West of Loathing wander events
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Random encounters show up as you travel between different regions, or when you use the "wander" button to explore locally. Encounters are generally divided based on the target region.
When not wandering, (ie when travelling), you have a baseline 95% chance of a random encounter. This is reduced by 10% every 5 encounters, up to (and including) 30 encounters, giving you an eventual 35% encounter rate. Wearing the Ring of Gettin' Places Faster can reduce the rate by a further 25%, resulting in a minimum of a 10% chance of encounters. The actual encounter will be a location discovery every 5 encounters, and otherwise an event (if travelling) or a 50/50 chance of a location discovery or random event (if wandering).
Non-region-specific Encounters
| Encounter | Conditions | Non-Combat Options | |
|---|---|---|---|
| Howdy there! I'm Wanderin' Sally. | Repeatable |
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| You encounter an overturned wagon surrounded by ruined books and broken pairs of spectacles. Looks like a family of especially literate homesteaders met an untimely end here. Tragic. | 7th encounter |
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| You see a streak of fire blast across the sky and land just over the horizon. You ride to the site of the impact and find a meateor! | 9th encounter Repeatable in regions A - F |
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| <horsename> takes a weird turn somewhere, and you find yourself completely surrounded by old, dead trees.
Where are you? |
13th encounter [Pale Horse] |
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| You find a pair of saddlebags slung over a tree branch.
Stencilled letters on the side read PROPERTY OF FORT ALLDEAD LIBRARY. |
21st encounter |
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| You see a glint of light in the distance. When you get closer, you realize that was the sun reflecting off the lens of a discarded pair of binoculars on the ground. | Repeatable in Regions A, B, or C, up to 3 times |
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| You crest a hill to see a skeleton propped up on its elbows, looking through a pair of binoculars at the horizon. I guess he died before whatever he was waiting for showed up. | |||
| You come across a horse trying fruitlessly to figure out how to use a pair of binoculars. | |||
| You find a pair of binoculars hanging on a passing cactus. I mean a cactus you're passing, not a cactus that's passing you. It only looked like it was passing you because of your frame of reference. |
Region A: South East Encounters
Location Discovery
| Encounter Text | Location Unlocked |
|---|---|
| You spot a cemetery on the horizon. The lettering over the gate says "The Daveyard", which seems oddly specific. | The Daveyard |
| You spot an old mine on the horizon. Abandoned mines are safe and fun to explore! | Snakepit Mine |
| You spot a store on the horizon. Perhaps you could exchange Meat for goods and services there. | Buttonwillow's Store |
| Your keen eyes detect a secluded cave in the near distance. Exploring it would definitely by a good use of your time. | Shaggy Dog Cave |
| You spot the smouldering ruin of a ranch on the horizon. Ominous. | Stearns Ranch |
| You spot an old army fort on the horizon. Probably abandoned, but there's only one way to find out. | Fort Cowardice |
| You spot a small cottage on the horizon, with what looks like a workable table in front of it. | Silversmith's House |
Events
| Encounter | Conditions | Non-Combat Options | Combat Option | ||||||||||||||
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| Your booze sense alert you to the presence of a rock. Confused you move the rock, and sure enough there's a bottle of booze behind it! | Repeatable |
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| You find a wrecked bank stagecoach with a strongbox in the back. It's too heavy to carry, but too locked to open. | Repeatable |
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| Off to the side of the trail, you notice one of those weird cacti shaped like coffee cups. | Repeatable |
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| Off to the side of the trail, you spot a beer-barrel cactus. You're not sure why they call them that, since they're shaped like mugs, not barrels. | Repeatable |
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| As you're riding toward your destination, a flash of color catches your eye. You parallel park your horse and stop to investigate the source.
It's one of those cacti with the rainbow-colored buttons on it. |
Repeatable |
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| You come upon a wrecked and abandoned stagecoach lying at the side of the trail, surrounded by large clawed footprints in the dust. They look like gila monster tracks -- lots of them. | One time, if don't have Walking Stupid (or the perk Stupid Walking) |
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| You hear a groaning noise a short distance away and investigate. A cowpoke is sitting against a rock with his leg bent in a way that seems... incorrect. | Repeatable |
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| A skeleton approaches you, in that jittery, stop-motion-y way that skeletons do. Judging by its hat, it appears to be the skeleton of a beanslinger. You remember the classic saying: "Old beanslingers die like normal people, but sometimes they keep walking around and casting spells at you afterwards." | One-time |
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| As you turn a corner, you come face-to-face with three bandits pushing a large barrel marked "TNT" down the trail. The four of you stare at each other for a moment, unsure of how to deal with this potentially violent happenstance. | One-time |
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| At the side of the trail, you see a small hellcow - a hellcalf, really. It snorts at a patch of brush, lighting it on fire, then starts grazing. | One-time |
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| You hear a rustling sound and trace it to a small gulch nearby. Peeking over the edge, you see a goblin rustling around in the brush. Presumably it's a Gulch Goblin rustler? Always kind of assumed that referred to a different sort of rustling, though.
It looks up at you and makes some angry-sounding goblin noises. |
One time |
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| As you're riding along, you see some braided fuses sticking out a nearby rock.
Investigating it more closely, you see that somebody drilled a hole in the rock and inserted a bunch of dynamite, but apparently lost interest and wandered away without setting it off. Or maybe they were just out of matches. |
Repeatable |
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| Out in the middle of the desert, you find an abandoned minecart. It's sitting on a section of mine cart track about twelve feet long, which starts nowhere in particular and ends even less of a somewhere in particular. | Repeatable |
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| You find a crate lying by the side of the trail, its lid knocked loose.
It has "FELL OFF THE BACK OF A CART LTD." stencilled on the side, which seems a bit on-the-nose, but hey, free stuff is free stuff. |
Repeatable |
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| You happen across an abandoned crate, which apparently fell off a wagon or something since the lid has been knocked loose. You know what that means! | Repeatable |
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| You find a crate of supplies bound for a nearby army fort. Looks like it fell off the wagon. Or the driver fell off the wagon and was too drunk to strap it down.
In any case, it looks like it got knocked open by the fall. |
Repeatable |
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| You discover what is either an open grave or a very deep and rectangular pothole. | Repeatable |
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| You stumble across an overturned stagecoach. | Repeatable |
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| As you're riding down the trail, a dirty urchin jumps out, points a toy pistol at you, and demands that you "pay the toll" by doing twenty pushups. | Repeatable |
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| Off the trail's shoulder, you see some ancient petroglyphs carved into a rock. | Repeatable |
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| You encounter a family of scared settlers trying to pack their wagon to head back east out of Dirtwater. They're having a hard time getting everything situated. | Repeatable |
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| As you're riding towards your destination, you pass by a building in which a barn dance is happening. I guess that makes it a barn. The people inside seem to be having a pretty good time! | Repeatable |
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| You espy an empty whiskey bottle sitting on top of a fencepost about sixty paces away. | Repeatable |
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| Off to one side of the trail you see a covered wagon, and a small family of settlers who look upset | Repeatable |
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| <Horse name> notices a camp of bandits before you do, and dives behind a large creosote bush before they spot you. | Repeatable [Dark Horse] | ||||||||||||||||
| You come across the corpse of a cowboy.
How do you know it's corpse of a cowboy? Well, you see by his outfit that he is a cowboy, and you see by his lack of flesh that he is a corpse. |
One-time |
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| A few hundred yards up the trail you see a solitary skeleton, trudging toward the northwest.
It doesn't seem to have noticed you. Or anything else, really. |
Repeatable |
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| A ghostly, translucent bandit on a ghostly, translucent horse rides up and points his ghostly, translucent rifle at you, demanding all your ghostly, translucent valuables.
I mean, he doesn't actually specify that your valuables should be ghostly and translucent, but it doesn't seem like he'd have any use for regular ones. |
Repeatable [Pale Horse] |
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| Your heart skips a beat as you spy a floating cow skull in the middle distance. It doesn't seem to have noticed you yet. | Repeatable |
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| You notice trails of burnt vegetation off the side of the trail, which can only mean one thing. A hellcalf is grazing nearby. | Repeatable |
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| You notice a smoldering hole in the ground and recognize it as the habitat for the Southeast Western coal snake.
They keep to themselves, mostly, but they're also known to enjoy a fight if one is thrust upon them. |
Repeatable |
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| Your El Vibrato transponder starts making that bleeping noise that means either treasure or a monster is nearby. | Repeatable [El Vibrato transponder] |
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| Your El Vibrato transponder starts beeping. You follow it to a small outcropping of El Vibrato ruins in a nearby creekbed. | Repeatable [El Vibrato transponder] |
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| You catch a whiff of something that makes your eyes water. You trace it to its source -- a vividly-colored red shape hanging from a scraggly little plant.
This must be the Southeast-Western Murder Pepper that feller at the Jewel was looking for. |
One time, after the Dirtwater chef asks for a pepper |
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Region B: Middle East Encounters
Location Discovery
| Encounter Text | Location Unlocked |
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| You spot the unmistakable silhouette of an old mission on the horizon. | Old Mission |
| You spot the crumbling remains of an old dairy ranch on the horizon. | Butterfield Ranch |
| You recognize the familiar shape of a mineshaft entrance off in the distance. | Kole Ridge Mine |
| You spot an astonishingly large horse apple in the distance. You are literally astonished by the size of it. It is very large. | The Big Apple |
| You notice a campsite off in the distance that appears to have been very comprehensively trampled to ruin. | Destroyed Campsite |
| You see a sign that says "Snake Spring: Over Yonder" | Snake Spring |
| You find a flyer for a dynamite store up North. It's charred around the edges, like it got blown here by an explosion.
You mark the address on down on your map |
Dynamite Dan's Discount Dynamite Darehouse |
Events
| Encounter | Conditions | Non-Combat Options | Combat Option | ||||||||||||||
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| Someone's left a bundle of dynamite on the ground. You approach it cautiously, verifying that it's neither wired to a detonator nor connected to an actively sparking fuse.
What an odd and dangerous thing for someone to leave lying around. |
Repeatable |
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| You find a safe on the side of the trail. Ironic, you think to yourself, that it's in such an unsafe location. | Repeatable |
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| Off to the side of the trail, you notice one of those weird cacti shaped like coffee cups. | Repeatable |
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| Off to the side of the trail, you spot a beer-barrel cactus. You're not sure why they call them that, since they're shaped like mugs, not barrels. | Repeatable |
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| Off to the side of the trail, you spot one of those weird cacti that produce sealed cans of tuna fish as fruit.
What a world. |
Repeatable |
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| Some "thwock, thwock" noises lead you to the site (and the sight) of a goblin chopping down a large cactus. When it sees you, it waves his axe at you threateningly and makes some angry-sounding noises. | One-time |
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| A nearby hissing sound alerts you to the presence of a snake -- or at least, something that sounds like a snake, which turns out to be a goblin cooking flapjacks on a flat and baking-hot rock. The grayish batter sizzles as the goblin pours out some more, and then they look up and give you a surprised look. | One-time |
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| The sound of gunfire draws your attention -- cautiously -- to where you find a goblin shooting a large pistol at some boulders. With the sound of gunfire and pinging ricochets filling the area, the goblin doesn't hear you approach. | One-time |
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| Well, here's an unusual sight -- an old boat out in the middle of the desert. If this were a beach, you could call it 'beached', but you can't call it 'deserted', because there's someone in it. | One-time |
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| Something at the side of the road catches your attention -- it's a slumped-over old skeleton, wearing a wizard hat. I think you'll agree that's reasonable attention-getting.
The skeleton lifts his/her skull and peers at you. He/She holds up a rusty old can of beans, and scrapes his/her thumb-bone across his/her first two finger-bones in the universal gesture for financial transaction. |
One-time |
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| You hear a dry cough behind you, and turn to see a skeleton dressed in a moldering old tuxedo and silk top hat shuffling toward you, gesturing angrily with his/her walking stick. The funeral lily pinned to his/her lapel is gilded, as are all of his/her teeth -- guess he/she was trying to take it with him/her. | One-time |
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| Investigating the smoke of a nearby campfire, you find a bandit snoozing cozily beneath a large and colorful quilt. Which seems like a strange choice for camping gear, right? And then he wakes up and jumps to his feet, revealing that the large and colorful quilt is actually a large and colorfully quilted pair of pants. | One-time |
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| You encounter a bandit who doesn't look very bandit-like, due to the lab coat and sliderule-holster. Fortunately, she's also wearing the standard black bandit hat, otherwise you might not have been able to tell. | One-time |
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| A nearby cloud of dust turns out to be a bandit on a horse, riding hell-for-leather for unknown reasons. Well -- I know them, but you don't.
You pull your horse up alongside hers, and match her speed. |
One-time |
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| You find an abandoned crate, which has "MINE STUFF" stenciled on the side. Which is the worst grammar you've ever seen, even in a time and place notable for its poor grammar. | Repeatable |
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| You pass an abandoned campsite, and an old crate catches your eye. On closer inspection, you find it's nailed shut. Maybe the campers used it to sit on, and then forgot to take it with them? Their loss is your gain, if you have a crowbar to pry it open with. | Repeatable |
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| There's an open grave here, and it doesn't have a skeleton inside. I wonder what they're asking for rent. | Repeatable |
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| You spy a burned-out ranch house on the horizon, and pull <horsename> up to it to investigate.
There's nothing much of interest above ground, but you find a locked door leading down into a presumably still-intact root cellar. |
Repeatable |
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| There's, uh... a skull? Just sort of rolling down the road toward you? Like directly toward you, and when you step to one side it swerves to match? | Repeatable |
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| Before you can react to the sudden howling, a ghost train surges over a hill and roars past, just missing you. Three skeleton train robbers arrive just behind it, and barely avoid colliding with you by pulling back hard on their reins.
The train vanishes in the distance, and the robbers seem really annoyed by your interference. |
Repeatable |
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| You encounter some homesteaders who seem to have run their wagon off the road. Either that or they found a wagon in the ditch and are pretending to be sad about it. | Repeatable |
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| A wave of heat hits you from behind. You turn around to see a hellcalf, pawing the ground and eyeing you with ill intent in its dead, black, demonic eyes. | Repeatable |
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| You round a corner in a box canyon and find yourself face to face with a pyrobove. You're... boxed in. | Repeatable |
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| You hear a rattling noise behind you, another rattling noise off to your left, and a third rattling noise from somewhere ahead.
You conclude that you've either stumbled into a nest of babies or a nest of rattlers. A quick glance confirms that it's the latter. Not unexpectedly, really. This is no place for babies. |
Repeatable |
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Region C: North East Encounters
| Encounter | Conditions | Results |
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| As the trail curves through a patch of marshy ground, you catch of whiff of something worse than swamp as.
It's a stankobove -- a cow skull floating in a cloud of noxious vapors -- and it saw you even before you smelled it. |
Repeatable |
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| A loud thwock! noise draws your attention, and you follow a sound to a man in a once-white apron,
who is butchering a bighorn sheep or some other large desert animal with an oversized and heavy-looking meat cleaver. As he's hauling the implement up onto his shoulder for another blow, he catches sight of you and hisses with a wild look in his eye. |
Repeatable? |
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| Well, this is unusual.
In this wooded area out in the middle of nowhere, a goblin has constructed a little lean-to with a rough wooden counter. It looks like something a kid would sell lemonade out of, except instead of lemonade they've got a display of shiny bits of jewelry. |
Repeatable |