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 Vetterli 71 Karabiner. 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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Vetterli 71

VETTERLI 71 KARABINER. (See also, RIFLES) The Swiss Army adopted the Vetterli rifle in 1868. At the time, it was the most advanced rifle in use by a European nation. Its designer, Johann-Friedrich Vetterli, combined the tubular magazine of the Winfield M1866 with a bolt-action receiver, introduced by the Dreyse needle gun. This gave it a tremendous rate of fire. A couple of years later, and after a few improvements to the original design, the M1871 Karabiner was developed. A shortened variant of the original rifle, it was intended for use by cavalry. Due to the neutrality of Switzerland during the period, particularly the Franco-Prussian war, the rifle was seldom used in combat, until it was phased out in 1891. It was sold on the market to various entities, proving popular thanks to its powerful design. Of note, it saw extensive use by the Boers in the first and second Boer wars.

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Interview with Leander Coetzee
Interviewer: AHA member
Date: Redacted
Typewritten, questions omitted (...), 8.5in x 11in
1/4

FORM C - TEXT OF INTERVIEW
STATE Louisiana
NAME OF WORKER Leander Coetzee
ADDRESS None Available
SUBJECT A Boer In New Orleans

My father said we had pioneer blood. Strong and bold. But there was something of the land in me, too. Maybe that's what pioneer blood needed. When you live on the edge of the civilized world, you don't have the time to worry about sophistication. I didn't feel I was on the edge of the world though. Between two, maybe. My fathers, and my mothers. It wasn't until we fought for independence I saw it run.

Acacia's in bloom meant Spring and this Spring we were headed to war. A fine Swiss rifle I had bought. A Vetterli. Bolt actions outpace the most disciplined breach shooter, and can be fired from prone rather than standing. We ambushed redcoats, the ground hiding us, devastating them as they tried to form into rank and files lines. Bloody fools. Bright coats are easy targets. Bullets hitting rock, scrub, and bodies. An easy war.

Since, the Uitlanders were still settling my father opposed Kruger's policies. Seemed another war was inevitable. I had no politics. My trade had become hunting. Big game hunting. The British were often my clients, on their safaris. War would make me poor. And I spilt blood for the republic once. I still have the bayonet wound in my shoulder. I have no love left for the frontier.

We call it the trekgees. The desire to wander. I sold my farm, my arms, and headed to Port Elizabeth to find passage. I arrived here with little but my Vetterli and a Nitro Express. New Orleans was a wonder, the first time. Streets lined with endless terraces, wide verandas, swarming with society types. Left a sour taste in my mouth. I wanted to head westwards, but needed to scrape together some money first. I sold the Nitro for a few dollars, but couldn't part with the war rifle.

It took me an afternoon to find work hunting. I thought that was lucky, that my profession was in high demand. I didn't know what hunting meant then.

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Interview with Leander Coetzee
Interviewer: AHA member
Date: Redacted
Typewritten, questions omitted (...), 8.5in x 11in
2/4

The first night. A man called Samson had offered me work. Three of us paddled out in a flatboat to the middle of a great lake. Black sky wrapped around the boat. He shone a light. The lake was bristling with driftwood. What I thought was driftwood. One of them thrashed in the light. He switched it off. I asked him if it was crocodiles. Alligators, he said, and told me to shoot where he shone the lamp.

He shone and I shot. He turned the light off and I worked the bolt. The other man paddled. The light was never on for longer than it took to aim the rifle. Never off for longer than it took me to work the bolt. We circled the lake slowly. The sky grew brighter and the water darker and a cloud of black powder smoke hung in the air.

I'd opened a cut on my hand over an old welt from working the bolt all night. I remember pausing to bind it. In the light I saw the surface of the water for the first time. The night's work. A corpse, face down in the water. Not a gator at all. I jumped up, rocking the boat. The lake's surface was covered in corpses. Men I'd killed. I worked the bolt a final time and aimed at Samson. He was calm. I shouted at him, what have I done, crying, pleading. He began explaining.

I became a Hunter again that night. We did the ritual, still paddling the surface of the lake covered with so many corpses. Not more than two nights in America, with nothing but an old war rifle, and I had a place again.

Vetterli 71 Deadeye

VETTERLI 71 KARABINER DEADEYE. (See also, VETTERLI 71 KARABINER, SHARPSHOOTERS) The Vetterli, by default, has tangent iron sights. This gives it some capability for long range. However, that does not mean a telescopic sight was not uncommon. This would further facilitate the accuracy of a shooter to a further distance. While other Vetterli rifles were specifically manufactured for snipers, the Karabiner proved itself suitable in a number of situations. The one disadvantage of using such a weapon is that the Vetterli fired black powder cartridges. The latest development was smokeless cartridges, which wouldn't leave a telltale cloud of smoke at the sniper's position. After several shots, the Vetterli would do this, requiring that the sniper either have already killed their target, or be ready to re-position. Fortunately, thanks to high power and accuracy, the former case usually prevailed.

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Interview with Leander Coetzee
Interviewer: AHA member
Date: Redacted
Typewritten, questions omitted (...), 8.5in x 11in
3/4

Samson trusted me immediately. The height of Summer, and we were both working the docks, finding hungry men and pressing them into duty. We trained them with firearms, warned them of dangers, and sent them into the swamp. One thing I could never stomach, the bayonet.

The wound in my shoulder ached every time we lined the recruits to drill with a bayonet charge. In the war, I'd never done it. But I'd been on the other end of one. I was a kid, laying on my back. The huge Brit was stood above me, twisting the rifle. My shoulder splitting into two. The bayonet hilt coming towards my body.

We took Grunts. Lurching and dropping maggots out their wounds. We tied them to trees. The recruits would charge them, shouting war cries. I was the grunt, always, when they hit and its body shuddered. If they were more human, they would have screamed, and inside, I always screamed.

The recruits were splattered with blood and moths. One kid got infected from that. We tied him up too. Another went feral, stabbing a grunt a hundred times until its head was mess of pulp.

I never trained. I never could get through that memory. But I still kept the bayonet fixed. The only time I used it was an accident. Samson was missing, I was tracking him. To an old house. In the dark, one of the Armored ones charged me. I leveled my rifle and held it firm. The Armored hit and the bayonet went to the hilt. I held the rifle firm, level, steady, as it lunged and grasped at me, but not reaching. Pushing. It slid me across the floorboards, until the Vetterli stock hit the rear wall. The Armored was still grasping at me, stuck fast on the blade.

Pinned between the wall and the armored, I worked the bolt. The first shot splintered the already shattered plate. The Armored groaned and leered in closer, its tilted head gnashing up at me. I recognized it then. Samson. I kept firing.

Vetterli 71 Incendiary Ammo

RN: Coetzee offers an insight from someone on the periphery of the Hunters, using their infrastructure yes, but loosely aligned with their cause. A stranger in a strange land, he found his place in the hunt, transcendent as it is amongst human capability.

Vetterli 71 Marksman

VETTERLI 71 KARABINER MARKSMAN. (See also, VETTERLI 71 KARABINER). The addition of the Marksman scope seems a natural addition to the Vetterli, allowing enhanced magnification and better precision at medium range.

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Interview with Fenella Cleve
Interviewer: AHA member
Date: Redacted
Typewritten, questions omitted (…), 8.5in x 11in
3/3

The life went out Lower DeSalle long before the affliction arrived. You'd of thought that when word reached us the corruption, the rot, that we would be up in arms. That we'd do everything we could to stop it. But the reality was not how we thought. People just pretended it wasn't happening, they didn't want to change their ways. And it swept through and killed us.

Leaving home was the easiest thing I'd ever done. With Papa in the ground, well. Gabe promised me, through hacking coughs, the shop would be in good hands. It wasn't long after I got briefly tangled up with Samson and Leander, and I told you how that happened.

Word then came that the rot was in DeSalle. Well that much was obvious, I'd told them when I'd come. But the Hunters weren't listeners. They'd swap stories and tell tall tales but wouldn't hear the truth bellowing in their midst.

It was then that my employment picked up, working as a local guide. As far as I recall, I was the only one—survivor—from DeSalle. So I returned home, or close enough. After I gave the Hunters the lay of the land, I'd camp up at the watchtower near the plantation. Closer than that, and the roaring silence of my memories would be too much.

It was through the old Marksman's scope on the Vetterli, while keeping watch, that I first spied something that wasn't right at the plantation. Of course, nothing was right about all of this. Things had been wrong since the piano man changed. Even wronger since Papa died, and what happened to Leander.

What I mean is, that it was then I noticed the strange things that weren't Hunters, or the rot. Did you ever hear the old stories about the Pearl Plantation?

Vetterli 71 FMJ Ammo

RN: The figure "Samson" is mentioned in passing by many internationals who came through the docks. He had a keen eye for picking out those both strong and hungry enough to hunt. However, we presume the name to be an alias, as his physical description frequently differs.

Vetterli 71 Bayonet

VETTERLI 71 KARABINER BAYONET. (See also, VETTERLI 71 KARABINER) First and foremost, the Vetterli was designed as a military rifle. As such, it was manufactured with a bayonet lug. When they designed the shortened Karabiner version, this was occluded, as it was intended to be used by cavalry. However, the Karabiner could still be easily modified to add a bayonet mount, whereupon it can be affixed to the side of the barrel. As a Karabiner, the reach of such a weapon is naturally still longer than a comparable traditional rifle, connoting a disadvantage in close combat when opposing one. Nevertheless, its addition was certainly advantageous compared to its absence.

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Interview with Leander Coetzee
Interviewer: AHA member
Date: Redacted
Typewritten, questions omitted(...), 8.5in x 11in
4/4

I lost my taste for violence after that. Too much of a good thing. Trying to remember, but I don't. I lost track of specific events. We all did. A led to B, B to C, C to D, but D back to B. Then B happens the same way as before, but you end up at A. Does that make sense? I don't think so. You can't trust what anyone says, or remembers. No way of knowing how long that went on for.

I took over Samson's responsibilities. I was training my own. But as I said, I didn't have the stomach for violence. I started shooting from afar. I didn't want to see the eyes of those I was killing. I wasn't in it for an ideal, to stop the dead. I'd realized then that they couldn't be stopped. And the money, Finch's money, meant nothing to me really. Was it the recruits? A part of me felt responsible to keep them safe. But the safest thing for them would be to buy them a ticket out of Louisiana. So I didn't really care about them either.

I learnt later that it was Victor. I didn't really understand why he fired on us, but he did. And we fought. Him with his Sparks, I with my Vetterli. He killed my men outright, a single shot through both. Outranged, I had to close the distance, I recall. It was like the war again, running from cover to cover. Counting the seconds it took him to reload that single barrel. I don't think he expected that. Used to killing the poor and vulnerable. We'd heard about the patients. Can't say I wanted vengeance, but I wouldn't let the chance pass by.

His smoke was giving him away. Black powder. Mine too. Old guns, suited to each other. Him in the upper story of an old house. I, amongst the scrub and dirt and rocks. I blew out all the windows by the time I reached it. I fixed bayonet, went in, and the Armored Samson charged me. A to B to C to B.

Vetterli 71 Silencer

VETTERLI 71 KARABINER SILENCER. (See also, VETTERLI 71 KARABINER) The Vetterli's precision coupled with the slight profile of the Karabiner length made it an ideal weapon for mobile sharpshooters, who favored its compromise between accuracy, transportability, and stopping power. As such, it was well suited tactically to the attachment of a suppressor, which made it extremely effective for sharpshooters to out maneuver and keep the advantage with no muzzle flash; however, the use of black powder was still a liability.

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Interview with Fenella Cleve
Interviewer: AHA member
Date: Redacted
Typewritten, questions omitted (…), 8.5in x 11in
2/3

But as I said, Lower DeSalle was dying already. Papa did what he could to keep it going—selling cures and ointments, anything for the sick. But it wasn't enough, this was something that no tonic could fix. This was something spiritual. A silence was settling on the soul.
You saw it first in the piano man. We all loved his playing, he was one of the few musicians in town, and it seemed otherworldly to us. He was a big draw to the saloon. Especially when out of towners passed through, with their own instruments, and he would greet them cheerily, and invite them to play, and the stage came alive with the sense of something fleeting.

But then something changed, some years ago. The strangers stopped bringing instruments, started bringing guns. The piano man, too, hardened. Then became listless and lifeless, every song jarring and staccato. He was grinding his teeth, growing gaunt, staring into distances unfathomable. One day didn't show. I asked the barman, but he stood swirling his dirty rag round a dirty glass, didn't say a word. Hadn't even noticed. The silence had settled in.

I asked after him for a while. Then forgot as the corruption hit, Papa died that February, and the quiet fell thick and heavy like the snow. It was all new: the grief, the death and the snow.

I saw him again, the piano man. After. Still walking the street in front of the saloon. Staring ahead, that same vacant way. But the rot was clear—he was gone, he was puppeted by whatever it is that preys on us.

Normally I wouldn't waste a bullet, but I took pity on him. I aimed Leander's Vetterli and the muffled shot hardly echoed on the empty street. The piano man crumpled, and the silence of Lower DeSalle thickened.

Vetterli 71 High Velocity Ammo

RN: It seems that at some point, Coetzee withdrew from field work. The reasons for this are unclear, as of now. The relation between Cleve and him are also unclear. Did they collaborate? Or had she bested him?

Vetterli 71 Cyclone

VETTERLI 71 KARABINER CYCLONE (See also, VETTERLI 71 KARABINER) The invention of smokeless powder enabled the creation of self-loading rifles by keen inventors. Though the haphazard conversion was attributed to an untraced "Howell," the gun resembles the work of Hiram Maxim. Yet another creation that he would be uncredited for.

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Interview with Adélaïde Dessalines
Interviewer: John Victor
Date: March 28, 1895
Typewritten, questions omitted (…), 8.5in x 11in

I wouldn't say I'm "glad" my father is dead, no. I loved my father—ah, do not pretend you cared about him, you bastard, for all I know you're the one who killed him.

It was the only time since Mother turned that he hunted without me, and he came back in a coffin. Headless. Et mantenan ma peteet sooer est sans mer, per, ou frer... No, I do not think I will repeat that in English, I could not care less if you do not understand Francais. How could anyone have possibly seen—I...he...we...

What you must understand about my father is that when Mother's skin turned gray and her eyes went wild, he did not hesitate to kill her. Took his brand-new rifle from the wall and shot her in the heart. It was shocking at first, but as more people turned mad, I began to forgive him. So did my sister. And when he promised we would leave in a few days, we both remembered the commandment to love and honor your parents. I did love him, and I hunted with him. Protected our home with him. But we did not leave. He enjoyed killing with that fancy semi-automatic rifle, enjoyed piling up the bodies in the morning and burning them. Didn't notice our chest of money running dry, or his children's bellies running empty.

So here I am still. Fifteen years old and trapped in this hell, this abomination, this...bah! And now I am going to hang. Yes, I killed him—took his prized Vetterli fucking Karabiner and shot a bullet through his eye. And when his other eye opened, I took his machete and I killed him again. I am glad I did it, and I would do it again!

I would very much like not to hang. My sister has been through enough. Alright Monsieur Victor, I am listening...

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