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Ridgewood


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Ridgewood Ranch, founded 1871, grew alongside the gold rush and mining boom of the Tumbleweed region. It’s been beset by hardship and uncommonly awful luck in the past four years - ever since Glenn Colt married the only Ridgewood daughter, Frances Mae.

With the ranch under Glenn’s ownership it’s failed to thrive, and is a shadow of its former and already questionable glory. Times have grown hard, pay checks lean, and horses scrawnier and more ill-tempered than before with fewer hands to train, exercise and socialise them.

The ranch focuses not on excellence but on survival, with no name, money, nor quality stock to compare to MacFarlane’s or Beecher’s Hope. Ridgewood is known for taking on the desperate and unsavoury. It’s known for loyalty to friends, hospitality for travellers, and hostility toward people who ask too many questions about the hands and their histories.

 


Letters to Jackson Reeves, from Frankie Mae
(transcript below)

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Spoiler

To Jackson Reeves
Prados de Trinidad Ranch
Pima County, Arizona

 

It’s been a long time, Jack. I’m sorry I’ve not been as good a correspondent as I ought to be. You’ve been the only cousin I’ve got contact with given how things were with our parents, but nonetheless I hope we’ve no quarrel. I hope it twice over, because I’ve got a favour to ask you.

The past few years have been a grim test of my once-good nature. Allow me to give you some context. It might be a good idea to read this sat down.

First, I should tell you I'm married. Regretfully. In hindsight it was a terrible idea, and I’ve the most un-Christian desire to be done with it. I might have invited you even against pa’s wishes, but it was a hurried and thoughtless thing with no real ceremony. I hope you can forgive the unkindness.

Second, and there’s no good way to say this. Everyone else in the Ridgewood family is dead. I know the Reeves’ last came by for grandfather’s funeral, and I’m sure you recall his saying there’s a curse on the family. We all attributed it to the mercury poisoning, but it seems a little less amusing now.

Pa was dragged through a sawmill. Uncle Clarence fell down a chimney and, we think, suffocated on the smoke of the lit hearth below. Cousin Edward was buried alive, baby Harrison was stolen by a cougar. Aunt Hannah fell from one of the ridges and broke her neck, and last week Alex - my brother, if you remember him - was trampled in a horse riding accident.

Glenn, my husband, has inherited the ranch. It’s exactly the disaster you might expect given my earlier note about regret for marrying him. Worse, he’s completely incompetent. He’s got almost no ranching experience, he’s lazy, he’s taken all pa and uncle Clarence’s savings and wasted it on alcohol, gambling and who-knows-what else. Whatever schemes he’s been investing in have long since folded.

Besides a few irregular day workers I’m the only person who’s competent with the ranch chores. The only two workers who haven’t left - or who weren’t fired by Alex, who went a little paranoid himself - aren’t ranch hands. Glenn does absolutely nothing! I’ve had to sell off most of the horses, because I simply can’t feed and look after them. I haven’t even had a chance to grieve Alex yet, he’s yet to even be buried.

Therein lies the favour. I know you’re a fine horseman, and I just… I need help, Jack, and I just don’t know where else to turn. I’m at the end of my tether, the rope and my wits besides. I need a foreman, and desperately someone who knows what they’re doing. I’ve never worked with the breaking and saddle training, not to mention farrier work. I’m desperate. I know it’s not a good situation to beg you to step into, but… I just don’t know what else to do, who else to ask. I don’t want to lose this place, Jack, it’s home. Or the ghost of home, anyway.

I hope you’ll consider it. I don’t think Ridgewood lasts the winter, otherwise. Regardless of your answer, I hope all’s well in Tucson.

All my love,

Frankie Mae.

 

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(Updated as the Roleplay goes on over time!)

Get to know the characters that make up Ridgewood Ranch! Each character is vital in telling a story in the western territory of New Austin. From the good, the bad, and the ugly, this growing roster will dive into lighthearted ranching themes such as caring of the land, caring for the horses, growing few crops in the harsh desert, and more. To match this, there are also those with that threatening  disposition in seeking to keep that ranch of theirs up by any means. From welcoming the wild lands of New Austin and it's shady people, to impeding the attempts at the taming of it. It's not all black and white here on Ridgewood ranch.

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Spoiler

Frances Mae Ridgewood was born in 1854 in Strawberry, Tahoma, as the younger daughter of Jude Ridgewood; a lumber miller. The family were poor, but not unhappy by any standard so long as that standard includes a taste for cabbage and potato dinners. Jude was a widower and neither wealthy nor much of a cook. She learned bible verses and tales and bad poems about her mother at his knee. She learned to read and write when she took work for a local store owner.

The family moved out to Ridgewood in 1871, not long after the true mining boom in the region. Frankie Mae experienced a very different life here in the harsh and arid landscape not so far from the gold Grandpa Ridgewood struck in Tumbleweed. Heat, snakes, and difficulty growing food made for a stark difference to mild Strawberry, but the family wrangled a living - even modest success - from the wild horses in the region.

Frankie Mae grew up, as many women in such harsh environments do, a capable and practical young woman. Her hard-working and optimistic nature kept her integral enough to farm affairs that she was never ushered away to marry, and she seemed to have no interest in it either. It was something of a surprise for her family when she wedded Glenn Colt not too long after meeting him. Her good nature was degraded by her new husband even before the many tragic deaths of the rest of her family named him inheritor of the property. She grew short tempered and somewhat paranoid, though she maintained the family tradition of offering kindness to travelers. Glenn’s neglect of the property drove her to both request assistance from estranged family, and take on a leadership position herself - something she feels woefully unqualified for.

 

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Spoiler

Neal Carver was born and raised in northern California with his twin brother and, eventual, younger sister. His family lived in a trying time, as all Americans did, and often resorted to unusual work to sustain themselves. Neal's father, Abraham Carver, worked in the coal mines of a local small town. The mines were rich with opportunities to create a life for a family. Easy income and safety on the job were a guarantee - it was a new mine after all! That dream lasted a whole day before the first death was reported. Crushed by an unstable boulder. Years later, Neal and his brother would join his father in the mines. But fearing the safety of his only boys, they were sent to find work elsewhere. This work became street work full of odd jobs and hushed connections. For Neal, it was the beginning of a corrupt life.

Many years later after having left California, Neal committed numerous robberies and shady tasks in the desire of money - a striving that lead many astray. In a botched stagecoach robbery in Colorado, Neal and his crew were ambushed by local law and Bounty Hunters. Most of his friends were killed off, leaving Neal to flee for his life. With a price on his head, he fled to the borders of the territory. On his horse' last leg, he crossed into the territory of New Austin.

Neal traveled the deserts, hoping to find someone. But in these harsh lands even this was lackluster. Neal came across a farm smacked in the middle of New Austin; Ridgewood. He met the only daughter of the family and managed to strike up a curious deal. Years later, the shady man soon became the unrightful owner of Ridgewood ranch. Only, he never did a lick of work. And often times left his now wife to tend to the duties with the few ranch hands. In this new life, Neal Carver became "Glenn Henry Colt." And with such an aspiring and charismatic expression he gave to people who didn't truly know him, he struck up many other deals in the ranch. Some of which didn't exactly benefit the ranch, and instead brought even more suspecting people around. They at least protected the ranch. Especially when he often was found in town wasting the ranch money on booze and gambling!

 

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Spoiler

Jackson Reeves, was born into a hard life in the foothills of Arizona. Raised by his widowed mother, a sharp-eyed woman who ran a small farm, Jackson learned early that survival required grit and resourcefulness. His father, a Civil War veteran and a notorious moonshiner, had been killed in a moonshine raid when Jackson was just five, leaving his mother to raise him on her own. Though his father’s death was tragic, it also left a legacy. His father had built a small network of contacts who continued to supply him with the ingredients for moonshine.

By the time Jackson was a teenager, he’d taken up his father’s trade, learning the art of distilling moonshine from the older men in the nearby hills. It wasn’t glamorous work, but it paid, and in a world where jobs were scarce, the quiet hustle of moonshining was a lifeline. He'd also inherited his father’s love for horses. His mother had always made sure the family kept a few good stock horses, and Jackson learned to train and break them as a means to make extra cash. He wasn't a rodeo star, but he could train a horse with the patience of a saint and the gentleness of a seasoned wrangler.

His days were spent riding the trails, capturing and taming wild horses, and then selling or training them for a living. When the sun set, he’d retreat to the hills where with his three tight knit friends, and produced moonshine that had a reputation for being strong and potent. One day he receives a letter from his cousin, Frances, whose family owns a horse ranch in the heart of New Austin. The property was succeeded by Frances' deadbeat husband and that she urgently needs Jackson's help to keep the ranch running. The letter is a call for support. Knowing this is the family he’s distanced himself from for so long due to their political differences, Jackson reluctantly decides to answer the call, seeing potential in New Austin to get his moonshine operation on wheels. His friends needed little to no convincing in joining him on the journey to New Austin.

Despite his past with Frances' side of the family, Jackson feels a sense of duty to the family legacy. As he heads to the New Austin, Jackson doesn’t know what challenges await—be it the land itself, family tensions, or rival ranchers—but he’s determined to help his cousin and more importantly, tap into a new market to explore new avenues of wealth.

 

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Spoiler

Scrubb came riding on into the rickety gates of Ridgewood maybe two- three months ago. Went around telling all sorts of workers and their horses his name was "Huck" and was a fresh fellow out from the East looking for a job to spin himself a few dimes. A rough cloth pouch strung about his figure was weighty despite his claims of having nothing inside, it rocked about with looming purpose. Slinging letters he could stow away became his trade about the ranch, a deal he'd gone and got with... well with someone for sure.

He was a chatterbox, well mostly when he had reason to chatter. His favorite words to say were usually laced with an annoying presence, and he love laying his words out for God and everybody to hear. Huck was otherwise seen just near his little one-man cart twisting things together, he liked that. Something like little twigs, blades of grass, rope, hell when he got bored enough he braided his own hair. Guess he'd have made a good sailor, well if he could tie better knots too.

Scrubb was a sight to stare at for certain; orange hair and pale skin what just loved to bake out under the Sun. His face was constantly on the edge of being turned the same color of tomato paste. Not short, well no actually he was by no means average height. Huckleberry was proud over that, proclaiming here and there he was most assuredly 5 feet and 9 inches tall. It wasn't a hard lie to figure out, he was 5'8" at best and more easily seen as 5'7" but he made a real big stink if you said otherwise.

He was an odd fellow, said he was from a few different states but most common was Tennessee. Tennessee was followed by North Carolina but most common was East Tennessee. Didn't really get into the why he was where he was, or why he had a cart, or why he had a big cloth pouch, or why he'd only give up his name as Huck, or why Frankie-Mae called him "Berry-Boy", or a whole lot else honest. He was just sort of an odd oat what worked his way into a less-than-well oiled machine. Had no plans in his hands and no intentions of moving to be someone else's nuisance.

 

August "Gus" Lambert
(Picture Pending!)
 

Spoiler

August Lambert grew up in a farm that was just a mile away from Reeves. His father was a blacksmith, mother was a seamstress. He'd spend hours in the shop sorting metal scraps and watching his father shoe horses, learning the trade whether he wanted to or not. His neck tics started showing up around age six. His father's reputation as one of the few blacksmiths around mostly kept people from saying much about it, though the local kids still found ways to be cruel when they could.

The workshop became his safe place, even with his father's drinking. Some days were rough when his father had the bottle, but most times he was a decent teacher, showing Gus how metal worked, broke, and came together again. Growing up near Jackson Reeves meant there was always something going on. After Jackson's father got killed in the moonshine raid, Gus found himself at their place more often and they became even better friends. Jackson was always full of wild ideas and never shut up, while Gus just listened and went along with his plans.

The moonshine business happened later. Jackson had a way of talking Gus into things. Showed him the copper stills, and all the precise work that went into it. His father wouldn't have approved, but that's partly why Gus took to it. He didn't care much about the drink or money part. He just loved figuring out how to make everything work perfect, getting lost for hours making little adjustments, always trying to make the next batch come out better than the last. When Jackson got the letter from Ridgewood, Gus didn't need much convincing. Sure, it was Jackson's cousin asking for help, but he saw his own chance out there.

 

Emily Cartwright
(Picture Pending!)
 

Spoiler

Born in the rolling plains of Kentucky in 1865, Emily Cartwright’s childhood was surrounded by horses. Her family ran a small but respected stable that specialized in thoroughbreds that supplied the local small town. Her father, a stern man, taught her the trade from a young age, emphasizing the importance of patience, care and understanding of each animal. Emily was out of favor with her family compared to her older brother as he was found to be more resourceful for physical labor during the trying times. This lead to Emily focusing on a different avenue of helping, the knowledge and understanding of breeding horses. With a downturn in the local economy, the Cartwright family was forced to sell and this gave Emily the kickstart to head out west, hoping to carve her own path using her found knowledge to any ranch and stable that may be in need of her skills.

 

Meadow Whitney
(Picture Pending!)
 

Spoiler

The Whitney Family lived quite far from the New Austin Territory, and the Ridgewood Ranch. Years ago, a sibling of Howard Ridgewood split off from the family during their search for fortune, and she ended up marrying into a rather rich family in the city of Baltimore.

Meadow grew up very comfortably. She was an only child, and while her parents tried many times to have more, she ended up being the only one that lived to adulthood. She was raised in an affluent home that many in the city weren't fortunate enough to have, with hot baths and fine meals every night, and a set of maids and keepers to look after her families residence, as well as herself.

Despite often being kept in the city, Meadow had a fascination with nature. She was always spending time in the parks, and when her father bought her her first horse, she almost never left its side. She was more inclined than most girls to get her hands dirty, though she never truly experienced what hard work really was. She was bright, with a love for science and mathematics, and just when she was starting to really begin her life, she never expected to end up across the union, where her family originated. Her parents were traveling when they had a fatal wagon incident. One of her fathers employees that managed their estate took off with the money, which Meadow never knew the full extent of, and sent her away to live at the Ridgewood Ranch. It was out of sight, out of mind for him, and while he promised Meadow a comfortable life in the countryside, she was in for a rude awakening.

 

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