The town of Covenant is not the oldest in Texas, but it has been there for a while. The land was originally Comanche, and was settled in the 1850s by German settlers who made peace with the tribe and lived in relative harmony until the Red River War and the US Cavalry forced the natives north to Oklahoma. With the settlers came old beliefs as well as their Christian faith, and Covenant was always a place that hold a bit more with the old superstitions than its neighbors. The settlers founded horse and cattle ranches, set up farms, and built the Lutheran church that still towers over the town. But still, the old faith was a background song to the whole affair, and there was always whispers of a cadre of women with strange ways who were the unseen patrons of the town.

People learned not to question much in Covenant, and let sleeping dogs lie in the dust. But recently, the town has suffered tragedies. There have been unexpected deaths, and strange visitors coming out to the land that is plagued by the dust storms and black blizzards. Weird noises and strange visions appear in the night to those who venture outside. And some of the locals have been acting more strange than usual.

But towns are made up of many parts. Some parts have been there forever. Other parts they could not remember being without. And others are unwanted outside influences, depending on who you talk to. Here are the various factions, sections, and divisions within the town of Covenant.

Institutions

First Covenant Lutheran

First Covenant Lutheran is a cornerstone of the Covenant community. The oldest church in the area was founded the same time as the town, reflecting the German Lutheran heritage of the settlers who first came here. The services have changed over the decades from German to English, but it is still the only church building in town. The Baptists make noise about founding a full congregation here, but outside of their makeshift revivals, nothing has come of that.

The pastor Joseph Schaefer is a disciplined and learned man who was assigned to the congregation a decade ago, and he’s respected for his even disposition and humble faith in God. However, he seems distracted lately and his pleas for faith and devotion have taken on a more desperate air as the strange foreboding comes over the town. He moved to Covenant with his sister Meredith Schaefer, who used to be more active and visible in the church but has become more introverted lately. Rumors are just rumors to the cause, but she seems to be going through some crisis of her own, with tales of erratic and eccentric behavior circulating around town.

Assisting the pastor is Deacon Daniel Thornburg, a native son of the town who’s lived here most of his life. He was called to service and has been under the pastor’s instruction. He’s more involved in charity efforts and more mundane matters of the church, as is a deacon’s role. He’s become involved with the local fraternal organization, the Fraternal Order of St. Michael, and hopes to promote more collaborations between the church and the order in these trying times.

Lin’s General Store

The Lins may not originally be From Around Here, but nonetheless even the most insular folks in town have to grudgingly admit that they’re delightful people, if not slightly odd. 

The facts are fairly simple – Mr. Lin rolled into town before the Crash, coming from somewhere on the West Coast with a lot of pride and enough capital to buy himself the old General Store that old Bill Norton had been looking to sell for ages. Those who have gotten to know him have gathered that he’s from California, either Los Angeles or San Francisco, that he was born in the United States, and that he’s not inclined to be satisfied with being shoved into some West Coast Chinatown to scramble for the odd jobs that white folks feel themselves too good to do. But despite that rejection of his community’s norms, Mr. Lin quickly became known for being a good listener, and an even better mediator when it came to cooling the tempers of his hot-headed neighbors. 

Everyone also knows that after his first year operating the General Store in Covenant, Mr. Lin apparently had set aside enough capital to wire back home, and that just a few weeks after the first anniversary of Lin’s opening of his store, his family arrived in town. His wife, Mercedes, a strong-willed and outspoken modern woman. His mother, Suchun, a gracefully aging and grandmotherly matriarch. And his sister-in-law, Carmen, a dark-eyed woman with an independent streak a mile wide. Instead of chaos or upheaval, however, the arrival of the extended family only seems to have made the general store run more smoothly, with the husband and wife duo seamlessly working in tandem with assistance from the sister-in-law, who carries on her own side business selling folk magic and herbal remedies from the storage room. 

For some time, the family seemed to have quite an idyllic, if not slightly boring, life. Then when the Crash hit, when the Black Blizzards began sweeping across the plains and bringing with them a seemingly endless string of displaced workers, everything changed. Mr. Lin spends much of his time acting as a mediator between the leadership of Covenant and the Okies who try to stay in town, aided by his sister-in-law who passionately advocates for the increasing numbers of displaced Latinos as nationwide sentiment begins to turn increasingly against them. Mercedes takes on more and more of the every-day operations of the store itself, though she’s been increasingly at odds with the more “traditionally-minded” members of Covenant’s citizenry who think a woman’s place is to be seen and not heard. And Suchun, though still the kind and grandmotherly matriarch, has seemed increasingly preoccupied with matters of the soul and her own inevitably looming mortality, and has been seen from time to time in the company of one of the stranger investors from out of town.  

With the sudden surge of chaos coming to town, the Lins stand to have much to gain by leveraging their unique position as mediators and outsiders in the position to advocates for others… and much to lose if certain truths about them come to the surface. 

The Collectors

Once upon a time, Judge Hargrave was known to be the fairest judge in all of Texas. They rode the Circuit with their entourage bringing justice to places that wouldn’t know its touch without him. Over the past few years, however, people have begun noticing a definite change in the Judge. 

Where once they advocated for fairness, now they talk only of Justice. Some of this can be explained by just getting on in years, but many say that something else had to have happened. Something that put some steel in the Judge’s spine. Whether or not this is a good thing people disagree on. Especially those familiar with who they are, vs who they were.

Their retinue and their routine hasn’t changed much over the years. Judges are often creatures of habit, after all. Only to be expected from people who travel in literally the same circles year after year. 

Which makes it all the more strange that, for the first time in decades, Hargrave has changed their circuit to arrive in town today.

The Covenant Observer

Covenant isn’t a particularly large or important town, but it’s citizenry still have at least a passing interest in the goings on of the local area and the surrounding county. And for over 50 years, that interest has been served by the diligent reporters at the Covenant Observer… all two of them. 

The Covenant Observer is a single-sheet paper that is published thrice a week, and has certainly fallen on some hard times in the past few years as folks have been forced to increasingly tighten their purse strings. Currently, its staff consist oof only two individuals, a bright eyed and hopeful young journalist fresh out of high school with a knack for engaging writing, and the seasoned owner of the publication, an old timer who inherited stewardship of the paper along with the mantle of responsibility from their own father, rest his soul. 

But what the Observer’s staff lack in wealth, they more than make up for in dedication to upholding the freedom of the press and in bringing the truth to light in a town that’s got enough secrets and odd machinations going on in it on any given day of the week to fill the pages of the largest publications from back East thrice over. And they’re dedicated to bringing those truths, those secrets, those social and political machinations, to the attentions of the citizens of Covenant. The old timer in charge of the paper grew up doing everything from sweeping floors to setting type to working the manual printing press still in use to this day, and they remember seeing their father stand up to pressure from many a mayor, sheriff, and self-important society member without flinching, and they have no intention of dishonoring his memory by backing down from the truth now. 

The Crossroads Saloon

The Crossroads Saloon is a place where all can find shelter, entertainment, and a place to lay their head. Everyone is welcome so long as they abide by the rules and settle their tab. 

Smiley, The Bartender is friendly, and pours heavy. They’re the hands-on type and a hard-worker. They’re almost always on duty, right there behind the bar, ready to greet friends old and new alike with a ready smile and just the right drink. They always make sure there’s good food on the stove, and plenty of entertainment! Only thing is, they’re a stickler for rules and good manners. 

Heaven help whoever offends the Bartender, because no one else can.

The Crossroads has got the friendliest staff, and every customer swears they’re treated like a king from some distant lands! People who like games of chance can sit down at Rider’s table, and play a friendly game of cards or dice, (Player’s choice, but the Dealer insists on using his deck and dice). Even Nelle, the Bouncer, is incredibly friendly. Most of the time.

Lately, locals and regulars note that there’s been a lot more strange types rolling through. But everyone knows why. Everyone who comes through town simply MUST Stop at the Crossroads.

It’s practically the rules.

The Fraternal Order of St. Michael

The Fraternal Order of St. Michael has been a pillar of the respectable parts of Covenant for over ten years now. Founded by the town doctor Emmett Lawson when he came into town, the local chapter has drawn in a collection of conservative and influential members of the community. They meet in secret, as is the way of such fraternal orders, which causes some of the more religious types to view them with suspicion. Still, they have regular funding drives for the less fortunate, fund free clinics for the less fortunate, and collect funds for a children’s hospital in the county.

They have their controversies, however. They have promoted temperance and campaigned for Covenant to be a dry town. They have spoken with suspicion about the association of women who seem to meet under strange circumstances here in Covenant, and the folk magic of the local Mexicans. And they have been less than kind toward the Okies and other outsiders that have found themselves here.

Their charity seems reserved for those whom they think deserving and who are “supposed” to be here, whatever that means.

The Law

Every town needs someone to keep the peace. At least that’s what the ones “keeping the peace” love to say. …Regardless of their own crimes. 

Ethan Torres is the very image of a lawman. Fast, Smart, and with an ironhard sense of justice. He’s been keeping order in the town for almost a decade. Ever since he won his first election. Folks’ll tell you that his daddy won the race for him, but even if that’s the case, few people would tell you he’s been anything less than fair. 

His office has been running like a well-oiled machine almost since day one. Ethan’ll tell you that’s because the old man stuck around to mind the shop when he’s out on the job. A few people say the old man’s the one who’s really in charge, but Ethan waves that off. “Doesn’t it make sense to listen to experience?” After all. 

Regardless, Ethan and his posse do their best to try to be fair, and every so often they fall a little short. But they’re only human, after all. They do their best for members of the town, but they’ll outright say they’ve got little love for outsiders. (Prime reason Ethan had that new fellow join the team! Now if he’d just listen to him every once in a while.) 

Those who have been coming here awhile are basically family, but that word basically does a LOT of heavy lifting. They also USED to be pretty tight with old Judge Hargrave. But over the last few years, Hargrave has been trying to push his own sense of justice and order on the people of the town, and the Sheriff’s office can’t have that. 

There’s only room for One Law in this town, after all.

The Mayor’s Office

The humble outcropping of democracy in the small town, the Mayor’s Office was once an easy job with mainly ceremonial duties. But as the Depression’s realities have come to Coven, the Mayor and others have been under more pressure to do something – to do something about the vagrants, to do something about the hungry, to do something about the creditors and debt collectors descending upon the town residents, to do something about anything. The Dust Bowl is beginning to force the matter, as the sleepy town is dealing with more and more outsiders and the locals have begun to suffer.

Mayor Bruckmann is a kind man but some are beginning to suspect he’s unsuitable for the job. He was made for more prosperous times, and his own lot in life has remained mostly unchanged. He ran to open town meetings and attend small parties, not to deal with the kind of problems that the town now faces. It’s an open secret that his wife is a far more practical if imposing woman, able to get things done even if he won’t.

His secretary and deputy mayor have been running interference as well. The deputy mayor looks down on the interlopers in town, though he’s friendly with the banks and the local sheriff. The secretary keeps her ear to the ground, and knows things before many other people do.

The Saloon of Lost Dreams

The Saloon of Lost Dreams is almost as old as the town, passed down from father to son for three generations. Brian Cummings, the current owner, has been pouring drinks for two decades now. He was always friendly, but not what one would call charming, up until two years ago. Seemingly overnight Brian’s demeanor changed. He became incredibly inviting and gregarious, started dressing in finer clothes, and changed the entire atmosphere of the Saloon. 

The Saloon of Lost Dreams has attracted some of the most alluring working girls, wealthiest patrons, wiliest gamblers. If you’re looking for entertainment and libations, it has become the place to go in the region. And the operations keep expanding. They have Sal watching the door to keep the drunks in line. Madame Genevieve is the youngest Madame in Texas, bringing with her a book full of girls and clients to keep the money funneling in. So, come live out your fantasies at the bar where lost dreams are found.

Town Families

The Allertons

The Allertons have been in town since before the stock market crash. While many families immediately felt the blow of the Great Depression, the Allertons have managed to avoid the brunt of the crash. The local gossips will tell a myriad of stories of why. Some say that the patriarch, Lawrence Allerton, is a genius when it comes to investments. Some say his sister, Helen inherited the foreign estate of her late husband. And the truly bitter, say the family made a deal with the devil. Regardless of the rumors, the Allertons remain wealthy, if not marked by recent tragedy.

Lawrence’s eldest boy, Henry, sacrificed his life for his country during the Great War. Things with the Allertons haven’t been the same since. A gloom has fallen over the house, the curtains consistently closed, the staff dismissed, and the paint beginning to chip and peel away. Their once great manor seems more a tomb than a home now. Like a mirror of the family the disrepair is showing the fall of a once great family.

While Lawrence broods, Helen does her best to keep up the false appearance of levity. Lawrence’s second son, Thomas, looked up to his brother and his death has emboldened the young man to join the military in his footsteps. Betty, the patriarch’s only daughter, still attends most of the town’s public affairs. Her flirtatious attitude suggests that she’s looking for a man to marry.

The Bonacellis

The Bonacellis are Survivors. 

That’s the truth of it. They’re from Appalachia originally, and came to town when Elias was a much younger man. There have been good times and bad times. This is just another of those bad times. 

Granted, it wasn’t this bad even when Elias was away, fighting with the French Foreign Legion, but still. Folks in town whisper the family was cursed, though the origin changes from story to story. Some people say they arrived in town with it, and brought bad luck behind them. Others say they offended someone after they arrived. 

While the truth of that isn’t known, everyone knows that you’d best not bring it up to Elias, or especially to Momma. Last person who let that foolishness slip around her ran for the hills with a rump full of rock salt. That wasn’t what really hurt, though. What REALLY hurt was how she stopped selling them anything out of her still. 

It was an open secret among the town, (except to a few select individuals like the Lawman and Elias,) that Momma had a still running for years. Made some money on the side doing that, (and occasionally doctoring folks. However, since Prohibition ended, folks don’t need that no more, and Momma’s not as able to help provide for the family anymore. 

Elias does what he can, but he’s getting on in years. Little Riley’s back in town, and not so little anymore. But ever since he came back, folks say he’s changed. He’s a hard worker, but he’s just… Off. Farm animals won’t go near him either. 

Plenty of folk would be willing to help ‘em out, (they’ve been good neighbors for decades!) but Elias won’t take anyone’s charity! They’ve traded in potatoes, labour, and anything else they could. If he and his can’t help you, they won’t take your help, and that’s that on that. They’ll figure something out, even if it’s just a bit hard.

The Bonacellis are Survivors.

The Davidsons

Louella and her daughter Mamie Davidson sell the sort of fruits thought lost with Eden. They come to market laid low with oranges, melons, pecans, but also apples, apricots, plums, crop thought impossible out here but there vivid and heady on the stands. To see them coming into town with all that color is to think they’d stolen a chunk of rainbow from out the sky, and people say that bees follow them while they walk. The smell of magnolia is thick around them. Everyone is so hungry, so broke and damned, save for Louella and Mamie. 

The ladies first moved to town about fifteen years back when Mamie was a little girl to take over old Uncle Nelson’s orange grove. They were a destitute young pair, with Louella’s husband Cornell dead in the war and Louella having not seen her uncle since she was a little girl. No one in town knew them, and for a time they were not eager to be known. But slowly they opened up, with Louella proving to be genuinely kind and God-fearing and Mamie shrewd but polite to her elders. They learnt the business and learned it well, but with Uncle Nelson’s passing six years back came further hardships. It was surprising then that Louella neither rushed into marriage nor pushed her daughter onto the block. They were the topic of prayer for a long time. 

But that is all in the past now. The farm has been up the ups for four years now, and it only grows in beauty, fecundity and diversity each season. When asked the secret of their farm’s success, Louella smiles and says that it’s her farmhands, the prayers of her friends and God’s grace. They do their best to spread their blessings to everyone in need, with work, with food, with whatever they can provide. They’ve even given away their own dirt as presents, and have seen it traded around town. Naturally both have been showered with offers of matrimony.

The Lacys

The Lacys are a quiet farming family. Simply put, they keep their business to themselves. Occasionally some close-kept bit of information makes it out to the public, often involving a family member falling to sickness or madness, but even then the details are never made clear. The worst thing the town could gossip about in recent years involved the parentage of Eve Jones, who grew up as an orphan in the town’s church and bore a certain family resemblance. But no one was ever brave enough to confront patriarch Horton Lacy on the matter, back when he was alive.

When a bit of tragedy killed off Horton and his wife Mercy a few years back, it was Zelda, Horton’s youngest, who stepped up to take care of the farm. A shrewd business woman, Zelda has spent the past five years keeping the farm afloat whilst navigating a sea of threatening bank officials. She isn’t ignorant; she’s noticed the dwindling black population of her town, and knows how most of them were chased off by the same creditors haunting her doorstep now. The crops remain steady, business decent, but it isn’t enough to stave off the jealous and greedy.

Perhaps the stress has caused her and her sister Shirley to snap. They have changed seemingly overnight, becoming almost easeful. At least Eve, to whom the women have grown close, seems to have remained the same.

The Muellers

Covenant was founded during one of the many waves of German immigrants that have so heavily shaped and influenced the state of Texas. And the Muellers can directly trace their heritage back to the founding of that original settlement. There have always been Muellers in town, and while their fortunes have waxed and waned over the course of the years, they don’t seem to be going anywhere anytime soon. Everyone knows who they are, and even if they don’t necessarily like them, folks still have a measure of respect for them as a founding family that’s stayed invested in the town and its future for all this time. 

That’s not to say that all is wine and roses for the Muellers. Largely divorced from politics, their individual influence certainly doesn’t match that of the Mayor or the Sheriff. But what they lack in formal power, they more than make up for in sheer knowledge – if it’s ever happened within the borders of Covenant, the chances are that one of the Muellers either knows about it, or can find out about it by referring to their surprisingly vast library of books, letters, journals, diaries, and other writings from their predecessors. The Muellers are something of a living institution in and of themselves, a historical society that knows far more about the history of the town and every family in it than anyone cares to try defining. It’s a strange position to be in, and one that has put them 

While some of the Muellers have grown up and gone on to marry outside of Covenant, very few of them seem to be able to stay away from it in the long term. Even their oldest boy, who left for a big city university vowing never to return, recently came back home for reasons no one is entirely aware of. Old Mama Mueller seems particularly pleased that he’s back, so the local gossip mongers say, if only to have a hand in reining in his two younger siblings after her husband up and vanished a few months back. Very few polite folks are willing to comment on Mama’s penchant for old superstitions, anymore than they’re willing to comment on the way that the Mueller family patriarch is aging so gracefully that it’s impossible.

The Mullins

The Mullins are Solid. Everyone knows that. If you need something built or handled? They’re the ones to do it. Almost as long as there’s been a town, a Mullins has been working the forge.

The Patriarch of the family isn’t too fond of change. “Iron’s Hardened by Repetition,” he says simply, “and we’ve been doing things the same way for hundreds of years.” His methods for working with iron are time-tested and extremely effective. He works items with heat, of course, but every so often he does things “the hard way” just to keep in shape. He’s redoubled that since the passing of his wife last year.

Folk say that strange things happen around town, but he’s never seen it. So either they don’t happen around him, or, as he says, they just don’t happen.  

His oldest son is ready to take over the forge, but until his father is ready to hand it off, he’s been working as the town’s carpenter. He’s very routine and methodical, but everyone knows that he’s got his father’s work ethic. 

His youngest son, however… Well, no one was too sad when he left town. He never really fit in. Apparently, they thought so in the city too. He left full of piss and vinegar, and came crawling back with his tail between his legs. Any reasoning he gives doesn’t change that. He’s a failure, and the entire town knows it. 

The Schmidt “Sisters”

J and M have long been fixtures in the little town of Covenant – two middle aged women who have never married and who share a cozy little home off of the town’s central square, just the two of them and their cats. Only one of the two, J, was born in Covenant, and she left shortly after her 18th birthday, leaving the groom her mother and father had arranged for her at the altar. A decade later, she came back with M, and the two have been inseparable ever since. In better times, it was common to see the two sitting on their porch in matching rocking chairs on warm spring and summer evenings, watching the townsfolk go about their lives, occasionally clicking their tongues in disapproval at this or that. 

But only the most foolish of Covenant’s citizens would mistake their age, or them being of the fairer sex, as indicators that these two Sisters are benevolent old biddies who are content with their embroidery and their cats. The Schmidt ladies have a keen eye for reading people, and always seem to know what’s going on in town, right down to who really fathered Laura Holmes’ youngest and who in the Mayor’s office thinks he’s a spineless yes-man for the highest bidder. If a town’s lifeblood is it’s people, the Sisters have two fingers squarely on the pulse of the social lives of Covenant’s citizenry – they always seem to know what skeletons hide in whose closets. 

Fortunately, the Sisters have so far been inclined to use their formidable knowledge to ensure that the people of Covenant aren’t getting themselves into trouble – often using their secrets as ways to get the wayward to sit down and listen to their advice seriously. They’ve saved the ne’er do wells of most of Covenant’s most promising families throughout the years, and it’s been said that even the Major, the Allertons, and the Muellers pay them a degree of respect that’s far beyond their station. 

But recently, the Sisters have seemed oddly troubled – particularly with some of the drifters and new arrivals in town. Their usual warmth remains, but they’re less inclined to let their smiles reach their eyes now, and they’ve started to keep a surprising number of opinions to themselves in the past few weeks. 

But surely that’s no cause for alarm. 

The Sommers

If you were to ask around Covenant for that family of all families that was most beloved, The Sommers would come to mouth more often than they didn’t. It isn’t that they were ever particularly wealthy, though as award winning cattle ranchers they used to get on well enough. They fear God but not too much, and the same can be said of how they handle the law. Billy Sommers and his daughter Rosemarie are simply, as was Billy’s father Daniel and his father before him, good people. They help others, they mind their business, they go out of their way to help with town projects. 

The Sommers were especially good with all issues pertaining to land and animal; there wasn’t a horse old Daniel couldn’t soothe in all his years alive, God rest his soul, and they said he could know what was wrong with anything that ate grass simply by touching his forehead to theirs’.  For thirty something years, Billy and his pop put on a rodeo every Saturday evening with their farmhands. People from other towns would make the drive just to see Billy and his animal friends, because you knew that was what they were to him, they listened to him as toy soldiers listen to their boy generals. And when Rosemarie began to make her appearance in the shows, people cheered even if it wasn’t particularly proper or entirely legal. She was the only girl of that family and, most importantly, she was damn good.

So it’s a shame, that bit of bad luck that’s come upon them. Plague and famine have decimated the Sommers farm. The swarthy bulls and full and sweet-eyed heifers, sheep the perfect white of cotton and goats lively as school children, the horses, the horses, the horses, those perfect animals raised with such care all only exist in dreams now. The last horse died early this morning. Last Saturday it was brought out for its final show, more a goodbye than any real performance, but with Rosemarie it rode itself half delirious. 

What will the Sommers do now? It’s Saturday and there’s no more rodeo, no more horses, only a blank and starry outside.

The Wolf Family

The Wolf Family has always had a nose for opportunity.

The first commercial oil well was drilled in 1859, kicking off cycles of boom-and-bust.  Markets grew and collapsed, unprepared exploration companies faced regular failure, and technology evolved.  It took seven years to find oil in Texas, several small wells and refineries established over the following few years.  It didn’t take the massive discovery at Spindletop for the Wolf Family to know that Texas held riches.

For thirty-five years, the Wolf Family has operated the oil field on the edge of town, their wealth growing off the labor of the townsfolk as they siphoned the earth’s blood away from Covenant to feed the ravenous market for petroleum.

Everyone in town knows the Wolf family.  It would be crude to say they owned Covenant, but it’s hard to avoid their influence.  They spend money in the general store, they hire labor for the oil fields and domestic work, and every Sunday they’re in the front row at Church.

Loose or Hidden Associations

The Coven

There have always been a cadre of women in town that know things, and seem to have eyes everywhere. It is an open secret that this loose association has its fingers in the town’s dealings, and until recently, it seemed to be innocuous. Their husbands and family generally ignore them leaving at strange times of night. There are even those who know they can mention problems to these women, and sometimes those problems go away or lessen.

No one uses the word ‘witch’ or ‘magic’ around here. That would be silly. But there is still the memory of the old ways that go back to the town’s founding by German immigrants. There are people who still hang iron horseshoes over their thresholds and nail pennies to their doors in this town. And they welcome the “town women” to their homes, especially in bad times. If these women carve a mark on your porch, you leave it be and don’t mention it. It is better that way.

But recently, small tragedies have claimed the lives of six such women in the town. One was attacked by coyotes or wild dogs one night, and died the next morning. Two suffocated when caught up in one of the dust storms outside of town. One was stabbed by a transient who has not been caught. Two more caught ill at the same time, and passed badly. Thirteen became seven, and it does not bode well. This feeling of bad luck pervades the town.

The Sybarites

Small towns can feel like traps.  Surrounded by arid land and the same faces day in and day out.  The restless and discontent might dream of escaping to the big city, but they rarely make the jump.  Instead, they look for escapes and distractions closer to home.  There’s always petty infractions, little sins to indulge in.  But sometimes they aren’t enough.

The Sybarites can help.  They offer no judgement or answers.  Instead they offer more.  They exist in open tension with Covenant’s Institutions and Respectable Townsfolk, serving as parts of the regular day-to-day while offering them escape and indulgence in secret.  Jean Darling and Freda Darling offer sympathetic ears to the patrons of their barber chairs.  Few enjoy visiting a dentist, but when a tooth starts rotting everyone is grateful for Sylvester Wilder.  Dennis Bräuer brings a smile to everyone’s face as the town brewer, and an even more popular face at bonfires out in the fields.  

With the Sybarites, life seems like so much more.  Don’t question what they’re offering, don’t question the price.  The drinks they serve are more potent, the affairs they touch are more passionate, the revenge they stoke the more complete.  Of course there’s nothing ‘magical’ about what they do, that would be silly and sinful.  The Sybarites are skilled and offer quality goods.  They give you a way to step out of yourself, to experience life to the fullest.  Sometimes they may be a little strange or off-putting, but everyone finds a reason to come to them eventually.  Everyone needs an escape.

The Tarot Players

Coven is a crossroads, an in-between point for travelers.  No one comes to Coven to stay.

The rumors say that decades ago a handful of travelers sat down to play cards at a crossroads with a devil and lost their souls.  As the story goes, they play on to this day, looking to beat the house and win their freedom.  Of course, it’s just a tale to scare the youth away from ungodly behavior, warn about strangers, and to whisper in the dark when swapping ghost stories.

Sure, preachers might look down on gambling, but it’s not like it’s an actual sin.  It just invites sins like greed, gluttony, and covetousness.  There’s always a game or two in town where serious men guard their cards like secrets.  A whole economy based on chance and misdirection.  A chance to get ahead, a chance to to lose everything.

Anyone can join if they’re willing to pay the ante.

The Regulators 

While hard times might create hard people, they can also bring out the best of mankind. Neighbors caring for one another, communities coming together to share their limited resources so that even if they’re all hungry, no one starves. But the common man only has so many resources available to them, and in these most desperate of times, a trio of unlikely benefactors have made ripples throughout the United States. Perhaps they’re scions of old money families from overseas whose fortunes were untouched by the Crash, or perhaps they’re new money whose investments went miraculously untouched. 

One advocates on behalf of the migrant farmers, those pushed out of homes stolen by the banks, negotiates for communities to take them in or to tolerate the temporary camp towns that spring up in their paths. 

Another runs soup kitchens, food pantries and traveling clinics, trying to keep America’s poorest from starving to death and treating what ails them. 

And the third gives dignity to the lowest of the low in their darkest of hours, providing succor ti the grieving and final dignity to families who’ve lost husbands, wives, children. 

Either way, everyone agrees that the charities and works these individuals do for the desperate common man in the Dust Bowl is for the good of all. 

Well, almost everyone. 

Like all good men and women, these philanthropic figures certainly have their detractors, those who claim that there’s something darker behind their motivations, that all of their works are too good to be true. Disgruntled voices that claim that they’re sheltered in tents, yes, but not allowed to enter the towns or find work. That the food is just barely enough to keep the starving alive going and that the medical care comes only after great suffering has already been endured. That the words of sympathy and comfort ring hollow in the ears of those who have lost everything, and that no warmth ever reaches the eyes of the one offering it.

But those are few and far between, and the papers say that they’re the words of ungrateful beggars who don’t know what’s good for them. And even then, these philanthropists, its said, simply shake their heads and forgive their detractors. Because hard times make hard people, and hard people have a difficult time accepting help when they need it the most. 

Outsiders

The Snake Oil Soulthieves

Aloysius Montgomery White’s Oils, Elixirs, and Tonics are the cheapest and most effective in all of the great state of Texas. You will not find a more reliable source of remedies for what ails you. Have a problem with your ticker? Well, try our patented Two Hearts Tonic. This is not only easy to digest, but it gives your heart the strength of two men! Have you had trouble in your marriage? Well, we are offering a special on our Young Bull Oil. It will give you the virility of your youth with only a small application. And we have not forgotten the ladies! Do you want to be the prettiest girl at the ball? Well, we are selling our Perfectly Pleasing Perfume, and if you buy today, we’ll give you two for the price of one!”

There are many snake oil salesmen during these hard times, but unlike many of the charlatans around Texas, Aloysius Montgomery White and his able staff bring the real deal. All across this great state, people make claims of his curatives and medicinals having changed their lives. From Dallas to San Antone, respectable members of society, ranch hands, and good decent folks can vouch for it. When his carriage is seen on the horizon, the people of any town get excited. Each one is hoping for the miracles that are promised.

The Bank Robbers

Mr. and Mrs. Jason Brown are heading to Mexico City to celebrate their first anniversary. Jason thought it’d be good for his little brother Stuart to see something of the world too, and now he’s acting as their valet in exchange for paid room and food. The trio have been here in town for a few days now, and the cash they’ve been flashing has been nothing to laugh at even if they look just as poor and dusty as everyone else. Lucy says her husband plays a bit of baseball in one of the minor leagues. 

There seems to be a bit of tension between the three, but nothing too out of the ordinary.

The Baptist Revival

Come all ye sinners and receive the Lord’s grace.  Your souls are parched and thirsty like the rain starved land, let him wash away your sins in a cleansing rain.  Let us baptize you, bringing life and cleansing to this dusty land.”

The Baptist Revival has come to Covenant, offering a fresh start, to wash away your sins.  The Baptists are loud, exciting, offering opportunity and new life.  Their sermons are open to everyone, espousing the personal ownership and responsibility of one to their sins, along with freedom from those very sins in Baptist Revival fellowship.

They stand at odds with the staid tradition and gravitas of the First Covenant Lutheran, offering celebration nearing ecstasy instead of somber reverence.  They also stand at odds with the more traditional citizens of Covenant as outsiders disrupting the status quo.  Yet even as outsiders, the warm charisma and open-armed honesty prove appealing to a town seeking any relief from the hardships of the land and economy.

The Devils At The Crossroads

They swept into town on the heels of one of the Black Blizzards, and they stuck out in stark contrast to the hollow-eyed Okies and tired tradesmen for all the right reasons. Every inch of this odd trio spoke to them being a cut above the rest, from their bespoke and well-tailored attire to the way they walked.

And the rumor mills in Covenant went wild overnight. 

Oil barons, the Deputy Mayor declared, clearly they were from a family who’d struck it rich out in West Texas. 

No, they were from back East, claimed the Allertons, scions from some old money family that they just can’t quite put their finger on. 

Wrong again, they’re clearly from overseas, insisted the Muellers, who claim they’re pretty sure they know the family they’re from but just can’t quite put their finger on which one. 

Either way, the trio of strangers who rolled into town with a lot of class and surprisingly deep pockets have quickly ingratiated themselves into the ranks of what passes for high society in this little town. They enjoy dinners with the Mayor and his wife, have tea with the Sheriff’s wife and the matriarch of the Allertons, and that enthusiastic young man at the paper is almost smitten with one of the trio that’s easiest on the eyes – not that any of them are particularly hard to look at. 

But there are those in town who are less inclined to blindly trust outside folk who never seem to give straight answers about themselves and their reasons for not only coming to Covenant, but for staying despite clearly being too big of fish for such a small pond. The Schmidt gals certainly don’t seem terribly fond of them, their smiles tight and thin whenever they hear mention of the trio come up by those that come calling upon them. They say that it’s strange that no one can get a straight answer out of the trio on just what, exactly, their business in Covenant is – that nothing good comes from mystery investors that hints at deals to be made but haven’t seemed in much of a hurry to put pen to paper, always claiming that the time isn’t quite right yet. 

But with the winds of change sweeping across the dying plains and towards Covenant, that time may be coming sooner than anyone thinks.

The Maxwells, Okie Family

The Maxwells are no strangers to loss. A few years back, the extended family of farmers and ranchers from Oklahoma lost their farms to the bank. That was the last thing Mr. Jedediah Maxwell could take; his heart gave out. The loss of their patriarch broke the Maxwells, and the Okies moved out in different directions for work. Cyril Maxwell and his wife Jimma decided on Covenant as the most likely place for solid work. They had three youngins and Mrs. Maxwell’s aging mother to care for.

Covenant didn’t take too kindly to the Maxwells. A week after their arrival, their eldest boy, Marvin, was accused of stealing from Lin’s General Store. Even without any real evidence, the Sheriff locked the boy away for 3 months. The boy was hardly out of his cell before his twin, Miriam, passed away from the Consumption. This only intensified the gossip about the family. They always said, “Them Maxwells are rotten to the core. They’re dirty and diseased. Best keep your girl away from those boys.” The old bitties about town never cared for Old Lady Edith; she played with Tarot cards, and they said she spoke to cats. Meanwhile, the youngest boy, Ernest, had found his way to the bottle and the brothel. Things remained hard over the intervening year and Cyril was starting to believe finally their luck had changed.

Three months ago, Ernest Maxwell vanished after a visit to the Saloon of Lost Dreams. No one knows what happened, he walked out into the night and was never seen again. This broke Cyril. His baby boy was just gone. And as the nights turned into weeks his time with the bottle grew. Now Mr. Maxwell is seen more weeping into his whiskey than on any farm. Jimma is seen at First Lutheran daily praying for the return of her son, but more and more for a divine purification of her family’s impiousness. Marvin, unlike his father has begun working twice as hard, picking up work anywhere he can get it. And Old Lady Edith just sits in her rocking chair, playing with cards, and looking out into the dusty horizon.

The Night Beasts

Ma Violet Ernlaid runs a rowdy household. Her family never seem to sleep but splay out in stupor on all that broken machinery and furniture in her yard. Their voices clutter the air of their neighbors in the night like so much smoke; there’s always something to argue about at Ma Violet’s, or something to fuck about. Their parties are endless, and when their numbers crawl into church they do so in clouds of liquor breathe, body odor and cologne and their animals cry underfoot. This is that house you beat your children for going to, as there’s no good to be done at Ma Violet’s. 

No one from the outside knows exactly who Ma’s actual blood relatives are, as everyone is a child to her. If you’re desperate enough, you can eat at with her ilk that famous thin porridge who’s ingredients she goes begging for in the day. She came here thirty years ago with a quarter of the family she has now and a thin and haunted husband. And, too, they came with animals: parrots and parakeets, fine dogs, cats who have never touched the ground, snakes rippling with rainbows. A pitiful pair, they still do odd jobs all over town to support those hungry mouths. Though no one could ever say they were particularly good at their jobs, they stay regularly employed. And now they run a house that is mostly menagerie, filled with adult children and friends of children and families of friends of children. No good person would associate with them past tossing them a penny.

The Rescue Party

It is immediately obvious to any who see these people that they are not from here. Whether or not this is obvious from their faces, it is definitely obvious in their clothing and the ways about them. The oldest in town will remember at least one face, but to anyone younger than a few decades? These people are strangers. 

Which is ironic, given that they were some of the region’s first inhabitants.

They’re a traveling group from further north. Or maybe west? It’s a little hard to say at this point. But they’re from the “Injuns”. They said what tribe, but it’s honestly a little hard to pronounce. A few people have said they’re standoffish, but really, it’s more that they’re curt. 

Tradespeople recognize their demeanor immediately. These are folks here to do a job. One that sounds pretty urgent, if their tone is to be believed. Makes it real interesting that they keep asking to see Alice, Hilda, or Brumhilde.

The Seekers of Cibolla

Saturney, James and El Dorado have come all the way from Washington DC to work on a student project. They’re each majoring in African American History at Howard University and thought it would be enlightening to trace paths taken by famous black explorers, with some caveats of course. Right now they’re studying Estavanico, the first black explorer in Texas. Wouldn’t you know that he came through this very town about four hundred years ago? El Dorado even claims to be a direct descendant of his; if you flash them enough coin, they might just show you his sword and bible. No one’s been able to steal it off them yet. 

The Wanderers on the Rails

Nobody really understands why vagrants and hobos find themselves in Covenant. Even when the sheriff or mayor tear down their little “Wanderer’s Camp”, they just come back like rats. There’s that old hag, “Mooching” Mildred always begging outside the church. Pastor’s had to chase her away before, cause she does the devil’s work. Then there are the two soft men. One of them works at the General Store, but the other is just some hobo dandy that drinks. Speaking of drinking, watch your purse around Moonshine Kelly. They’ll do anything to get some hooch. The only one of them that’s worth a damn is the “Big Man”, Carl. He could be respectable if he’d just settle down and get away from those tramps.