"Mormons as a Sinister Force In Deadlands" Topic

I guess my question is whether anybody would find this offensive. Certainly it is true of the non-Mormon perception of Mormons during the period. THey are often portrayed as working black magic, and as a bizarre sex cult.

Now, I have no problems with the LDS. The Mormons I have known have been fine people, and, one at least I could safely describe as one of the most Christian men I ever met.

It also seems as though there would be no problem amongst gamers, as long as I made it clear that this was pure fantasy, based on the conceptions of the period, and was not meant to reflect on the historical Brigham Young, nor on the LDS Church.

Still, it seems like this could be a mine field. I'm curious what others think.

Well if your not worried about what other gamers would think, what are you concerned about? Catholics regularly get the "sinister organization" treatment and the world still turns, not to mention the Muslims. They are like the flavor of the year bad guys. Couse I don't run games as public displays and really don't care what people think about the politics of my toy soldiers or RPGs.

Ed G.

You've done it now.

Bill the Editor is a Mormon. I don't fancy your chances if it turns out they really are a Sinister Force.

At the very least you'll be off his Christmas card list… Er, that's if they have Christmas. I seem to have mislaid my Book of Mormon.

(No, really, I have got one somewhere.)

OK, but I know I much prefer the way they're pictured in the actual DEADLANDS material. I mean, it's Brigham Young's own hopes of actually seeing Hellstromme come to some kind of redemption that pushes him to ally with him, which makes their state of Deseret home to some of the most advanced steamtech in the setting.

Well, there WAS a US Mormon War. And if you follow Harry Turtledove, they're jsut itching to rise again.

A persecuted people, and they were persecuted, in the 19th C USA is quite likely to take up arms. Even in the 20th and 21st…
The Indians certainly did. If you believe NRA history, all of our gun control laws had as their origin the desire to keep guns from the hands of freed Blacks after the Civil War.

I guess all uppity people can be considered a Sinister Force if you look at it from the viewpoint of the oppressor.

Ohm I hope I don't have to ride this thread to CA. 8^)

Harry Turtledove has the LDS revolting against US Federal rule every time there is a war. They are quite violent too, in his books.

For a little period flavor, have a look at Mark Twain's account of his sojourn in Salt Lake City in "Roughing It"—pages 38-50 in this online edition:

link

Memories of the Destroying Angels were still fairly fresh.

Allen

Or for an outside perception of the Mormons of the day with the aim of informing, rather than merely entertaining- "The City of the Saints" by Sir Richard Burton: the Brit who performed the Hajj as a non-Muslim, translated the Kama Sutra, and co-discovered the source of the Nile. Not bad with a blade, either. You ought to put him in your game- sounds like he would fit right in.

Meadow Massacre anyone? :)

I'm playing a Mormon minister in a Deadlands game and he and both barrels of his 10g scattergun will tell you there is nothing sinister about the Mormons:)

Cheers – Mike

An extract from Burton, as well as other contemporary authors, is here:

link

Clemens was not writing simply to entertain, by the way.

Allen

Bill the Editor is a Mormon.

I think I've used Mormons myself as a sinister force in an RPG or two, so go right ahead. It's fiction, after all.

Mormons have also had an interesting role in the Car Wars fiction, partly due to some creative writing to explain an error in an early story (it was supposed to say that the airship exploded, but instead said that a Mormon apostle spontaneously burst into flames!).

They are quite violent too, in his books.

In the real-life "Mormon War," the Mormons burned supplies but didn't kill anyone, to the best of my knowledge. (One of my ancestors came west with the U.S. Army…)

Anyone who only serves caffine free Coke is indeed a sinister force!

I was slug all day long!

"it was supposed to say that the airship exploded, but instead said that a Mormon apostle spontaneously burst into flames!"

That is a hell of a typo.

The Mormons were extremely insular and hostile to non-mormons in the mid to late 1800's. It would be very appropriate for them to be hostile to the federal government, indians, and anyone who didn't favor polygamy or a new view of Christianity in a Deadlands campaign. There are some great stories of political intrigue from that period of time, giving some perfect scenarios for a band of deadlands characters. I would not try any card hexes in their presence, that's for sure!

West Wind makes a cool 'Vatican Hit Squad' for Gothic Horror…what would the Mormon counterpart be?

I'd look for figures that look like Miles Utley (Tom Berenger) and his fellow shootists in "The Avenging Angel":

link

A number of Foundry Old West figures would do. Not sure where to find Charlton Heston (not one of his best performances) as Brigham Young.

When I see Jeffrey Jones in "Deadwood" now, I get flashbacks to him as an Elder in this—and also to "Beetlejuice", which makes for a strange melange…

Allen

Mormons didn't kill anyone in the Mormon War? Depends on how you look at it.

Just as the Mormons heard that Johnstons army was on the way, a wealthy wagon train from Arkansas had the misfortune of passing through Utah. The Mormons were beside themselves with fear and anger – they'd moved to Utah to get out of the US, but by the time they got here the territory had been annexed as a result of a war with Mexico. (in a strange turn of events, they'd supplied an infantry battalion to fight for the US during the war) – but they still had no love for the US. And vice versa. Politicians, including Lincoln, tried to distract Americans from the slavery question by railing against the polygamy practiced by many of the Mormons – so the Mormons were pretty frightened and remained very bitter over the way they'd been treated by the US.

So anyway, here comes this wagon train. Rumors circulate among the Mormons that members of the wagon train participated in some of the atrocities perpetrated against them in Missouri. Church leaders met with local indians and promised them that in return for attacking the wagon train they could have the herd of cattle accompanying it.

When the wagon train reaches Cedar City they are given a cold welcome. No one would sell them supplies. They ask for directions and are sent to a spring at Mountain Meadows.

The Mormons know the Church has it in for this group and ask for advice from Brigham Young in Salt Lake City, 200 miles away. Brigham sends an unclear message saying something like 'let the indians do as they will'.

The local militia leaders don't think the indians are strong enough to take on the immigrants so they disguise themselves as indians and join them in a surprise dawn attack on the wagon train. The initial attack was beaten off and the Mormons and indians laid seige of the wagons.

The Mormons had been right, the Indians had no stomach for the fight and after the initial attack the Mormons, still in disguise, were the ones keeping the settlers trapped in their circle of wagons.

After four days, the settlers are out of water and low on ammunition. A Mormon comes forward under a flag of truce. He explains that the Mormons have interceded with the indians and if the settlers will surrender thier weapons, the Mormons will lead them back to town. The settlers were dubious, but had no choice. Each unarmed male settler is led out of the camp by an armed Mormon. The women and children are brought out in a seperate group.

At a certain point on the trail, the Mormon leader (A Bishop), calls out 'Do your duty!' and each Mormon turned and shot the settler he was escorting. Then the mob descended on the women and children and killed them too. They spared the children who they thought would be too young to remember – I don't remember the number, it was either 5 or 14. About 140 men, women and children were killed.

For years the Mormons blamed the massacre entirely on the indians, but the truth got out. The leader of the Mormons was eventually captured, tried, and shot. He maintained to the end that he was following orders, but the Mormon judge and jury would hear none of it.

So while the Mormons never fought a pitched battle with the soldiers sent to occupy Utah, I don't think the Mountain Meadows Massacre would have happened if they hadn't been on the way.

Like I said, the Mormons didn't fight Johnston's Army directly, but they did conduct a scorched earth campaign in front of the advancing Army. This didn't stop the troops and they occupied Salt Lake. They built Fort Douglas in the foothills overlooking the town. The whole time they were there, they kept their cannons pointed right at Brigham Young's house – So he'd have no doubt as to what would happen if the Mormons didn't behave.

Later on, the army commander, Johnston, went back east and died at the battle of Shiloh.

The Mormons get a pretty bad press in the very first Sherlock Holmes story. A product of its time, of course.

The Molly Maguires don't fare very well either in "The Valley of fear".

Burton did not discover the source of the Nile. His guess was wrong. It was his freind turned mortal enemy John Hanning Speke who was right, as Burton himself admitted(tho' only in a footnote). You are righthe was a raving xenophobe, thoughas an anthropologist he knew who he hated, and would fit nicely into such a scenario

aecurtis "I'd look for figures that look like Miles Utley (Tom Berenger) and his fellow shootists in "The Avenging Angel":"

Isn't that the same movie that has Vincent Price in a cameo role as Joseph Smith?

Hmm. I'm going to have to give this "sinister force" thing some more consideration. :)

Burton actually seemed to hate everyobody, not just foreigners, so I don't know if he counts as a xenophobe. Though mostly English himself (with a bit of Irish too*), he despised England and most of the people in it.

As to his feud with Speke, he seemed to fall out with just about everybody he met. One gets the distinct impression that if you locked him alone in a room, he'd still manage somehow to get into a heated argument.

Fascinating character. Like Flashy, I think one should try and insert him into Nineteenth Century wargames at every opportunity.

As soon as they're painted, I'm gonna unleash my Somalis on him and Speke. See how he likes that…

*Brought up mostly in France, I don't think he'd have had much of an Irish accent. That didn't stop Patrick Bergin giving him the full "Colonel Darlin', Begorrah, Paddy O'Mick" treatment when he portrayed him.

Now that Desolation Row figure might work well for an "alternate reality" Elder, maybe even Brigham Young himself in retribution mode:

link

Allen

It's unfair. No one ever has sinister Anglicans. Why do Mormons & Catholics get all the fun.

Cuz Sinister Anglicans is just too obvious…

(;

First of all, they weren't rumors about whether the missouri riders portion were part of some of the atrocities that happened against the saints.

They bragged it up themselves.

Second, Brigham Young's letter was pretty clear about letting the train go peaceably.

It was an appalling deed that had little to do with the Utah war, although I would agree that it was partially the cause of it. The Leaders who did it got what they deserved, some of the participants did not. The poor people from Arkansas most assuredly did not.

As far as the Utah war goes, the leaders had given very clear specfic instruction as to how to operate against the army. And any level of good scholarship will bear that out. Contrast that with the pack of lies and misrepresentation that led to the Army being dispatched in the first place.

And the scorched earth campaign was very effective in allowing time for the Mormons representatives to intercede in Washington. It did what it was designed to do, and buy time, not stop the army.

Yes, the army did come, and the decison to camp outside of town was a joint agreement between Johnston and Brigham Young to keep the peace.

It would have been a heck of a shot from the army camp to Brigham Young's doorstep for a artillery piece of that period, considering the distance.

Yes the mormons were hostile to outsiders, and mostly with good reason.

I think for Deadlands your "sinister force" would be a great flavor piece. Despite some mechanics differences, I wish people still played around here. I could care less about the stereotype in this type of fantasy game. I would be careful about who you game with or around. Just to be friendly if nothing else. I will never forget the time some bonehead brought his brownshirt IG army to a tourney, talk about bad taste.

Hi

Actually, the Army's entry to Salt Lake had a "touching" scene. The populace turned out, and as the army marched through town, deliberately turned their backs.

Great fun. The first "camp", Camp Floyd, was well southwest of Salt Lake and is a museum today. It was later also approximately the place of the Pony Express stage change, and a there is a nice preserved inn there. Another army camp east of Salt Lake was later established. And EVEN TODAY, local myth has it that the place was sited where it was so that artillery could be trained on the temple. The "artillery" in question were 12# napoleons, and "Fort Douglas" is 3 and a half miles from temple square. But the myth is perpetuated today.

One part usually over looked, besides the salacious outsider stuff about Poligamy and all, is that Brigham Young was a genuine "Utopian" who had the actual power to make an attempt to pull it off, a "Cartesian School Socialist", the Mormons actually had it in place for a while.

Didn't work out, so, Brigham, one of the unsung truely amazing men of the 19th, merely adapted.

Anyway, I run a late 19th century "timeline" campaign based on a Rich Morman who is an amatuer Archeologist who hires folk to take him into remote areas looking for lost Lamanite cities. Not sinister, though. The figure and his character is semi-based on one of my friends, Humphrey who posts here. In his younger days he bore a striking resemblence to "Beeker" on the muppets show!

Rocky

that's funny considering the temple foundations were covered up with soil to look like a ploughed field when the army came through.

"whatcha aiming at Phil?
"dunno, that field must be important"

I cannot stress this enough: read "A Study In Scarlet" by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle. It's the first Sherlock Holmes novel and, although full of inaccurate information, I think it would serve as a FANTASTIC template on how to use the Mormons as a Sinister Force in your games.

Now, as for whether this would be offensive to anyone, I suggest that you simply ask the players. Also, I think you should be upfront and say, "Look, this isn't how I feel about them, but it's just some of the historical bias of the time." You might also mitigate the anti-Mormon bias by throwing in one or two sympathetic characters to show that they're not all evil. You could also ask if people would be offended if you used other groups in a negative manner, including the Masons, Catholic Church, or even the Baptists.

I think if you're open and honest with people, they probably won't get offended. Also, ask a second time after you've played a few games. It might sound all right at the beginning, but as you get into it the players might find that they are growing uncomfortable and might not want to pursue that particular path.

"No one ever has sinister Anglicans."

Hmmm… depends if you are the choir boy whose vicar keeps catching him by the organ!

No.1 sinister Anglican has to be the Bishop of London who betrayed William Tyndale to the Catholics…

Your safest bet is to depict a fictitious deviant splinter sect. Mormonesque, but not the real thing.

Didn't Monthy Python give it a shot with their "Bishop of East Anglia" routine?

The local militia leaders don't think the indians are strong enough to take on the immigrants so they disguise themselves as indians and join them in a surprise dawn attack on the wagon train.

From my understanding, the initial attack was directed by one man – John Lee, an Indian agent, who joined the Indians in their attack on the wagon train. His primary motive appears to have been greed.

Later, apparently realizing he had been recognized by the defenders, Lee persuaded the local leaders that the massacre was necessary as a cover-up. This was, of course, a horrendous decision – the pressure of pending invasion by the U.S. army not sufficient to justify in any way what was done.

Later in his life, when Lee saw that the LDS church would not cover for his crimes, Lee turned against the church and wrote a particularly bitter anti-Mormon book.

From the Movie Jeremiah Johnson (1972)

[Jeremiah and Caleb find Del Gue buried to his neck in sand]

Jeremiah Johnson: The Injuns put you here?

Del Gue: T'weren't Mormons.

Wow. The editor performed some threadomancy.

In Deadlands "canon" the mormons are practically enslaved by Hellstromme, one of the setting's Big Bads. Hellstromme looks like Vincent Price with a big scar on his face.

Good topic, by the way, even if it's an oldie.

Well . . .

. . . if some people already play with figures of Monks (Catholic, Buddhist, etc.) and Cultists and find it ok, I don't see why any other group should be shielded, as long as we treat it as a fictional break-away faction or sect (and every religious group has those).

It is either ok for all or ok for none, I say.

Dan

And if the radical splinter group actually existed, and the group and actions are documented in reliable sources, fair game as well. Don't some people already play the French Religious Wars of the 16th century Reformation, the Crusades (in the Middle East and Spain) and other such historical events that involve religion, including today's radical Taliban and Al-Qaeda?

People of all faiths should understand and accept that their development has not always been pretty or welcomed by others. Today's Ismailis are ashamed of what the Hashashim did in the middle ages, but they accept that the group existed and did horrible things:

link

It is a fact that not everyone that identifies with a specific religious group follows the practices and beliefs of the majority in that group. There are sects in every group. Some isolated ones are pretty radical, to where the rest of the religion sees them as heretics or apostates. I think that will always be the case.

Come on, we may not be proud of the actions of some individuals that claim to share our faith, high and low (from layman to "Pope"), and in whatever faith we may follow, but it is no reason to act as though those people never existed and the events never took place.

If ugly things happened in the past, they happened. Own up to it and move on with what the official church/group/faith does today and what good they are trying to do.

As long as we don't continue to judge all of today's practitioners by what some radical member of that group did, go for it and game away!

Dan

Hi

There is a line of modern murder mysteries written that take place in Utah where the usual bad guys are modern day "danites".

It amuses most of the people in Salt Lake in reading them as he author used to live in Salt Lake in the 60s. And the city is "in amber" that he describes places and businesses in locations long gone.

As above, I don't get the angst over this. In an alternate universe, as all gaming is, the "bad guys" might have the same name, but are not required to actually BE the same people! I have seen fictional and historical descriptions of "Porter Rockwell" describing him as both a simple man wrongly accused of things, and "God's Gunfighter". Why not?

Just like the modern "Deus Rei" group and Templers in recent movies, actually. Yup, there is a Deus Rai, but they are nothing like the movie. Which part of "fiction" don't you understand?

Rocky

Wow Billiam did the thread necromancy thingie. Very strange.

I didn't either see this the first time around, or decided not to comment.

Mountain Meadows Massacre was pinned on one man. It was actually several leaders who got themselves into the mess by bad decisions, or decisions going bad, whatever. The "battleaxe of the Lord" (the Lamanites, aka as the Indians) let Brigham Young down when loosed upon the Gentiles (the Fancher-Baker party). Now the Mormons had to take down the Gentiles themselves. After three days of siege, they were desperate enough to be stupid: they opted for a massacre and coverup. It didn't work. John D. Lee's autobiography simply told the truth as he saw it: Brigham Young sacrificed Lee in order to end Federal prosecutions over the MMM: i.e. he swung a deal and it worked. I enjoy studying the MMM because it shows early Mormons in a conflicted interest scenario. The fallout echoes to this day. You could say there remains unfinished business with some descendants on both sides. Each time the LDS church continues to push the "Indians and renegade Mormons" line they insult the descendants of the Southern Utah participants, who are Mormons whose ancestors did a stupid and atrocious thing: but they were following their church leaders, who claimed that B. Young had ordered or at least known what they did, and did not object. There is no evidence that would convict B. Young in a court of law. But he was definitely implicated in the coverup and blaming the Indians.

Mormons as bad guys in a RPG is as good as using Masons, Templars, Catholics or Muslims….

Hi

Or Cuuthulu Cultists !

Rocky

"May you be forever touched by his noodly appendage", no, wait, that's a different god….

Okay, I demand equal time for Seventh Day Adventists, The Ethical Society, and Presbyterians as evil cultic bad guys!

Gracias,

Glenn