This has become an FAQ for history buffs, so I wanted to address it.
Question: The game says “Antebellum.” Are you writing a pre-destined game or did you just use language incorrectly with your game title?
Answer: The game is Deadlands….the war never ends. Game is intentionally weird in that the war is ‘over’. That defies the games genre and its name. (See A Nation of Nations)
However, events will unfold at game that could erupt in war all over again, bringing the game back around to war between the North and South…or between a number of other North American countries. I will be seeding plot strings into various character sheets, but the outcome of these plot strings will be player determined by their own events and choices.
While an etymologist can and likely should argue that I did indeed create and manipulate language by describing my game as “Antebellum,” the word quickly generates “1860’s” as a time period for the game. If I had called it “Bullets and Belles, A Civil War Reconstruction Era Deadlands Inspired LARP,” my graphic would have been really ugly and then the game would seem pre-destined to not fall into war. Either word choice negates or “pre-destines” the game- in one direction or another. You can see from my word selection that I decided to pivot things back towards the Deadlands source material- war may continue.