OSR Review & Commentary Magic of the Old West By Tim Ewick, Pat Ewick, & Skirmisher Game Development Group For Cthulhu Live 3rd Edition live-action role-playing game & Call of Cthulhu rpg

" In the 19th century, the American West was marked by booming technology, polarized political beliefs, territorial skirmishes, racial conflict, Civil War, and continuous expansion. This era also brought to the West an influx of other peoples — along with their religious, spiritual, and magical traditions — adding to the cultures of the indigenous Native Americans ones from Europe, China, Mexico, Central America, and Africa. These disparate influences combined with geographical isolationism and the country’s powerful, nearly raw power to alter many rituals and practices and make them uniquely American."

"This supplement to the Gold-bestselling Cthulhu Live 3rd Edition live-action role-playing game of Mythos horror introduces eight magic traditions, a new spell for each, and new mechanics for spells — rituals, components, fast casts, and visible effects — to give players a three-dimensional feel for the magic of the Old West. All of these are rules-light and easily adapted to tabletop games like Call of Cthulhu. "

So a while back Skirmisher Publishing came to me with a ton of titles &  Magic of the Old West By Tim Ewick, Pat Ewick, &  the Skirmisher Game Development Group came up on the drive. Magic of the Old West isn't that expensive at .99 & only comes to six pages. In those six pages it manages to squeeze out a bit about most of the occult practices of the Old West. 
And it's not a bad little add on for other Call of Cthluhu rpg campaigns and this includes Chaosium's Down Darker Trails CoC supplement. 

Down Darker Trails covers a ton of historical Old West & pop culture weirdness such influences such as  Valley of Gwangi, Dead Birds (mythologies ), Bone Tomahawk, Dead Man, The Burrowers, Lone Ranger  comic books & radio program as well El Topo...&  all the spaghetti westerns tropes. 
What Magic of the Old West covers is some of the magicks & occult practices that Down Darker Trails didn't cover such as Vodun, Chinese magicks, some of the plains Native American practices. Even bits and pieces of other traditions of  indigenous Native Americans ones & others imported  from Europe, China, Mexico, Central America, and Africa. And all of this fits right into six pages of gaming goodness. Could Magic of the Old West be used for other Western rpg's?! Yes with some serious modification and I'm seriously looking at the 2d6 goodness of Independence Games Rider rpg here. And while there's no magick in the game per say it wouldn't be to hard to do a bit of conversion. 

How?! Well there's a few options but Michael Brown's 2d6 Magic is an option to add in a bit of that old black magick to the Rider rpg. But that's a blog entry for another time. Skirmisher's Magic of the Old West is a solid little six page old school supplement for your favorite Call of Cthulhu rpg to add a bit of an occult twist or to the Old West. 

You can grab Magic of the Old West By Tim Ewick, Pat Ewick, &  Skirmisher Game Development Group For  Cthulhu Live 3rd Edition live-action role-playing game & Call of Cthulhu rpg Right Here.