Rawhide Scripture

Forged during the winter of 1873 when competing cattle operations learned that the prairie respected no man's claim, only those who understood its unwritten rules. The survivors burned these laws into rawhide to preserve them for those who came after, creating a code that would outlast empires and bind all future claimants to the range's judgment.

Consists of seven weathered rawhide strips bound together with rusted barbed wire, each bearing heat-branded symbols that form a complete code when read in sequence. The leather has cracked into a topographic map of the prairie itself, with fault lines running through the text. It carries the permanent scent of branding smoke and prairie dust, and the brands glow faint orange in firelight as if the iron never fully cooled.

Functions as the binding contract between the prairie and all who claim territory on it, enforcing consequences on those who violate its core tenets regardless of faction allegiance. When disputes threaten to fracture the range into chaos, the Scripture's authority supersedes all faction law, reminding competitors that survival depends on respecting rules older than their rivalries.