That's true

@Dustine Skywalker go for it! Though I'm intrigued by the concept, I'm not sure it's enough for me to write anything with it. I might eventually get around to something...but you have at it. You may even have somewhat inspired this with your high school au; got me thinking about the idea of the Green Ember with a different setting.

Bowie knives would make a good bcakup weapon if one's sword breaks.

You hit upon a crucial point that does make the concept a bit tricky: livestock. Westerns do typically involve horses, and occasionally cattle and sheep and whatnot. Still, Sam managed a medieval fantasy with no horses, so I suppose it could be done with a Western. You just wouldn't have range wars like they did in the real West, or cattle drives. Might have to introduce locomotives for the sake of fast travel. Or maybe Heyward and Emerson can invent a steam driven stagecoach.

I must admit that I like the idea of the Lord Captains having been this elite core of federal marshals, with all but Helmer getting wiped out. He goes into Lone Ranger mode (think radio/television, not the by all accounts horrid Disney movie) but minus a Tonto. Then, after a decade or two of running solo, he gets roped-pun very much intended-into training up some replacements for his old comrades. Of course, if anyone had asked him, he would not have picked:

• The hothead nephew of the rabbit who got his best friends and colleagues and the last bunch of trainees he took on killed, fresh out of a little backwater called Nick Hollow.

• The young goofball from Fort Halfwind who's pretty handy with a rifle when he's not stumbling over himself in front of one pretty doe or another.

• The son of his old commanding officer, "One-Eye" Perkin, who won't say anything about his time out in the badlands.

• Cloud Mountain's resident inventor whose eyebrows are always somewhere between nearly grown back and singed to near oblivion.

• Mayor Blackstar's boy from Kingston City, who fortunately isn't as chatty as the others but is also the only one stealthy enough to actually sneak up on Helmer.

About the only reason I hesitate is that, if we're going to have armies clashing as they do in the actual series, I don't see why a bunch of gunslingers would get involved. Unless the rabbit army's situation is so desperate that they accept help from Helmer and his boys without requiring them to enlist.

The closest thing to a western I've ever watched is Star Wars.

And maybe indiana jones.

I know it's a horrible hole in my literature/movie watching as an American.

I will admit I'm not the biggest western watcher either. I've long been a fan of Marty Robbins cowboy songs though-it was my grandpa's favorite road trip music growing up-and that's a pretty good source for a lot of the tropes. I also checked out an audio collection of old western radio shows from my library a while back, and I've seen a number of episodes of The Lone Ranger.

If your looking for Western inspiration, listen to Randy Travis Wind in the Wire. I grew up country and that album is one of the best Western albums I've heard...