Gunsmoke & Dread — A Free Weird West Cosmic Horror Quickstart for Daggerheart

Hi everyone! I’m Riccardo Scaringi, creator of Gunsmoke & Dread, and I’d love to introduce the project to the Heart of Daggers community.

Gunsmoke & Dread is a Weird West cosmic-horror supplement for Daggerheart, set primarily in Nevada in 1885.

The idea began with a simple question:

What happens when Daggerheart’s heroes ride into a West where a revolver can kill the thing in front of you… but not necessarily the thing controlling it?

I wanted the Western side to remain recognizably Western — gunfights, railroads, mining towns, saloons, bounty hunters and long stretches of desert — while gradually allowing cosmic horror to erode that familiar world.

I’ve now released a free 140+ page Quickstart, designed to be playable without requiring players to already know Daggerheart.

It includes:

• a concise Daggerheart rules primer

• original Weird West combat rules

• a Sanity system for cosmic horror

• Showdowns and Western gunfight mechanics

• 4 Weird West subclass options

• 6 pregenerated characters

• Blood on the Rails, a four-act adventure

• Where the Ocean Meets the Dust, a second complete adventure

• 26 creatures + 2 major bosses

• GM guidance and safety tools

• 28 printable Scene Cards

Free Quickstart:

https://www.gunsmokeanddread.com

I’ve also made a short two-minute trailer if you’d rather get a feel for the atmosphere first:

Trailer:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AQyj-vff8bY

The full project is currently being developed toward a Gamefound campaign, but I’m posting here primarily because I’d really value feedback from people who actually know and play Daggerheart.

In particular, I’d be interested in hearing your thoughts on:

• whether the Weird West additions still feel like Daggerheart rather than a different system layered on top of it;

• how the Sanity system sits alongside Hope, Fear and Stress;

• whether the four subclass concepts feel thematically and mechanically distinct;

• how well the adventures preserve player agency while still delivering a strong horror arc;

• and, of course, anything that simply feels fun, awkward, unclear or worth developing further.

If anyone actually brings one of the adventures to the table, I’d especially love to hear what happened. I’m very interested in the differences between the adventure as written and the story that emerges once a group gets hold of it.

Thanks for taking a look.

The West was never empty.