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 Nagant M1895 Officer. Our Variant terminology was also 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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Officer

NAGANT M1895 OFFICER. (See also, REVOLVER, RUSSIAN EMPIRE) The Nagant M1895 was produced in two models: a single-action and a double-action variant. The single-action was cheaper to produce and was issued to privates, whilst the more expensive and desirable double-action was issued to officers.

In double-action revolvers, the pull of the trigger performs two actions: drawing the hammer back into the cocked position and releasing the hammer to strike the firing pin. This differs from single-action revolvers, in which the pull of the trigger only releases the hammer. This action compensates for the slower firing mechanisms of single-action revolvers, as there is no need to draw the hammer back manually. The double-action design of the Officer variant confers it a relatively higher rate of fire but also circumvents novel strategies used to circumvent this, for instance, fanning the hammer.

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Letter to Frank Chambers
Author: Russell "Snakeskin" Chambers
Single loose sheet, 8.5 x 11 in.
6/9

Pa,

I'm sorry I haven't written you in some weeks. It's all gone to hell. The superintendent's dead. Seen in the paper too. Not like us to make such an announcement. Someone took their place, though I didn't meet them before they was dead too. Hardin is keeping his head down. Can't say I blame him. Out in the grounds, word's coming back that it's more ruthless than ever. Huff's men killing our men, our men killing Doctor John's, Doctor John's killing the Reverend's. And so on. No one knows who's riding with who no more, and we're all the worse for it.

I lost my old Nagant in one such shootout. Luck went against me. A group of the Reverend's fanatics, setting all in their path aflame, torching the charred remains of an already burned church the Sheriff and I was bunkered down in.

Did chance upon a second. Trevors had imported the latest: an Officer model with a Double-Action. Heavy pull on the trigger. Hardin asked me my preference, why I favored a Russian Imperial revolver over a good old-fashioned American piece. I recounted to him the time out in the desert. He nodded. Told me of a similar predicament he'd faced.

One of his first Hunts. Back when it was just dead men, or so he'd thought. A woman called Lynch showing him the ropes: how to heat and skim the blood, see in the dark without losing your sight, why to burn bodies. A young girl had given testimony of an afflicted parent, and they were pursuing her. A huge swarm of plague flies set on them, driving Hardin and Lynch into a bunkhouse. The swarm covered the house, and gave no chance of letting up.

Hardin sealed up the front door and Lynch went further into the house to ensure it was sealed up. He didn't see her again for a long time, assumed she was dead. But he was holed up there for almost a week and
[ LETTER INCOMPLETE, ENDS HERE]

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Letter to Frank Chambers
Author: Russell "Snakeskin" Chambers
Single loose sheet, 8.5 x 11 in.
7/9

Pa,

It seems all out war between the Hunters is about to start any day now.

There's hushed word that in the middle of all this trouble is nothing but two young girls who overstepped their bounds. Not sure if I believe that myself, but everything I've heard seems to boil down to those two. None that I've met will admit to knowing them personal, mind. Either they're not real or no one wants to get entangled up. Like they're in the eye of a hurricane, everything rushing round them faster and faster, but they're unaware there's even a storm.

I've heard stories from Hardin about such storms marking the end of Summer. He's grown up with them and is rightly afraid. Speaks of them in the same tones that devout men talk about their God's wrath. I hope against hope I see one. I hope if anything kills me, it's a storm. For one, it will mean I lived to at least the end of August. Maybe even September. Another, it will mean I didn't die to one of the things in the bayou, and rise again to rot on my feet.

Dreams of young huntresses and hurricanes are a welcome relief from the funeral of ragged corpses that have marched through my dreams since I arrived here. With everything gone to hell, and everyone waiting for the cards to fall, it doesn't seem right to have such a relative moment of peace.

Last night, Walcott and I burned our white shirts. He said it was a symbolic gesture of innocence lost, to mark the calm before the storm. That was the laugh I needed to get my head out the clouds. It's sweet to think anyone came here innocent.

The officer's badge looks better on black, and after all, I'm carrying a gun now fit for some Russian Duke's son. I should look the part.

Yours,
Russell

Officer Brawler

NAGANT M1895 OFFICER BRAWLER (See also, M1895 OFFICER) The unorthodox Nagant M1895 Officer Brawler modification is essentially a knuckleduster welded onto the pistol grip, serving as a hand guard and enabling the pistol to be used extremely effectively in close combat. Should the owner of the pistol find themselves in a position in which firing a shot is no longer a viable strategy, then the knuckledusters serves to effectively concentrate the force of a punch. While unwieldy, the weight of the Nagant itself would magnify the power of the attack, as well as spreading the received pressure of the blow throughout the whole hand.

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Letter to Frank Chambers
Author: Russell "Snakeskin" Chambers
Single loose sheet, 8.5 x 11 in.
8/9

Pa,

Last week, we lost Walcott and Foal, horribly, something called the Assassin ripped them apart. After seeing that, the Bear blacked out. Hardin and I dragged him out. Since, Hardin's been shut up in his office. Whatever this thing is we're fighting, it's fighting back. The Hunters are at each other's throats. And there's more money than ever. I thought I had a handle on this, but it's gone.

The Bear hasn't been the same since his wound. Most nights, he stays out, staring up at the moon, even when the clouds are thick. Mad. Thought about handing him over to Finch, there's not the same bad blood between us as there was with Huff. He don't fight no more, he don't talk no more.

Yesterday, I took his knuckles from him, to try and provoke any response. His prize knuckles. He'd told us, when he'd left his home, he'd stolen a brass crucifix from the church and traded it to a ship's captain, a very religious man, for passage. When they docked in America, he'd stolen it back. The captain came after him, and the Bear beat him to death with it. Since, he melted it down to a pair of knuckles and they'd been with him ever since. That was ten years ago. But he just kept staring out at the moon. Hardin saw them later, said the Bear would have those back.

When I went to buy ammunition, Trevors suggested fixing them to the handle of the Nagant. I agreed, and we welded on the dusters. When I got back, I showed the Bear by slugging him in the face, while he stared gormlessly at the moon. Lying in the mud, I stood over him and showed him his prized weapon, ruined. He stared through me, up, to the moon.

Enclosed is twenty dollars.

Russell

Officer Poison Ammo

RN: Chambers' attachment to his handgun was characteristic of many Hunters. All they had, really, to rely on. It was that snake in the desert that did it, gave him a sense of luck, most likely. Shame only the gun turned up; it can't answer many questions.

Officer Dumdum Ammo

RN: The chaos of different factions was not something that lessened over time. More would form with goals spanning from financial to demonic, but all were united in their ruthlessness.

Officer Carbine

NAGANT M1895 OFFICER CARBINE. (See also, NAGANT M1895 OFFICER, FIELD MODIFICATIONS). From their inception, the concept of revolving cylinder rifles had the potential to revolutionize the firearms industry. The original mechanism, developed for pistols, was applied to rifles in order to increase the rate of fire. The earliest models were engineered before the Civil War, before the widespread adoption of bullet cartridges. However, the concept was flawed.

When firing a revolver, there's a gap left between the cylinder and the forcing cone. The gasses which propel a projectile with incredible velocity are also traveling at that speed, some of which escape through this gap, known colloquially as "blow-by." While proper handling technique mitigates this problem in a revolver, the use of it in a rifle or carbine necessitates the rifle be supported fore of the cylinder, forcing the user to position their forearm vulnerable to the blow-by.

The unique cylinder mechanism of the Nagant M1895 seals the gap between the cylinder and the forcing cone. This mitigates the danger posed by blow-by to the user's forearm, therefore making them well suited to carbine conversion.

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Letter to Frank Chambers
Author: Russell "Snakeskin" Chambers
Single loose sheet, 8.5 x 11 in.
9/9

Pa,

Summer's finally coming to an end. The wound in my arm has worsened. With the cold coming on, I feel it more and more. Too weak to hold a rifle. Trevors had a solution though. Took my Nagant away for two days. I felt naked without it, I was stuck in working on the books.

I didn't recognize it when it was returned to me. Fashioned into something resembling a carbine. Apparently, a lot of Hunter's are doing such a thing, other firearms are too pricey. Makes me think, what others do out of desperation, I do out of a sense of sentimentality and necessity. Made me realize how far I'd come since squatting out in that ranch in the desert.

I used it for the first time today. The Bear had gone feral, finally living up to his name. We locked him up. He just stood staring at his ceiling like he could still see the moon. Starved himself thin. Last night, we found his cell empty, the bars bent and bloody. We tracked him out. The moon was full in the sky. We knew where he was looking, if not where he was.

We stumbled down to the bayou, following the glimmer, till we found him. Standing out in the middle of a still lake. The white shadow of the moon settled on the water. The Bear turned his head, looking straight at us. For a second, I was happy. I thought the sorcery binding him had broken, he was again aware of us. His face was scratched and tore, from where he'd squeezed through the bars. It turned to a grimace, he snarled, and he started wading to us. The moon broke apart in the ripples.

Hardin nodded, and I only shot once. He bucked and fell into the water, face down. The two of us just stood there, as the crickets and the bugs started up again their nightly song. We stood there till the moon settled again on the water, then we waded in for the corpse.

Enclosed is fifty dollars.

Russell

Officer High Velocity Ammo

RN: We torched the jailhouse once we'd taken what we needed, then returned and to burn what was left. Another loose end that could have led someone down a trail that didn't need following.

Officer Carbine Deadeye

NAGANT M1895 OFFICER CARBINE DEADEYE. (See also, NAGANT M1895, NAGANT M1895 OFFICER CARBINE DEADEYE) This modified Nagant adds a telescopic sight to the original Russian-designed double-action Nagant Officer Carbine.

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Journal of James Byrne
Handwritten, original
Incomplete, chronology could not be determined

Death old friend, eternal rival, shadow that plagues my steps. Why can we not meet on friendly terms? I am certain we would have much to discuss. I saw you so many times during the war. When I tried to tell the others, after, they looked at me strangely and told me about the hallucinations, so common among those as badly injured as I, having lost so much blood, longing for death.

But were they really hallucinations? I saw soldiers' breath leave their bodies and float toward the night sky like moths. I saw you walk among them, and reach out your hand, allowing injured men to lean upon your shoulder as you walked with them from the field. Their bodies remained, gored and bloody, on the cold ground, and yet at the same time, they walked with you. Hundreds of you, walking. Singing. I saw it, and I will never forget it.

But you did not see me. You did not offer me your hand. I begged for you to take me too. Yet you passed me by, as if you could not see me. Perhaps the living are but ghosts to you, only taking form once they have crossed over your shadowy threshold. And though you would not take me with you, you raced me home and took my Agatha and my Mary instead. You left me here to weep alone over my own unopened letter, on the stoop of an empty house.
The wound festers. I must turn my mind to other things.

Last night a man named Finch approached me. He said he understood my plight and then, cryptically, that he could help me. What plight, I asked him. The song, he said. Not a man of many words, and likely a madman. But if so, he is a well-dressed madman—he carried upon him a fine scoped Centennial and is clearly a man of taste and means! Perhaps, in him, I can seek patronage. If it is indeed my songs that interest him. He would say no more, but we have arranged to meet tomorrow evening, and I admit to feeling the first spark of hope in many months.

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