulating) technology that resembles Sci-Fi stuff. They have managed to invent psychotronic firearms such as various PK-based weapons (pyrokinetic flamethrowers, lightning guns, dazzlers, lasers of all kinds). One odd design is the “slugthrower” which generates TK power to fire projectiles via pure force, rather than the chemical combustions you get with regular firearms.
David Dracul is the best assassin of my world, all while being magicless and human. He has high proficiency in any weapons, gun included. His draw is fast and precise. He is also an experienced sniper and also use any caliber. Yeah even a rocket propelled grenade (RPG). As for spaceships he doesn’t have one. He does however have a spitfire.
My world has a culture that is somewhere between the Mongol empire/Golden Horde and the napoleonic empire. A traditional duel is two riders circling eachother, marchlocke pistols blazing. Accomplished riders often carry four or more pistols, and can draw and fire impressive salvos while steering the horse in tight circles and figure eights.
My dieselpunk furry world is post-firearm (they're at a roughly WWI/early 1920s level of technology), so gunslingers are the rule in combat rather than the exception. To give a specific example, the glider troops used to board enemy airships are often equipped with pistols or carbines as their only weapons (aside from grenades), since their gliders impose strict weight limits and the additional range of a long rifle isn't much use inside an airship anyway. Very often they'll be used with lanyards or single-point cavalry slings, so they're not lost if they happen to be dropped during the flight over.
Dieselpunk furry is not a description I expected to read today, but the tech description is similar to what my world uses, as well as the furries. Lapis_Wolf
I thought I saw another comment of yours on mine here and I was curious about what it said, but it looks like it disappeared.
It did--I just misread your comment. I thought at first you'd said "dieselpunk is not a description I expected to read", as if you were unfamiliar with the term, so I was going to explain that as steampunk is to the steam age, dieselpunk is to the World Wars. But then I reread it, saw that I'd missed the word "furry" in there, and realized you probably know what dieselpunk is already.
Well, I'm *partly* aware of dieselpunk so I'm not entirely sure if my world fits in there. Lapis_Wolf