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.

In the Hunt: Showdown 1896 release, our Variant terminology was simplified. We have updated it here.

+++

Romero 77

Romero 77. (See also, SHOTGUNS) Romero Arms and Tool Co. was founded in 1853 by Eugene Romero. They developed a line of steel tools and an early model break-action revolver. However, their interest in the firearms industry dwindled following the Civil War, and that aspect of the business was shut down. Eugene Romero passed in 1871, leaving the company to his son, Custer Romero. Following the 1873 Panic, Romero sought new ventures. Romero Arms was resuscitated in 1877. New investment came from John Harrison, the younger brother of the famed Oliver Harrison & Roberts Firearms. Happy to work with Custer Romero, John Harrison put to paper early designs for a new shotgun focused on sporting, beginning with the Romero 79, named for the year of its entry to market, 1879. Following on from this were four successive improvements on the model, the 83 in 1883, 84 in 1884, 85 in 1885, and, confusingly, the 77 in 1886.

His health ailing, Harrison designed his final iteration. The Romero 77 entered into production a year after his death and was named for the year the company was founded. The Romero 77 became extremely popular, one of the most well-regarded sporting shotguns available at the time.

+++

Journal of Daniel Glanton
Severely deteriorated, bound in unidentified leather, 8 x 8 in.
1/5

May 1^st

I hadn't seen him since he was standing right over me, so absorbed in my work as I was. My lap was filling with metal dust as I was going at the indentation stamped on the side of the barrel. My file slipped an I looked up and saw him standing there.

He asked me what I was doing and I told him I was taking off the engraving on the Romero. He asked why, and I kept dumb. He didn't look like no lawman, but still I weren't about to say straight forward it was stole from a dead man.

He didn't leave and stood waiting and then I told him it was taken. He said no lawman from here to Marfa is gonna know one gun from another by an engraving, but having one scratched out is something sure conspicuous. I told him I hadn't thought that part out, which he said he figured. I gathered then his intention was to make me feel small.

He took the gun from me quick as can be. He had the hinge pin undone and cracked the receiver, pulling the barrel off. He turned it upside down and put the back end before me. If you're gonna do a bad job, at least do it right, he said pointing at a second engraving that had been hidden there.

He started walking on down the road and I set about following. He asked me what I was doing. I told him I was a Hunter like him. I showed him the Romero. He said that was more a sportman's gun.

I told him straight back that there was no finer sport than hunting.

+++

Journal of Daniel Glanton
Severely deteriorated, bound in unidentified leather, 8 x 8 in.
2/5

May 5^th

We left the road and were crossing open country. Until yesterday, I'd not got a word straight about what we were hunting. The man stopped midday and said we would make camp here. Tomorrow morning we'll pass into the grounds themselves, he said, crossing himself.
He set up camp and sent me to fetch something for dinner, and some groundsel, hackberry, and devil's snare. I found a family of swamp rabbits. They're so dumb, you shoot one of them and they all disappear back underground. But you wait an hour and they come out again. I bagged four with the Romero.

Evening I got back to find the man waiting with a mortar and pestle. He got me cooking and set about mashing the plants I'd got. I thought it was for flavor, but instead he mixed them into a steal vial set that in the fire.

After eating, he took it out with a tong and carefully poured the hot red syrup inside into a doctor's syringe. It poured like molasses. He said I had to take this. I refused, I hated the doctors. He said, word for word, think of it like a rabies shot, but if you don't take it, it'll be me killing you, not rabies. I saw he was serious.

This morning, I hurled up chunks of swamp rabbit. The man said that we can get going.
We went on. The woods became copses and got flatter and wetter. Soon was splashing out in water past sunk flat bottoms, the banks cloyed with old fish nets. Old outhouses fallen apart, huts collapsing on their stilts.

Romero 77 Shorty

Romero 77 SHORTY. (See also, SAWED-OFF SHOTGUNS) The Romero 77's utilitarian design—a single barrel and no magazine or reloading mechanism—made it simple to modify, the most common modification being a shortened barrel. This offers many advantages, most notably, greater mobility and easier handling, particularly advantageous in wooded and urban areas. The main drawback was losing the choke, making it less accurate at range. There was an additional psychological benefit to such modification, sawed-off shotguns are infamous with good reason.

+++

Journal of Daniel Glanton
Severely deteriorated, bound in unidentified leather, 8 x 8 in.
3/5

May 30^th

Pa never would have forgive me for losing his old shotgun. Once had pride of place on the mantle, though he hardly would of recognized it. I left it when we scrabbled out of the burning barn while the Spider was ripping the Hunters from New York limb from limb.

The man with no name led the way through the darkness, surefooted through the cattails. You can never be sure who to trust, he ranted, people here from all over, with religious creeds and blood oaths and contractual obligations, everyone wants the same thing, don't matter why, when there's not enough to go around.

I repeated to him what my Pa had always said—Providence will provide. We walked through the night and eventually left the grounds. We found an abandoned church suitable enough to hole up in and rest. Searching for something to eat, I found a Romero 77 shotgun in the knave. I repeated again Pa's saying, along with some blasphemy. The man grunted and said it was not a surprise, pastors needed protection too and weren't known for their taste in firearms.

We woke up as it was falling dark again. We would go back, the man said. He had cut down the Romero to be half the size. Better in close quarters, he said.

I didn't want to go back. We were weaker, we were worse equipped. But there was no use saying that to the man. Something inside him had snapped in the burning barn.
I fired a few rounds in the yard to test out the handcannon. It would do. The final shot, I aimed up one handed at the bell, dangling by a rotted rope in the tower. The shot swung my arm back, hit myself in the head. The bell pinged rather than rang as the shot recoiled off it, then dropped. The shot had spread and severed the rope. It clattered to the floor, the man then headed off into the woods, shaking his head.

Romero 77 Starshell

RN: Ordinary farm boy turned monster, a story which was a dime a dozen and yet this one stuck out as a particularly monstrous transformation—one worthy of preservation. Preserved, but perhaps buried, in the dusty corner of some forgotten archive.

Romero 77 Dragon Breath

RN: It was once proposed to me that Lynch's weapon may have been Glanton. A far-fetched theory, but one that arose out of the horror of his character, in order to try and rationalize it, fathomable. Just one of many, however.

Romero 77 Talon

Romero 77 TALON. (See also, Romero 77, FIELD MODIFICATIONS) The Romero 77 was predominantly a sportsman's gun. As such, a key quality was its lightweight barrel. While suited to shooting game, where quick reflexes and deft accuracy are required, when adapted for use as a melee weapon, the barrel was ill-suited to the task. Modifications made to such weapons would often reinforce the butt of the shotgun, that being the most robust part. Moreover, some examples show that in addition to structural reinforcement, additional blades were also added to the rear of the weapon. This would make it a particularly lethal and vicious club.

+++

Journal of Daniel Glanton
Severely deteriorated, bound in unidentified leather, 8 x 8 in.
4/5

June 1^st

I keep having dreams of back when I first met the man. They always begin with him asking you know what you're out here hunting, prying open a tin of beans with a large knife, the remains of a war bayonet.

I'm hungry though and looking at the beans and so don't hear him, so he has to repeat himself, which makes him mad. Then the dream carries on. I told him I didn't know what we were hunting. He said that would be better but I should know one thing and that's how to fight. I told him back I used to tumble with my older brothers and they was stronger, but I fought dirty and he laughed and said this was no tumble in the yard, and your mam wouldn't grab you both by the ear and break it up when you got beaten.

That got me riled up and I ended up telling him about the boy last summer, why I couldn't go home. I hadn't meant to tell no one ever. Then it's later and we're paused by a gurgling creek which reminded me of the boy and the sweet streams we used to drink from when ranging away from the farm.

The man, who still ain't told me his name, took my Romero and swung it like a bat, then said there would be times when I wouldn't have no time to reload and I'd have to use it as a club. I practiced and he told me how to do it better. Then the man noticed the water in the creek had stopped gurgling.

We went up the bed 'til we came to the source of the blockage, a corpse. The water behind him had made a pool. He was freshly dead. The man checked the body and told me to get a hold of myself so I went some ways away and waited. When he called me back he handed me a rusted old blade. The man's, we'll put it in your gun's stock, give your swing some more bite, he said.

He went off again, and I couldn't help but look again at the body. Its heart was cut out. Then I wake up.

Romero 77 Penny Shot Ammo

RN: Theft, mutilation, fratricide, cannibalism; nothing was beneath him, as it would turn out. It's speculated that there was something more of the Sculptor in Glanton than in others.

Romero 77 Hatchet

Romero 77 HATCHET. (See also, Romero 77 HANDCANNON, FIELD MODIFICATIONS) The Romero 77 was not only utilitarian, but also robust. Once shortened, however, the weapon was found to lack an edge in close quarters. To compensate for this, perhaps too much, some owners would affix a hatchet blade to the barrel of the weapon. This would be complimented with an extended stock, both balancing the weight and granting a larger graspable surface.

+++

Journal of Daniel Glanton
Severely deteriorated, bound in unidentified leather, 8 x 8 in.
5/5

June 2^nd

Still no sign of the Spider. Our hunt this morning only turned up two Hunters from Utah, still green. I killed them both. Yesterday evening, the man handed me his hatchet and told me chop firewood. I swung it around a few times, then into a tree stump. It rained dead leaves. I swung around the Romero a couple of times.

What do you think, they're about the same size, I asked the man. He didn't look up from the fire. After chopping firewood, I whittled at the handle of the hatchet. When I got halfway through, I realized I could just stamp and snap off the blade. The man looked up. I carried that hatchet for eight years, he said.

In the morning, I fixed the hatchet blade to the Romero. I spliced the old handle and inserted the old one. It's good to work in the morning light. The man cooked the last of the beans. After breakfast, I kicked the charcoal out the pit. We walked through the woods. I swung at the low hanging branches with the new and enhanced Romero, the fallen ones making a trail behind us.

Think we'll find the spider today, I asked the man. He grunted something, maybe yes. I suppose it doesn't matter, I replied, seeing as we're having such fun. It was then we came across the Hunters. Devout it seemed, carrying out their mission in the name of the Lord. The man wanted to leave them, but I had an itch to try out the hatchet. In the end, they noticed we were there, and fired.

I charged them, laid out the first with a blast from the Romero, and went into the second, burying the hatchet into his neck. The blood spurted all over my white shirt. I hacked and hacked, each time making the shirt darker and darker.

Romero 77 Alamo

ROMERO 77 ALAMO. (See also, ROMERO 77, SHOTGUNS, ATTACHMENTS) The simple design of Romero 77 made it a great candidate for modifications and experimental attachments. Although it was renowned for delivering a single shot powerful enough to eliminate a target at close range, it was soon outclassed by more advanced shotguns. But for firearms manufacturer Frederik Alamo, this presented an opportunity. He designed a device that can be mounted on any single-shot, break-action shotgun, and turn it into a repeating firearm. Said device, dubbed after his own name, consists of a transfer chamber and a magazine chamber, each of which can hold one and three shells respectively, and one extra shell can be loaded into the shotgun's chamber. When the wielder breaks the barrel to eject the spent shell, it triggers a spring which moves the transfer chamber sideways and inserts the new shell into the barrel. The device resets when the barrel is closed, allowing the wielder to reload with one simple motion.

+++

Records, Pelican Island Prison
Handwritten notes
Author: Handwriting match for Solomon Jabez

Date: August 20, 1894

Findings on inmate No. 47, "Ernst":

He is one of the younger inmates at the prison, sentenced to seven years for theft. The court case documents state that he was embezzling from his former employer and had plans to run off with his boss' son when the time was right. For some reason, he chose to take on the complete burden of the trial and the sentence.

Last night I walked through on observation. Most of the prisoners are broken, and many cowered away as they heard me approach. But not No. 47, it seems that he still has enough spirit left in him to fight back, he's pure defiance. Good, I was beginning to grow bored. He'll be sent to the basement tomorrow.

Date: August 21, 1894

Time is running low to meet Huff's request, so the training had to begin quickly. Some of the guards had expressed interest in making someone with attachments. Appendages. Enhancements? A man with a knife or a gun constantly at the ready for fighting. I proposed No. 47 to be part of these experiments.

Smith requested permission to sever one of the arms himself and I obliged. After giving No. 47 three doses of Laudanum, two other guards tried to strap No. 47's arm to the wall. No. 47 fought and fought, lashing and kicking. Smith couldn't get close with the saw. Then, he lost his temper. Threatened him with his new toy, a shotgun with some odd loading contraption. It did leave me impressed, how quickly it reloaded while Smith shot off the arm. Smith had talked our ears off about it. Not long after the third shot No. 47 passed out from shock, and the arm is now gone. He will be taken to the medical ward for treatment and have a mechanism attached so that we can replace the appendage.

He will get rest in his cell tonight; the training can begin in earnest tomorrow.

Romero 77 Slug

RN: In truth, Glanton was never all that significant. It was just the horror of such actions performed by a plain, ordinary boy that caught the imagination. His journal charted such a trajectory of degeneration, and served as the foundation for notoriety. Ha! Even I must contradict myself at every turn.

+++