These stories first appeared in Hunt's Book of Weapons, an in-game collection of found documents curated by an unknown researcher. They are replicated here in their original format. This means that many of the stories are not presented chronologically, or in one grouping, and it is left to the reader to put together the puzzle pieces and determine to what extent they contain fact, fiction, or fable.

Prior to the launch of Hunt: Showdown 1896, this weapon was named the Caldwell Marathon. Our Variant terminology has since been simplified. We have updated the names where relevant, but you may still see the more period accurate names within the lore texts.

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Marathon

CALDWELL MARATHON. (See also, HENRY CALDWELL, RIFLE) A short lived experiment to craft a slide-action rifle, the Caldwell Marathon first found an audience with game hunters. Comparable in many aspects to contemporary rifles such as the Winfield M1873, its novel but familiar reloading mechanism and prioritized firepower take slight precedence over accuracy and speed.

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Letter to Brood and Bile
Author: Plague Doctor
Single loose sheet, 8.5 x 11 in.

Join me. Be with me once again as we take part in the evolving horrors of this plague. Let us experiment on its flesh and its fluids. My anger has found a home, become something new entirely: something wholly free.

This bayou is unfiltered madness. The Corruption has fully wormed itself into the veins of the swamp, blossoming into oily sheets of foul rain and monsters that unravel, grunting, from the mud. Blazing infernos erupt in horrific cyclones to lick the trees and anything that comes too close. Crackling fingers of Arc Bloom reached out to grab Hunters by their throats, sizzling their souls as they scream out in agony. And the rot…

…the rot. It is unlike anything we ever saw in the days of before, when disease had boundaries, rules.

There are no rules in this Corruption.

Things with no heads. Things with no faces. Things with a thousand voices, all of them coming from the same unknown, shadowy place. Before I left the two of you behind, you didn't think there was anything to the rumors, that nothing could possibly pose more horror than the Black Death outbreak in our home.

Come, come. See how terribly wrong you were.

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Letter to Plague Doctor
Author: Brood
Single loose sheet, stained, 8.5 x 11 in.

Our dearest Doctor,

Oh, how we've wondered what may have become of you and your rage. You say now that it has changed into something else. Does it still sing like it used to? Cut through muscle to bone like a knife through summer butter?

The flesh samples you collected the night before your departure are still in the laboratory, just as you left them. They've broken down at the mercy of the wriggling fly larvae that hatched beneath the surface, eating the diseased matter like children gobbling up holiday sweets. I refused to throw them away. Someday you might have missed them, after all.

Someday you might have come back.

Bile thinks your claims are fueled by madness. Your hallucinations always were of the most vivid strains of marvel. But I think that if there were really nothing in those swamps, you'd have already returned. Something is keeping you there, holding your interest. We want to see what that something is—consequences be damned.

We will leave next week. I will first send a gift to precede us: a new instrument for your beloved Hunts. I can all but guarantee there's nothing of the sort over there, this Caldwell Marathon, capable of punching holes through bone and spilling blood. Use it well. We will see you soon. I wonder if, after all this time, you may be more willing to show me whatever hides beneath your mask.

Brood

Marathon Poison Ammo

RN: Another log without a name. Too many people deserving of remembrance will never receive it. This truth I can bear, but my own memories will not heal from watching the story repeat itself again and again and again. We record, we recite, we remember, and then we massacre all over again.

Marathon FMJ Ammo

RN: I often ponder the fact that what we study are the writings of people who would rather stay in hell than make a short carriage journey. When I try to fathom the excitement expressed in these letters, I fail.

Marathon Swift

CALDWELL MARATHON SWIFT. (See also, HENRY CALDWELL, RIFLE, CALDWELL MARATHON) Continuing the Caldwell Marathon's interesting approach to its loading mechanisms, a speed loader was manufactured alongside the rifle, useful for loading the 15 cartridges the Caldwell Marathon can hold.

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Old Hunter log, author unknown
Bound with worn leather, 5.8" x 8.3"

Night fell and supplies were dangerously short, so I took shelter in a dilapidated hut in the heart of the swamp. The smell alone was enough to keep most away, but at least I could think about sleeping without the fear of being found by another desperate Hunter, or worse.

I first noticed the carvings on the wall when I set my lamp down in the corner where I hoped to unroll my bed. The scratched words were neat in some places and illegible in others. I the spider, she the fly. I frowned as I squinted at the other messages, trying to make out more. How did I get here? one scrawling wondered. Then, more lettering directly below it: William Salter.

Salter. Why was that name so familiar?

That night, I slept deeply, dreaming about all sorts of decayed things. I woke up to what I thought was the sound of a man moaning in agony, only to discover that it was nothing but a loose window shutter blowing in the wind. My heart pounding, I relaxed back into my bed, turning towards the wall to see if I could decipher any other messages.

Soon, it was time to return to the horrors outside. I didn't see the decomposed leg on the kitchen table until I was on my way out, and the last words I'd read scrawled on the wall repeated, hauntingly, in my mind: Eat. Gorge. Wail.

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