CANON REFERENCE ARCHIVE

Myths, Rumors & Unresolved Questions

The Wicked West distinguishes objective truth from surviving evidence, institutional interpretation, disputed testimony, and questions the setting deliberately refuses to answer.

Reading the Historical Record

Truth Has a Status

A surviving record is not automatically objective truth. Institutions preserve evidence, but they also preserve their own assumptions, prejudices, missing information, and centuries-old arguments.

When credible sources disagree, the contradiction remains. When the canon deliberately withholds an answer, the website does not resolve it.

Canon Certainty Legend

Five Levels of Certainty

History of America uses these labels to separate objective setting truth from evidence, belief, contradiction, and intentional uncertainty.

Confirmed Canon

Objectively true within the setting even when no mortal institution knows it.

Documented Fact

Supported by multiple independent records, though interpretation may still vary.

Institutional Belief

A faction or institution’s working explanation rather than objective setting truth.

Disputed Account

Two or more credible sources conflict. The contradiction remains part of the record.

Deliberate Mystery

The answer is intentionally withheld. The uncertainty itself is canonical.

Disputed History

Questions the Record Cannot Settle

Deliberate Mystery

The Tenth Figure at Antioch

Accounts of the Argent Vow disagree about a tenth figure present when the nine surviving knights swore their oath. One tradition describes a priest, another an observing Transient Entity, and another claims the defeated creature survived.

Disputed Account

The Thirteenth Assent in Boston

The Somerset Compact treats the phrase as obsolete language for unanimous consent. Evangeline Cross suspects a non-human party once held a formal seat. The Court Beneath the Common claims mortal authority has always required its assent.

Confirmed Event / Deliberate Mystery

The Crossing at Tombstone

Sarah Eldritch physically crossed the Veil during the 1852 Duel of Shadows and emerged carrying a ledger bearing her own name. The event is confirmed. What caused that result is not.

Deliberate Mystery

The Missing Aachen Chart

The official Cartographer record states that eleven original Aachen charts survive in separate sealed holdings. Their own internal inventory can physically account for only ten.

Deliberate Mystery

The Ferry That Waits

Boston records describe a late Chelsea ferry operating beyond the hours any reputable pilot would work. Whether it is a vessel, a haunted route, an entity, or a story made operational through repetition remains unresolved.

Function Confirmed / Conditions Unresolved

The Auditor's Visibility

The Auditor is aware of valid supernatural obligations whether visible or not. His appearances seem associated with disputes or bargains that have crossed some higher threshold, but the exact conditions that make him perceptible remain unknown.

Unresolved Questions Register

Questions Still Open

These are not gaps waiting for the website to fill. They are preserved campaign space within the setting canon.

What exact service keeps the House of Vael account from coming due?

Has the Sibylline Circuit ever knowingly altered a major historical event after reading its outcome?

What question did the Hallowmere Warden ask that the ground refused to answer?

What name was scratched from the Shadows End Accord, and why?

Is the entity beneath Shadows End truly site-bound, or a Tier Two power that chose confinement?

What lies beneath the oldest layer of New York’s Undercity?

Uncertainty Is Canon

A Deliberate Mystery has no hidden website answer waiting to be revealed. Unless a later canonical source explicitly resolves it, competing explanations remain possibilities rather than facts.