Welcome & Rules

Western Skies is a story-driven Red Dead Redemption 2 roleplay server with a deep, player-run economy. You'll live a character in the Old West — earning a living, building relationships, and choosing the path of a worker, lawman, businessperson, or outlaw.

Getting whitelisted (how to join)

1. Join discord.gg/westernrp.
2. Go to #welcome and react to the message — this unlocks the server.
3. Read the rules channel. It's a strict 18+, serious-RP, mic-required community.
4. To run a business or own a special property, apply in #business-properties. To get a whitelisted job, apply in #applications.
5. Connect in-game via the server listing / cfx.re join link.

Core rules (read the full list in Discord)

• Stay in character — talk/act like it's 1901. No modern slang, no breaking immersion.
• Value your life (Fear RP) — react realistically to weapons pointed at you.
• Initiate before robbing/attacking — give people a chance to roleplay.
• No RDM/VDM, metagaming, or powergaming.

Quick Start — Your First Hour

1. Make your character. Up to 5 characters. Lore-appropriate name & look.
2. Check your pockets: $1,000 cash and 350 inventory weight.
3. Learn G — try it on NPCs and prompts.
4. Find a town and look at your map for shop blips — almost everything is sold at player-run shops (see Where to Buy Everything).
5. Buy a cheap tool + food/water at any General Store (map blip). A pickaxe or hoe is $10, a hatchet or fishing rod $5.
6. Buy a horse at a Stable ($60–$650). You need a mount to travel and carry loot.
7. Pick a first income that needs no job: Gold Panning, Fishing, Hunting, or Deliveries.
8. Bank your cash at any town Bank so you don't lose it.
9. Rent a motel room ($20) for early storage, then save toward a house.
10. Find work. Apply for whitelisted jobs (law, doctor, etc.) in Discord's #applications, or get hired in person by a boss. /multijob only switches between jobs you already hold — it doesn't hand them out.

Controls & UI

Commands worth memorizing

Cores: Health & Stamina auto-recharge; keep them up by eating/drinking. Tonics gold your cores — a lasting boost to your max Health & Stamina.

All Commands & Keybinds

Almost every action here is a slash command you type in chat — and every one of them can be bound to a key. Type /binds to open the keybind menu, pick an action from the list, and assign it to any key you like.

Duty, Alerts & Backup

HUD & Interface

Money

Character, Emotes & Roleplay

Clothing Menus

The keybind menu also exposes dozens of clothing sub-menus you can bind: /hats, /coats, /masks, /gloves, /pants, /vests, /bandana, plus /dress / /undress / /removeclothes and job-outfit menus (/menupolice, /menudoctor, /menuarmyus, /menuminers, and many more). Open /binds to see the whole set.

Animals, Horse & Property

How the Economy Works

The single most important thing to understand: Western Skies is a player-driven economy. Most goods aren't sold by generic NPC stores — they're sold at shops other players own and stock.

The money loop

Gather raw goods → Process / Craft → Sell (to a player shop, a street NPC, or by fulfilling a delivery/bounty).

Player shops are two-way markets

A shop both sells goods to you and buys raw materials from you. Example (a real Blacksmith shop on the server): it sells a Pickaxe for $5 and a Hoe for $5, and buys your Coal at $8, Iron at $10, and Gold Nuggets at $10 each. So your mined ore has a guaranteed buyer.

Banking & storage

• Banks (every town): deposit/withdraw cash, transfer to players.
• House ledger: store up to $5,000 at home. Society ledgers: shared business money.

Where to Buy EVERYTHING

This is the section that stops you getting lost. Find shops by the blips on your map, ride up, and press G.

The NPC store network (112 shops — always open)

Licenses & special vendors

Making your own shop — the shoptoken

Selling Your Loot — What Shops Pay

Two ways to sell: NPC vendors (always open, fixed prices — the reliable baseline) and player-run shops (post buy orders that often pay more). Below are the real NPC prices.

🦌 Trapper — fish, pelts, meat & parts (10 locations)

⛏️ Blackwater Mineral Shop — gems & gold

Best Ways to Earn (ranked)

Mining

Need: pickaxe ($10 at any General Store)

1. Buy a pickaxe ($10 from any town General Store), then use it from inventory to equip it (miner hat + new walk).
2. Ride to a mine (map blip) and go underground (into the tunnel).
3. At a node press G on the "PICKAXE" prompt → ~15-second dig.
4. You get the base bits (Rock/Clay/Salt/Nitrite ×2) plus one ore roll below (doubled with the Miner job).
5. Each node has a 30-min cooldown — rotate between nearby nodes.
6. Sell gems & gold at the Blackwater Mineral Shop (fixed NPC prices: Diamond $30, Emerald $25, Gold Bar $40, Gold Nugget $15, Silver $10). Sell Coal & Iron to Blacksmith player shops, which often pay more.

Lumber & Foraging

Need: hatchet

1. Use the hatchet to equip it.
2. Walk to a tree, press G at the "CHOP THE TREE" prompt (~5s).
3. Get hardwood, softwood, and sap. Tree regrows in 60 min.
4. Sell wood/planks at shops, or keep them — wood + nails + clay upgrade house storage (see Property).

Gold Panning

Gear from any General Store: Gold Pan $75 · Bucket $10 · Gold Table $2,500 License from the Strawberry Gold Exchange

1. Buy your gear at any General Store — Gold Pan $75, Gold Panning Bucket $10, Gold Table $2,500. Then go to the Strawberry Gold Exchange, press G → Buy License (choose your river).
2. Ride to your licensed river: Little Creek River, Wapiti, Strawberry, or Annesburg.
3. Fill your bucket in the water.
4. Place the Gold Table (use the item) and pour the water in.
5. Press "Start" → panning animation.
6. Collect 1–25 nuggets, each a random karat (10–24).
7. Return to the Exchange → Sell. Higher karat + better river = more.

River bonus: Strawberry $80 · Annesburg $80 · Little Creek $60 · Wapiti $50.

Fishing

Need: fishing rod + bait/lures (Bait & Tackle / General shops)

1. Use the fishing rod to equip it, then use a bait/lure to load the line.
2. Cast toward water; wait for a bite.
3. Play the reeling minigame — reel in, steer left/right, don't snap the line.
4. Land the fish (SM < MS < LG < XL by value) and sell in bulk.

Which bait catches what

Farming

Need: hoe (~$10), seeds, watering can/waterbarrel, fertilizer, scarecrow (optional) — all from Seed/General shops. Can't farm in towns.

1. Use the hoe to Mark then Prepare a plot (out in the wilds).
2. Use a seed item on the plot to plant it.
3. Maintain on a ~5-min cycle: Water (>40%), Fertilize (>40%; regular +50%, Big +100%), Procure (tend), and Destroy Pests (15% chance each tick; a scarecrow reduces it).
4. Harvest when grown — quality depends on upkeep. You can turn herbs back into seeds.

Caps: 100 herbs outdoors, 10 protected at a house. Hot regions need more water; cold regions grow faster.

Oil Pumps & Metal Detecting

Oil Pumps

1. At an oil pump press UP ARROW and fuel it with Coal (from mining).
2. It extracts ~250 oil/hour. Keep it repaired; upgrade for $1,000.
3. Collect and sell the oil. (A clean loop: mine coal → burn coal → sell oil.)

Metal Detecting

1. Use the metal detector and sweep the ground; follow the signal.
2. Dig the hotspot for buried valuables, then sell. Best near old camps/battlefields/beaches.

Trapping, Falconry & Beekeeping

Three quieter trades that earn while you do other things — great second incomes.

🐾 Trapping

Set traps and come back later for whatever wandered in — fish, little birds, small animals, and crabs.

1. Buy traps at the Van Horn Trading Post (pick the category you want to catch).
2. Place a trap out in the wilds (not too close to another) and add bait to it.
3. Leave it — catch chance builds over time. Check back and take the animal out as a carcass.
4. Re-bait or move it. You can run up to 10 traps at once; sell your catch at the trap shop or a butcher.

🦅 Falconry (Hunting Birds)

Own a trained bird that flies out and brings back valuables — a hands-off way to gather.

1. Buy a hunting bird at the Van Horn or Wapiti Bird Shop and give it a name.
2. Command it from a small menu: Follow, Send Home, Change View, and (parrots) Talk.
3. Send it to Hunt — it scavenges and returns with items (gold nuggets, gems, opium, iron bars, ammo, sap and more).
4. Collect what it finds and sell it. Birds can be bought and sold between players.

🐝 Beekeeping

Harvest wild hives scattered across the map, or build and run your own apiaries for honey — one of the most popular quiet trades out West.

Gear from the Saint Denis bee store (behind the hotel): Bee Scraper · Pipe of Peace · Empty Bee Jars · Sponge · Insect Medicine

🍯 Wild hives — the easy way in

1. Double-click the Bee Scraper in your inventory to blip every wild nest on your map — they're spread across Valentine (basic bees), Ambarino (wild bees), the Grizzlies (hornets), and Lemoyne / West Elizabeth (Mexican hornets).
2. At a nest, smoke it with the Pipe of Peace first. Skip this and the bees/hornets attack you — it's deadly.
3. Collect with an Empty Bee Jar: ↑ the insects, ↓ the queen, → the honeycomb. Bees give honey, hornets give hornet poison — both with beeswax on the side.

🏠 Run your own apiary

1. Place an apiary and build it with the Bee Scraper (a ~15-second hammer job). You can own up to 10 apiaries, spaced apart.
2. Press G → Manage, then stock it with insects + a Queen (a queen makes it grow and produce — without one the insects slowly die off).
3. Keep it healthy: water it, clean it with a Sponge, and use Insect Medicine against parasites — neglect kills the colony.
4. It produces every ~15 minutes (more insects = faster). At 100%, collect the honey with a jar — plus honeycomb & beeswax.

Hunting & Butcher

1. Use Eagle Eye to track. Match your weapon to the animal (a rifle for deer, a bow for small game — a big gun ruins the pelt).
2. Kill cleanly, walk to the carcass, press G to skin it (pelts, meat, parts).
3. Stow big pelts on your horse.
4. Sell to Trappers, Butchers, or general shops. Better condition = more money. A Butcher can process carcasses into higher-value cuts.

Legendary Hunting — top solo money

Need: Hunting License — bought at any Sheriff Station for $75,000 (clean record required) strong weapons + ammo

1. Get a Hunting License, then find Gus (blip) at Riggs Station, Beecher's, Annesburg, Strawberry, or Manzanita Post. Press G.
2. Select an animal → follow the blip to the hunt zone.
3. A legendary animal spawns (often with rival poachers). Kill it, then bring the whole carcass back to turn in — only if it's too big to carry, skin it and bring the skin instead.
4. Reward: $15,000–$25,000 + 2–3 named legendary pelts.

Deliveries & Contracts

Press G at the job NPC to open. Earn XP to unlock harder, higher-paying runs.

Civilian deliveries (Valentine & Saint Denis NPCs — anyone)

1. Press G at the NPC → pick a tier you've unlocked.
2. A cart spawns — drive to the pickup and load it (G per sack).
3. Follow the route, keep the cart alive, deliver → cash + XP.

Law contracts (Fort Wallace & Fort Mercer — police/sheriff)

Robberies

Need: lockpick · mask recommended

1. Confirm enough police are online and your cooldown is up. Go to the target (map blip).
2. Shoot to start — fire within ~2m of the robbery point.
3. Lockpick normal boxes, or dial the combo (0–99 per dial) on safes.
4. Grab cash + 5–10% chance at emerald/diamond/gold bar. Escape.

🙅 Hostages & demands

Taking hostages is your leverage in negotiations — each hostage buys you demands the police must weigh:

• Civilian hostage = 1 demand
• VIP hostage = 2 demands

Moonshine Business

Need: Moonshine License ($75k, Sheriff Station) a still ($7,500, Black Market / Armadillo Distillery) a hideout ($100,000)

1. Get your Moonshine License and hideout ($100,000), then craft moonshine from recipes into bottles (classic/fruit ~$80, 90-proof ~$150).
2. Spawn a wagon with /moonshinewagon near your still — your delivery bottles are auto-loaded onto it.
3. Deliver to a named buyer (below). A run moves 25–100 bottles plus a distance bonus — roughly $2,000–$8,000+ per delivery.
4. Or sell bottles instantly to street NPCs (less money — see Contraband).

The buyer network (unlock by reputation)

Drugs & Contraband

A 3-stage pipeline: Grow → Craft → Sell.

1. Grow Prairie Poppy (and herbs) via Farming.
2. Craft the drug at a crafting station (a difficulty minigame; some recipes are job/location-locked).
3. Sell to random town NPCs (G → Sell, 1–5 at a time). Every sale fires a "Contraband Sale" police alert; if the NPC refuses (~50%) they may fight.

🔒 Selling to NPCs — license & heat

A Moonshine license only covers moonshine — it does nothing for drugs. Here's how the heat shakes out when you sell to street NPCs:

Bounty Hunting

Need: Bounty Hunter License — apply to become a bounty hunter in Discord's #applications (you can't just pick it up in-game).

1. Go to a bounty board (blip), press ↓ (Down arrow), browse open bounties.
2. Accept one → follow the blip to the (guarded) target.
3. Kill or capture them. Many offer a knife-kill bonus (+$2k–$4k) — finish with a melee knife when it does.
4. Turn in for $10,000–$19,600.

There are 24+ board targets (e.g. Carter near Valentine, a rogue monk in the Grizzlies, a corrupt lawman at Caliga Hall), each with 1–9 guards at 100–300 HP (mostly 200). Rescue missions pay $1,000–$2,500 as lower-stakes filler.

Gambling & Cards

Feeling lucky? The saloons and the Saint Denis casino ship are full of ways to win — or lose — a fortune. Sit at any table and press the interact key to join.

♠️ Poker (Texas Hold'em)

1. Sit at a poker table and buy in. You're dealt two private cards.
2. Bet, call, raise, check, or fold across the rounds as five shared cards are revealed.
3. The best five-card hand at showdown takes the pot. Tables run in saloons and on the casino ship.

🃏 Blackjack

1. Sit at a blackjack table and place a bet (anywhere from $10 up to $100,000 at the high tables).
2. Hit or stand to get as close to 21 as you can without going over.
3. Beat the dealer's hand to win.

🎡 Roulette

1. Take a seat at the roulette table on the casino ship.
2. Choose your chip value and place bets on numbers or colors.
3. Spin the wheel — winnings pay out automatically.

🎟️ Lottery Scratch Tickets

1. Buy a scratch ticket ($10 each).
2. Scratch it for an instant result: most win a little, and there's a rare shot at up to $10,000.

🂡 Collectible Cards

1. Buy card packs from the Card Dealer (a single card $50, a 5-pack $75, a 10-pack $100).
2. Open packs and build complete sets.
3. Turn a finished set in to the Card Collector for a big payout ($4,000–$7,500 per set).

Rodeo & the Arena

🐂 Bull Riding (Rodeo)

1. Head to a rodeo arena (Blackwater or MacFarlane's hard ring at $15, or MacFarlane's easy ring at $20) and pay the entry.
2. When the ring is free, start your ride.
3. Press the key shown before each timer runs out to stay on. The hard ring only allows two slips before you're thrown; the easy ring is more forgiving.
4. Beat your personal record and climb the leaderboard.

💥 Deathmatch Arena

A dedicated PvP zone separate from the roleplay world — go blow off steam without any consequences to your character. It's just north of Thieves' Landing, at the boat dock.

1. Enter the arena; you spawn with a set number of lives per session.
2. Fight other players; hit markers and kills are tracked — type /leaderboard to see the scores.
3. When you're done, type /spawn to return to the safe zone and leave the fight. Nothing you do in here follows you into the main world.

Piano & Saloon Music

Most saloons have a piano — and playing it actually pays.

1. Walk up to a piano and press U to sit down and start playing.
2. Play the little rhythm minigame — hit the notes as they come.
3. Keep the tune going and you earn about $50 every few seconds. Steady, low-effort income and great saloon ambiance.

Jobs & Businesses

Hold up to 4 jobs at once and switch between them.

1. Type /multijob to open the jobs menu.
2. From the menu: Switch / Save / Quit a job, or (as a boss) Manage Employees — Hire / Fire / Promote.

How you actually get a job or business

• Whitelisted jobs (law, doctor, etc.): apply in Discord #applications, or get hired in-game by a boss of that job.
• Own a business / player shop: buy a shoptoken at any General Store ($35,000) and place your shop, or for a whitelisted/core business apply in #business-properties and staff set you up.

Registered job types include Police, Sheriff (→ Marshal → Texas Ranger), Cavalry, Doctor, Bounty Hunter, Natives, and dozens of business owners: Gunsmiths, Stable Owners, Saloons, General Stores, Blacksmiths, Bakeries, Tailor, Cinema, Smoke Shop, Undertaker, Realtor, Railroader.

What jobs actually pay

Cavalry & Doctor — a paycheck every 15 minutes

Paid a flat amount by grade from the job's society ledger every 15 minutes (if the ledger runs dry, no paycheck):

At the top grade that's about $40,000/hr (Cavalry) or $32,000/hr (Doctor) — the best steady, safe income on the server. (Bosses set these from the job menu, up to $10,000/rank.)

Law (Police & Sheriff) — a wage every minute

Law is paid differently: a per-minute duty wage, collected when you clock off duty — from $392/min at Trainee up to $907/min at Texas Ranger (10 grades). Even a Trainee makes ~$5,880 per 15 minutes on duty, on top of jailwork and bounties. Full grade-by-grade table in Doctor & Law.

Doctor & Law

🩺 Doctor — how you earn

1. Work from hospitals / medical beds. Heal, treat diseases, and revive downed players.
2. A patient calls a doctor with /alertdoctor. You open /calls to view, manage, and respond to your calls — an alert-lock means only doctors can treat them until you arrive.
3. Pay: a society paycheck by rank — $1,000 · $3,000 · $5,000 · $8,000, paid every 15 minutes from the medical society ledger. (Doctors don't bill or keep patient fees.)

👮 Police / Sheriff — how you earn (this is NOT the society table)

A strong, steady wage — about $5,880 per 15 minutes at entry rank ($392/min), scaling up to $907/min. Pay is issued fresh on this server (not capped by the ledger). On top of the wage:

• Issue fines by penal code (below). Fines fill the town police ledger; unpaid fines make a citizen wanted and are paid at the Department of Justice. The Sheriff boss manages the ledger (deposit/withdraw).
• Jail suspects. Serious offenders go to Sisika Penitentiary, where prison chores pay $100–150 and cut 1 hour off the sentence each. An escaped-prisoner bounty pays $20,000. (Full details in Crime, Arrest & Sisika.)
• Set wanted posters with cash rewards for bounty hunters to collect.
• Run Fort contracts ($12.5–15k — see Deliveries & Contracts) and respond to robbery / witness alerts.

Crime & punishment — the penal code

Get caught breaking the law and you're charged under the penal code. Two things newcomers get wrong: the fines are fixed amounts (not negotiable ranges), and every charge carries jail time — no charge is fine-only. You serve the sentence at Sisika, where chores whittle it down. Common charges and their set fines:

Crime, Arrest & Sisika Prison

Break the law and get caught, and you'll answer for it — a fine, jail time, and for serious crimes a stint on Sisika Island, the state penitentiary.

How you end up in prison

1. Get caught & processed. An officer detains you, then files an occurrence/report in the police reports system and applies charges under the penal code (see Doctor & Law). You must be registered in a report before you can be jailed.
2. Charged & sentenced. Every charge carries jail time — none are fine-only. Charges also add a fixed fine (unpaid fines make you Wanted, settled at the Department of Justice). Your sentence is served at Sisika Penitentiary.
3. Booked into Sisika. You're transported to the prison island, assigned a cell number in Block B, and handed a sentence measured in hours. Guards patrol the yard, and there's a solitary confinement block for troublemakers.

⛓️ Prison chores — buy back your time

1. Find the Chief at his post inside Sisika (there's a prompt right there — you don't need to aim at him) and accept a chore.
2. Complete the assigned task around the prison.
3. On completion you're rewarded $100–150 and your remaining time is cut by 1 hour.
4. Repeat until your sentence is served — or wait out the clock the hard way.

🏃 Escaping

While you're inside

• A prison Doctor is on site if you get hurt.
• Behave — misconduct can put you in solitary confinement.
• Your sentence runs in real hours; chores are how you shorten it.

Own a Business

Beyond a job, you can run a whole enterprise — a shop, a haulage outfit, a shipping line, a ranch, or a saloon. Businesses are applied for through the community; once you have one, here's how they work.

🏬 Your own shop

1. Get a shop token and place your storefront where you like it. It shows up on the map for customers.
2. Stock it with goods (from gathering, crafting, or wholesale) and set your prices. Shops are two-way — you can also post buy orders to purchase materials from other players.
3. Customers walk up and buy; income collects in your shop's account. There's no tax — just stay active: a business left inactive for 2 weeks is confiscated. You can own up to 4 shops.

🚚 Delivery Company

1. Join or found a delivery company and open the freight menu at a depot.
2. Take a route — a wagon loads up and you haul it to the destination.
3. Keep your coach repaired and painted, deliver on time, and get paid. Owners hire workers and manage the company's funds.

⚓ Shipping Company & Boats

1. Shipping companies move cargo by boat between ports — the seafaring version of haulage.
2. Own your own boats — Horse Boat, Guama, Tugboat, or Turbine Boat. Dock them at ports; boats need fuel (a Fuel Canister) to run, and must be repaired and painted.
3. Run cargo routes for pay, or just use a boat to fish, travel, and reach the islands.

🐄 Ranching (the full loop)

A ranch is a proper business. Buy a ranch plot ($5,000, needs a house first), then raise and sell livestock: cows, sheep, goats, chickens, and pigs (up to 5 of each).

1. Buy animals — they start at low quality and improve as you work them.
2. Cattle drives. Herd your animals along a drive trail to the sale point. Payout scales with herd quality × herd size, and every successful drive raises your animals' quality — so a well-worked full herd pays out big.
3. Keep the herd together. Animals stray and wolves can attack on a drive. A herding dog (Catahoula $75, most breeds $300, Husky $1,000) lets you use /onme to call the whole herd to you (once every 5 min) and helps round up strays.
4. Daily produce. Add a cow pen ($2,000) to milk your cows (every ~30s), and a chicken pen ($1,500) to collect eggs (every ~2 min).

🍺 Other businesses

Saloons, stables, gunsmiths, general stores, bakeries and more can all be player-owned — you serve customers, stock goods, and keep the profits. See Jobs & Businesses for the full list of owner roles.

Crafting

Need: a crafting station (campfire item, or a bench/anvil) + ingredients — blocked in towns.

1. Place a campfire (use the item) or stand at a bench/blacksmith anvil (within ~2m).
2. Press G → pick a category, then a recipe (shows ingredients).
3. Craft (a quick minigame). Ingredients are consumed and the finished item goes into your inventory. Pack up your campfire when you're done.

The system holds ~2,100+ recipes across 10 categories: Food (690), Brewing (424), Survival (405), Smokeables (220), Blacksmith (192), Medical (113), Native (49), Horse Trainer (43), Gunsmith (26), Undertaker (4). Many are job-locked to business owners.

Property & Housing

🏨 Motels (cheap early storage)

$20/room in Valentine, Tumbleweed, Blackwater, Strawberry, Rhodes, Saint Denis, Annesburg. Front desk → G → rent.

🏠 Houses (1 per player)

There are two kinds of homes:

Teleport-house interior upgrade tiers

Buy a listed property from a Realtor, or a teleport home from the menu. Every house has a house ledger (store $5,000), furniture, and storage upgrades (nails + wood + clay, 20 tiers up to 100,000 slots).

When you sell a home, the proceeds go to the Sold Home Ledger — that's where you collect your funds. Ledgers are at: Valentine, Annesburg, Saint Denis, Rhodes, Blackwater, Armadillo, and Nordheim.

🐄 Ranches

Need a house first. From the house menu → Buy Ranch Plot for $5,000 (1 per player). Manage/sell at Sale Barns (Valentine, Rhodes, Blackwater, Strawberry, Armadillo, Saint Denis, Annesburg, Tumbleweed, MacFarlane's). Tend/breed livestock and sell produce.

Horses & Travel

You have two ways to get a horse, at very different prices:

1. Decide: a cheap stable horse to get moving, or invest in a bred horse with real stats.
2. Bond with your horse (ride it, feed it, brush it) to improve handling.
3. Use its storage (~300 slots + ~5 pelt slots). Whistle it when it's out; stable it anywhere.

Taming, breeding & wagons

• Tame a wild horse (lasso + break) and save it to a stable — a free mount.
• Breed a mare + sire for foals that inherit coat/stats — a business tied to the Stable Owner job and Emerald Horse Track.
• Wagons/carts (stables) haul deliveries, supplies, and farm water. Boats handle water travel. Trains & trams run scheduled routes.

🚂 Rail & water travel

Horses aren't the only way around. Railroad Conductor is a whitelisted job — apply in Discord #applications — and once you have it you can drive the trains: take out a locomotive, keep it fed with coal and water, and run it along the lines (there are trams too). Boats cover the rivers and sea.

A hot-air balloon gives you the grand scenic tour — take one out for $10,000 at Strawberry, New Austin, Annesburg, Rhodes, Saint Denis, Bacchus Station, Thieves' Landing, Tumbleweed, or Guarma.

Which breed? (what players actually ride)

Pets & Companions

You don't have to ride alone. Adopt a companion, raise it, and teach it tricks — some even earn their keep.

🐕 Dogs

1. Adopt a dog from a dog seller.
2. Command it with simple prompts — bark, sit, come, flee, feed.
3. Teach it tricks and skills over time. Dogs can also be bred for pups.

🐾 Pets

1. Buy a companion pet at the pet shop.
2. Keep it fed, watered and healthy — its needs drain faster the more it runs around.
3. It gains experience as you travel together and levels up (1–12); train it to learn new skills.

🐖 Truffle Pigs

A pricey companion that pays you back — a trained pig sniffs out truffles and roots up buried treasure.

1. Buy one at the Treasure Pig Shop ($50,000–$500,000 — trained boars forage best). You can store it as an item and re-place it wherever you like.
2. Keep it fed — give it Pig Feed (↑).
3. Send it to Search (↓). It sniffs out truffles — Black, Brown, White, Common, and rare Magic ones. Grab them fast, or the pig gobbles the truffle before you can.
4. Give it a Pig Pill (←) and it produces droppings — dig through the poop for buried treasure: old coins, arrowheads, fossils, and jewelry.
5. Sell your truffles and finds for cash — the rare stuff (Magic truffles, gold coins, gem jewelry) pays the most.

Social & Roleplay

The frontier is really about people. Here's how to talk, write, gather, and make your mark.

📞 Telephone

Public telephone booths sit in saloons and shops around the map, each with its own number. Step up to one, call another booth by its number, and whoever's near it can answer — a great way to reach a business or a friend across the map. Telephones can also be placed in houses, so residences can call each other directly.

✉️ Mail

Register at a Train Station — walk up to the mailboard (floating text says press G to register), then use /mail. Send handwritten letters to other players (delivered by carrier pigeon); sign them or send anonymously, and recipients can write back.

📖 Books & Notes

1. Write your own book — a memoir, a guide, a story, anything.
2. Take it to a Library (Saint Denis, Strawberry, Blackwater, or Valentine) and apply to publish it (a small fee). Once approved, it earns you royalties and can be read by others.
3. For quick messages, jot a handwritten note and hand it to someone. Read the town Pinboard for jobs, events, and notices.

🏕️ Families & Gangs

Clans aren't a free-for-all — they're the server's Family & Gang system, and any group of more than 3 acting as one must be registered (unregistered gang RP = ban). A group is either a law-abiding Family or a criminal Gang — no mixing.

• Apply & register your family/gang before any gang-related RP. Requires 1–2 leaders and at least 5 active members; leaders need 2 weeks of Discord activity and 20 hours in county.
• Territory: the leader can buy a Camp Flag ($150,000) and plant it on a member's privately owned property (never in town). Groups can defend their property; attackers are capped at 7.
• One family/gang per character, a 15-day trial for new groups, and a 7-day wait before switching — see the full Gang / Family Rules before you start.

⚰️ Undertaking

Someone has to see folks off. Undertaker is a whitelisted job — apply in Discord #applications. You operate out of Tumbleweed, Van Horn, Valentine, Strawberry, Saint Denis, Emerald, Rhodes, Blackwater, and Armadillo.

Bury the dead for a fee — using burial goods like wraps, perfume oil, liquor, and flower arrangements for bonus pay — and dig out in the wilds with a shovel to turn up buried treasure: coins, gems, gold, ore, and odds and ends.

💃 Dancing & more

Open the emote menu with F4 (or /emenu) for animations and dances. To partner-dance, focus on the other player (hold right-click) and press E to invite them (spins, combos and all). Elsewhere you'll find music & instruments, the Saint Denis theater, cinema & night club, bathhouses to clean up, and scenic balloon & cannon rides.

🔍 Searching & the darker side

If you've hogtied someone, you can search them and take what they carry — the flip side of being an outlaw or a lawman.

Natives & Tribes

The Natives are a full living culture out West — their own people, land, gear, and mysteries.

🏹 Becoming a Native

1. Join a tribe — get taken in by an existing Native tribe, or
2. Start your own — apply for a tribe through the Family / Gang application in our Discord. Natives register the same way as any family or gang (see Families & Gangs).

🏕️ Your Reservation

Once you're a Native you can build your own reservation from scratch, or move into an existing tribe's land and live among them.

⭐ Native Exclusives

The Native life unlocks things no one else gets:

• Native attire — traditional clothing and regalia.
• Fire arrows — a signature Native weapon.
• The Tree of Knowledge — make the journey to the sacred tree by Brandywine for some genuinely strange out-of-body experiences.

Item Codex — Medical & Revive

Getting hurt is a fact of frontier life. Here's what to carry and where it comes from — the reliable government basics, plus stronger custom items sold in player shops.

Revive items (bring a dead player back)

Beyond a Doctor, player shops sell revive syringes that bring a downed player back faster than waiting on medical — worth carrying for your crew (mind the alert-lock rule above). Prices are player-set and vary shop to shop, so shop around.

Government (NPC) medical supplies

Every town's Medical Supplies store sells the basics at fixed government prices — your reliable, always-open baseline:

Item Codex — Tools & Gear

The cheap tools that start every money method. Buy them at any General Store (map blip) — real server prices below.

Item Codex — Weapons & Ammo

Important for newcomers: you don't buy finished guns off a shelf. You buy weapon parts, and a Gunsmith assembles the weapon by crafting. Ammo, though, is cheap and everywhere.

Weapon parts (a Gunsmith turns these into guns)

Ammunition (cheap — stock up)

Item Codex — Food & Buff Consumables

Every consumable restores some mix of Hunger, Thirst, Health, Stamina (and can permanently "gold" your cores for a lasting boost). Keep food/water on you so your cores never bottom out.

How to read a consumable

Item Codex — Drug & Smoke Market

There's a large, open market in tobacco, marijuana, and moonshine goods — plus the harder drugs you produce yourself (see Drugs). Note: the base drug crop Prairie Poppy is sold openly at ~$5–20 in 16 shops.

Server Snapshot — Live Data

A read on the real server so you know what "normal" looks like, what players actually do, and where you fit in. These are real, current figures from the server.

💰 How rich is everyone, really?

🔨 What players commonly carry

Based on what's actually sitting in players' inventories: ammo (revolver, repeater, rifle, shotgun, arrow), consumables (chocolate, raspberry water, water), tools (pickaxe, hatchet, hoe, brush), medical (bandage, splint, Heal-For-Horse), and materials (leather, salt, nitrite). Takeaway: keep ammo, food, tools, and a bandage/splint on you — that's what the typical player carries.

🦌 What players actually hunt (most profitable game)

By total kills: Alligator, Whitetail Deer, Leghorn Chicken, Pronghorn, Wolf, Bison, Boar, Turkey, Elk, Buck. The Alligator (Bayou Nwa) and big deer are both the most-hunted and the best-paying (gator pelt ~$100, big game meat ~$125 — see Selling Your Loot).

🏭 Player-run enterprises right now

📚 Player culture

Players have written 2,499 books (74 published for royalties) — everything from "How To Be An Undertaker" guides to grimoires to comedy sketches. There are camps with poker tables, butcher tables, crafting fires, and robbery-planning sets, plus posters, mail (350k+ letters sent), and a whole clothing economy (250k+ garments bought). This is a living world — jump in and add to it.

FAQ — "Where do I get…?"

Glossary — Talking the Talk

We keep it in character out here. Modern words break immersion, so folks use frontier stand-ins. When you hear one of these, here's what they really mean:

Handy game terms