Era 0
Old World Roots
The foundations of the oldest institutions predate the United States by centuries.
Back to Archives
ERA 5 — THE GILDED FRONTIER
The World as It Is
The default Wicked West campaign lives in the Gilded Frontier, beginning in the years after the Civil War. The wider Era 5 setting spans 1866 into the 1900s, while The Arkham Saga begins in 1867.
History Did Not Break Once
The supernatural history of America is not the result of one single catastrophe called the Break or the Shudder. Pressure has accumulated for centuries through settlement, bargains, war, institutions, migration, industrialization, and countless local events.
By Era 5, railroads connect places faster than old protective traditions can adapt. Civil War battlefields remain unresolved. Gold Rush settlements have matured into towns built on ground nobody fully understands. Eastern cities carry older, deeper problems behind respectable facades.
Rail & Industry
Railroads, telegraph lines, ports, banks, mines, and factories make America faster — and move trouble farther.
Ordinary Life Continues
Most people still work, worship, trade, raise families, argue politics, run businesses, and explain the impossible in ordinary language.
Place Matters
A road, graveyard, mine, harbor, battlefield, or city block can develop rules that locals understand long before scholars do.
The World Keeps Moving
Factions, communities, threats, and institutions act whether the player characters are present or not.
THE SIX ERAS OF THE VEIL
Six Centuries of Pressure
Era 1
Contact & Colonization
Old supernatural traditions cross the Atlantic and encounter lands they do not fully understand.
Era 2
The Binding Era
Formal bargains, civic obligations, and long-lived agreements begin shaping colonial America.
Era 3
Revolution & Republic
A new nation rises while older supernatural institutions adapt behind it.
Era 4
Expansion & Rupture
Gold, war, migration, and industrial-scale death place unprecedented pressure on the continent.
Era 5
The Gilded Frontier
The default play era: every earlier pressure exists at once, and the old institutions are struggling to keep up.