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By Lee Garvin

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BloodBloodBloodBloodBloody Ol’ Muddy Ol’ Muddy Ol’ Muddy Ol’ Muddy Ol’ Muddyyyyy

WWWWWritten & Designed britten & Designed britten & Designed britten & Designed britten & Designed by:y:y:y:y: Lee GarvinEditing & LaEditing & LaEditing & LaEditing & LaEditing & Layyyyyout:out:out:out:out: Matthew Tice, Hal Mangold & Charles RyanCoCoCoCoCovvvvver Art:er Art:er Art:er Art:er Art: Kevin SharpeCoCoCoCoCovvvvver Color:er Color:er Color:er Color:er Color: Matthew TiceInterior Art:Interior Art:Interior Art:Interior Art:Interior Art: Paul DalyMaps:Maps:Maps:Maps:Maps: Ashe MarlerCoCoCoCoCovvvvver Design:er Design:er Design:er Design:er Design: Matthew TiceLogos:Logos:Logos:Logos:Logos: Charles Ryan & Ron Spencer

Special Thanks to:Special Thanks to:Special Thanks to:Special Thanks to:Special Thanks to: Rachel Butterworth, Barry Doyle, Martin & Matt Forbeck, John & Joyce Goff,Caden, Michelle & Shane Hensley, Christy & John Hopler, Ann Kolinsky, Dave Seay, Kevin Sharpe,Zeke Sparkes, Maureen Yates & John Zinser.

Dedicated to:Dedicated to:Dedicated to:Dedicated to:Dedicated to: Marion Nichols of the Cahokia Mounds Interpretive Center.

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TheMarshal’sHandbook

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Chapter One:

Great Moundso’ Trouble

When folks get killed, they get putsix feet under. So where do you put ’emif that’s where they were to start with?

The StorySo Far

Several hundred years ago—beforeeven the time of the Great Spirit War—acertain stretch of land on a certain riverwas the home of a peaceful, wise, anddeeply spiritual civilization. This place,which would one day be called Cahokia,rivaled the splendor and sophisticationof the Aztec cities to the south.

The Cahokians grew their crops in thefertile soil of the Mississippi Valley. Theyfished the waters of the mighty river,

never taking more than they needed.The people hunted game in itsforests and tamed the surrounding

wilderness with a gentle hand.Theirs was an idyllic, loving society,at war with no one.

Of course, it couldn’t last.

The GreatSpirit War

The Great Spirit War was a time ofunprecedented unity among the nationsand tribes of the American continent.Everyone knew the manitous were badnews, and they all pitched in to help.

The Cahokians had other ideas. Thetribesmen hated and feared themanitous just like everyone else, but feltthat taking the fight to the HuntingGrounds was doomed to failure, andthat the nature spirits would not makevery reliable allies. According toCahokian myth, there was another raceof beings who lived beyond the HuntingGrounds and outside of time itself.These “Outsiders” were ancient enemiesof the manitous, and possibly evenmore powerful. Gytiucheppa, theCahokian chieftain and a powerfulshaman, decided that they would tryto contact the Outsiders and pleadwith them to join the

fight.

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8 Marshal

Nearly every citizen of Cahokia wasa shaman, and the city itself was littlemore than a giant temple designed tochannel the energies of the peoples’faith to lend aid to their most importantrituals. Gytiucheppa designed a massiveritual, involving over a thousandCahokians acting in concert. The goalof the ceremony was to open a passageinto the Outsiders’ realm. This passagewould only be powerful enough to allowa few people through, so the eldersthemselves planned to step through toplead their case. Sounds like areasonable plan, right? Well, don’t forgetwhat game this is, compadre.

DisasterSome of those pesky manitous

decided to have some fun at the chief’sexpense. In much the same way as theywould one day “inspire” mad scientists,the demons planted the design for adifferent ritual in his head. When all theCahokians donned their ritual finery, thefires were lit, the sacrifices made, thedrums played, and the dances begun.The ritual went horribly right—that is, itdid exactly what the manitous wanted.

A portal opened up and quicklyengulfed the entire city. It closed onCahokia like an ethereal mouth andvanished—along with every man,woman, and child in the doomed city.

A short period of upheaval followedthis, as the natural world revoltedagainst this affront. A flood carried athick layer of silt and mud over thepyramid-shaped buildings. Within a year,new grasses and young trees weregrowing over the ruins. In less than ageneration, the city was forgotten.

When white men came to this land,they first mistook the ruins for burialmounds and ignored them. Just six milesnorth of the ruins and across the river,some enterprising soul built a new citycalled St. Louis.

Now it’s 1877: We bet you’re wonderin’what became of those well-meaningCahokians.

Returned FromA Long Journey

The Cahokians are back, but don’tstart celebrating just yet. The portal thattheir ritual opened up all thosecenturies ago didn’t just transport themthrough the Hunting Grounds, butthrough time as well. While hundreds ofyears have passed for us, only a fewyears have passed for them.

The portal took the unsuspectingCahokians through some of the worstsoul-blighting parts of the HuntingGrounds, and not all of them made itthrough. The very old and the veryyoung simply didn’t survive the journey.The stronger ones survived, all right, butthey were changed by the experience.

It is no longer fair to even call theCahokians human. The Hunting Groundstwisted their bodies, their minds, andtheir souls.

When they arrived, they realized thatthey had come all the way through theHunting Grounds and out the other side.That meant that the Outsiders must bethere! And where did the Cahokians findthemselves? Why, in their old hometown, of course, which meant that theywere the Outsiders. Oh, did we mentionthat they are all hopelessly insane?

The Outsiders/Cahokians took a lookat the world around them. Theirbeautiful city was buried, and themanitous were stronger than ever.

In The BowelsOf The City

Gytiucheppa decided to send outscouts to explore the surroundingcountryside, while he set others to workclearing out their homes. Rather thansimply unearth the entire city, however,they excavated the insides of the greatbuildings and houses and constructed asystem of tunnels using the old streetsas a guide, leaving only a couple ofexits open to the world above.

Meanwhile, the scouts returned withword of a great city of wood and stoneto the north of them, where strangepeople with pale skin lived. They spokea language the Outsiders couldn’tunderstand, but it seemed there were

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