Good morning! It’s Jonathan here with a STORY RECAP for the first event of Season Four, THE VALLEY OF FEAR. The goal of these Story Recap posts is to help fill in the blanks for those that might have missed an important mod, been at NPC camp, sleeping, or simply were not able to attend the game. These are major points of continuity that might be important throughout the season, and I hope this will help with the FOMO feels or answer some questions you had about what happened.

Photo credits in this post are from Lainey Weiss and Max Pohlmeier.

Winter Break!

This week is a departure from our regular Rules Rambles to catch up a bit on some of the Story Recaps we’ve missed so far this season. While helping remind you of some of the important story elements these will cover, the real goal of this is to keep the Winter Break a chance at a vacation for our admin team. I spend hours researching the Rules Rambles and writing up the topics I cover, and a lot of the preview posts are planned out during our production cycle before the event. So, after four games (including a National event and a Premiere game), I’m gonna take it easy.

I’m planning on catching up on some video games, play some Commander, get out some board games I’ve been neglecting, and just in general try to keep the DR work to a minimum over the break. We will be back with our regularly scheduled content on January 18th!

So for now, let’s dive into the story!

The Leadup to Valley of Fear

We released several teasers for this event including a very fun comic strip designed by Beau Lee and Aesa Garcia:

You can also find our other game recaps from last season here:

Game Recaps (Season 3)

The events of the VALLEY OF FEAR really built on some choices and events that occurred during the last season of Bravado, during our May event, THE CICATRIX. During that event, the Warden of Killhouse, Tabitha St. Mercy was betrayed at a Gauntlet in the middle of town and captured by folks that forced her to step down from her role as Warden. In addition, the town passed a law against the sale and harvesting of the terrible drug known as Crystal Candy during the annual Stakeholder’s Meeting.

From a logistics perspective, this event was also the first of our ST-led Overarcs in 3.0. Last season, Shan and I wrote most of the major plot points of each game but this season we have given that role to a few of our Storytellers instead. Back during 2.0, this was a much more common event, where a single storyteller would be in charge of the major plots for an event. Given our philosophy of continuous improvement in DR:TX, we decided to revamp this process for the new world of 3.0 and really empower our STs to tell some new and interesting stories. Most of our events this season will be ST-led overarcs, and we are very excited to share these stories with y’all.

As such, our storyteller Ted LeBeau was responsible for the overarc and the story of THE VALLEY OF FEAR. Ted has played a Face NPC in our game for a bit named Adam Moriarty and was responsible for many of our criminal arcs during last season. If you didn’t know, the name of this event “The Valley of Fear” is from a Sherlock Holmes book from a similar namesake, and we even used the quote below as a teaser:

Let’s first start with the published premise of the event and a teaser of what was to come:

The Premise of Valley of Fear

Before the Burning Season forced the San Saba into hibernation for the summer, dramatic changes to law and order in the wastes took root thanks to the work of the citizens of the tiny town of Bravado. A new law banning the sale and trafficking of Crystal Candy, new faces and new voting members on the San Saba Board, a mysterious accident in the floating city of Waking, and now — a missing Warden.
Tabitha St. Mercy - hounded, hunted, betrayed - caught off guard by enterprising people in Bravado, has disappeared from Prudence Penitentiary. In her place, a new Warden has taken control. Adam Moriarty, former Lifer, has stepped out from the shadows and the effects have rippled across the San Saba Territories. While major changes have been occurring at the prison commonly called “Killhouse”, life in the San Saba Territories has grown more dangerous.
People have gone missing. Roving bands of Vigilantes, often called “puppies” in a deriding fashion by some, try and help the Law Dogs. Their goal is to help enforce the newest laws, especially against Crystal Candy, and if a few skulls get broken, such is the way of things in the wastes. The Justices of Sin are more prevalent than ever, under the orders of Moriarty to help quickly pass judgement so that the Law Dogs can continue their crusade. Moriarty has even helped Wyatt break the backs of the Rotgut Family, former purveyors of the largest Crystal Candy pipeline in the San Saba and now they too sit in Prudence Penitentiary.
Despite the Board’s bold action against the drug trade of the San Saba, a prophecy of trouble has come true. Crystal Candy is still in abundance, and new pipelines are sprouting like weeds. There are even rumors of new and more addictive variations making their way to the marketplace.
And then there is Bravado - breeding ground for Saints and Miscreants - stuck in the middle of these wars between law and order, in a valley of fear…

What Has Happened Before…

The villainous Tabitha St. Mercy has represented a threat to the town of Bravado for quite some time. From her seat in Prudence Penitentiary and her seat on the San Saba Board, she has orchestrated the holiday known as the Indulgence, a time when contracts across the region are reset and the population of the prison is set free to run roughshod over the citizens of the San Saba. This rite of holy wrath serves to both justify her role as the Warden of the prison and remind the citizens what might happen if she was not there to collect the rogue Lifers and return them to the relative safety of their cells. For one bloody night, she has terrorized the town but has remained mostly untouchable thanks to her wealth, privilege, and army of deadly Lifers.

Right before the Burning Season began last May, the town of Bravado experienced a Gauntlet worth remembering. During the trial of Abe Callaghan for destroying the Grave Ledger during the last Collection Day, the titular leader of Prudence Penitentiary, Tabitha St. Mercy, arrived in person to dispense Justice at the proceedings. Thanks to the efforts of Abe’s friends and a town fearing the worst of the Gauntlet, Tabitha was set on by a mob before a final judgement could be rendered. In the ensuing scuffle, several people were left dead, and Tabitha was “escorted” away by mysterious masked bodyguards that betrayed her during the fight.

Secreted away to a cell to be interrogated and questioned, the Warden was held under duress while agents took the opportunity to negotiate an arrangement with the Retrograde leader. Perhaps the theft of the ledger was orchestrated to ensure that they could catch her off guard, but Tabitha was strangely unphased by the assault and her capture. She answered their questions but proved why the Warden of Killhouse was such a dangerous foe. During the questioning, Tabitha agreed to a deal from her captors. In exchange for signing a contract that she would step down as a Warden they would release her from custody. However, the contract was somewhat shortsighted, and failed to account for Tabitha’s machinations. While she agreed to step down as Warden, she also made sure she had the right to pick her replacement.

And her chosen replacement was Adam Moriarty, the Spider of Killhouse.

The Spider

Adam Moriarty is a loyal Lifer and member of the Nemesis Cult, the maniacal Tellingvisionaries that believe they are doing “good” for the world by taking on the role of an evil villain. By taking their role, they encourage a “hero” to rise up and stop them, thus ensuring the balance of good and evil is weighed back towards the light. Dubbed “the Spider of Killhouse” by his peers, Moriarty was responsible for a number of spy networks and schemes from within his cell but seemed content with the role he played on Tabitha’s behalf. When Adam was released during the last Indulgence, he returned dutifully to his cell at the end of the holiday, content to manipulate his foes and allies alike from within the confines of the prison.

Moriarty fashions himself after his oldcestor literary namesake, looking for a worthy Adversary. When he eventually finds that Adversary, he would do everything he can to destroy them, secretly hoping this will be the one who challenges him and perhaps rises above. Despite his faith, Adam has been considered one of the more “reasonable” Lifers. He’s shared a cell with folks like Eyeless Jack, but is fiercely loyal to Tabitha. While Adam is not necessarily physically impressive, his cunning and intellect has led many a foe into an unexpected ambush and trap while he watches impassively nearby.

He is a man of good birth and excellent education, endowed by nature with a phenomenal mathematical faculty. [...] But the man had hereditary tendencies of the most diabolical kind. A criminal strain ran in his blood, which, instead of being modified, was increased and rendered infinitely more dangerous by his extraordinary mental powers. [...] He is the Napoleon of Crime, Watson. He is the organiser of half that is evil and of nearly all that is undetected in this great city...
— Holmes, "The Final Problem"

No one exactly knows where Adam Moriarty comes from. He is a Pure Blood by Strain, but the family he claims is not one local, and no local families claim to know him. He claims his family came across the great sea a generation or two back, and that he had to remove them from his life. The smile he makes when he says that makes people think they did not live.

Thanks to Moriarty’s control of Killhouse, the new Warden immediately set into plans he had spent months forming to usurp control of the criminal underworld of the San Saba.

New Laws and New CRYSTAL CANDY

During the last Stakeholder’s Meeting, several laws were considered for addition to the San Saba Charter. One of the votes that passed regarded the sale of Crystal Candy:

“The growth, harvesting, trafficking, and consumption of psionic crystals and their byproducts is hereby considered dangerous to San Saba communities and is forbidden.”

Following a series of violent deaths of Boss Wyatt and several Law Dogs in Bravado, the San Saba Board passed a firm law against the harvesting and trafficking of the drug known as Crystal Candy. The drug is commonly harvested from the living brains of screaming psions before they die and crushed into a crystalline powder mixed with gasoline and other sundries.

Opponents of the measure suggested that a certain reading of the law could be used to make being a psion illegal in the San Saba. The Law Dogs have repeatedly stated that any suggestion that they would use this to hunt down psions or look for psionic gizmos or armor is assuming the Law Dogs would make a very uncharitable interpretation of the law. For now, their focus is entirely on the scourge of Crystal Candy in the Lone Star.

But despite the new laws over the Burning Season, the scourge of Crystal Candy was still as worse as ever. Stronger variants of the drug were flooding the region and are known to be incredibly addictive, in addition to offering strange new powers to those willing to indulge.

Four varieties of new Crystal Candy emerged. All of the candies were more potent versions of the common Crystal Candy, but each had a unique side effect in addition to a menacing and intentional addictive quality.

Longwalker - This blue-tinted candy was thought to be harvested from Quiet Folk or Lovelaces, and gave the user a rush of speed and energy that ultimately resulted in mangled limbs when it wore off.
Glimmer - This rarer, silver-tinted candy was made from those that had never died or passed through the Grave Mind and enabled the user to focus on a crafting project and finish it at breakneck speeds. However, once this surge of energy wore off, the user was helpless and unconscious, sometimes in a dangerous or inopportune moment.
Firebrand - This red-tinted candy was most likely harvested from those with Bad Brain or of the Tainted Strain but enabled the user to manifest potent and uncontrollable Pyrokinetics even if they were not a psion.
Helios - This green-tinted candy glowed in the moonlight and was likely harvested from an individual suffering from Radiation Sickness. Prized by the Darwins, this drug could enable a user to manifest powerful Biogenetics auras, shortly before exploding into a radioactive blast.

Each of these terrible drugs were readily available to criminal organizations throughout the San Saba, but the main question for those opposed to the trade of the candy was WHERE it was coming from. The volume of drugs available on this scale meant that the standard “candy shoppe” setup to harvest Crystal Candy from victims had been increased to industrial volumes.

Dance till you pop

As the night of the trade weekend fell on Friday, a buzz was in the air. New business and new faces in Bravado meant the town was once again populated after the Burning Season. As long-term residents and visitors alike took shelter during the brutal summer heat, September marked the end of the dangerous weather and a return to the only normalcy you could find in the wastelands. Even the zed and raiders laid fallow in the summer, so the dwindling heat brought threats back to prominence as well.

In the wave of newcomers were also villains. Drug traffickers followed potential marks into town, intent on distributing the new illicit candies, despite the threat of enforcement from the Law Dogs. In the shadows of Bravado, they found many eager to consider their wares, but just as many residents intent on rounding them up and confiscating their drugs. When they were captured, the drug dealers could not speak to where the drugs came from, just that they had been tasked to deliver them to Bravado.

Some of the dealers were partaking in the very substances they trafficked, and one individual had recently abused the drug Firebrand. Using his newfound psionic powers, he purposefully exploded into a fireball within the Swaying Anker, interrupting the festivities inside. When the Law Dogs responded, the other companions also used their ill-found abilities to defend themselves violently. The attack was brutal but left several clues that would be valuable to uncovering Moriarty’s evil plot.

With the wave of ne’er do wells sneaking into town came groups of vigilantes - citizens that had decided to take the law into their own hands to deal with the menace of crystal candy. These faux Law Dogs, called derisively “Puppies”, created more work for the constabulary as they muddled about intruding into legitimate investigations and tampered with the clues and evidence that were available. One individual even tried to execute a captured dealer, claiming the right as a Hellhound to murder, despite inventing a title for himself.

At the same time, some of the victims of recent candy farming managed to find a bit of reprieve within the town of Bravado. The small group of people had come in from the wilderness, having escaped what they called ‘Hell.’ Each of them described unimaginable horrors and were severely fractured and nearly dead, harvested of almost all their infection. One of them described someone who sounds like the Butcher of Killhouse, a white-haired Unstable in a blood-stained operating gown. Despite the attempts to distract from the operation, it was clear that the harvesting of the new crystal candy was happening somewhere near Bravado.

The Impact of Industry

In the morning, a peculiar side effect of the crystal candy manufacturing in the area became more obvious. Critters and local wildlife were acting erratically, and some of them were even displaying psionic powers similar to the side effects of the new crystal candy. Psionic zed increased in numbers, with Lost Boys and Shamblers exhibiting strange new psionic power. In the early morning, survivors reported a run in with several Leviathan whelps that chased after them with a renewed speed and vigor previously unseen, and they glimmered with silver dust across their scales and fins.

Another deadly encounter ran afoul of the terrible local menace, the Murder Goat Deer. Already a dangerous foe, these vicious creatures were pushed to a psychotic frenzy and had become capable of exploding into a blast of pyrokinetics. Hunters were able to track the mutated Murder Goat Deer back to its lair, and found a massive shipment of the drugs had been intercepted by the critters, and the crashed container had leaked the poisonous candy into the den of the beasts.

Fishermen also began reporting mutated fish and further pollution in Lake Bravado, suggesting once more that the industrial plant making the new crystal candy was outputting vast quantities of runoff and waste they were pouring directly into the waterways near the lake. That meant that this “Hell” was indeed somewhere close by. But in the meantime, the water table was being polluted by the remnants of the production and would create an ecological catastrophe if left unchecked.

The drugs were having impact on other parts of the ecology, particularly on the victims. Despite the threat of the Law Dogs interrupting their industry, the entire process was becoming cannibalistic, and the scale of murder being committed by those making the drugs could not be sustained. Those that abused the drugs became targets of further kidnappings as they became new donors for the crystals that grew in their brains. The drugs themselves used the basic formulation of Crystal Candy but were taken to an extreme level by provoking the growth of psionic crystals in their hosts, even if they were not originally aberrant.

The derived nature of the drugs were equally dangerous. When combined with Leviathan Salts, another popular but explosive drug, they could amplify the effects of the Salts to devastating levels. The attack on Friday was obviously amplified in the same way by the presence of Leviathan Salts. Even worse, some of the drugs apparently even stopped the victims from sinking into the Grave Mind after their death, echoing the terrible attack on Essex weeks before. These bodies with strange purple veins prominent on the corpse were quickly gathered by agents of Moriarty, secreted away to the factory producing their tainted Candy.

Following the trail of clues

A few scattered clues became obvious as the day went on. It was clear based on the volume of the new drugs being produced that this was not just an amateur show, and that it would need a large facility, equipment, and personnel, particularly those with the medical skill to incapacitate and harvest crystals from the victims. Furthermore, no one had seen the Surgeon General of Killhouse, Juliet Butcher, in quite some time. Given her role in helping Killhouse collect organs from unfortunate victims during the last Indulgence, it was simple enough to recognize her handiwork in the victims that survived being harvested for psionic crystals or Infection.

The dealers and field agents of the operation had seemingly came from nowhere. Moriarty’s rank-and-file soldiers were discovered to be the infamous criminals of the Rotgut Family. These Retrograde and Full Dead mercenaries had been a plague on the San Saba for some time and many of them had ended up behind bars in the prison. Moriarty had released them once more, employing their skill at violence and crime to aid his endeavors. These killers took to the role of drug traffickers with glee, aiding in the kidnapping of citizens and survivors throughout the region. The Rotguts were hard at work, and someone needed to stop them.

Moriarty himself had been seen personally by a few of the victims, passing on information and orders to other escaped Lifers of Killhouse. He had a direct hand in the candy operation and was even taking trips away from Killhouse to visit his operation in the field. There was some tie with the killer known as Grandfather Nichols, though the relationship seemed to be one of convenience. Given the time he was away from the prison and how quickly he could return, it confirmed the location near Bravado. Moriarty was clearly in control of the production of the new drugs, held their recipes, and was constructing them in a place his agents called “the Manufactorum”.

Finally, the clues had led the town to a destination.

The manufactorum

Following the clues about the Manufactorum led the town to a group of Darwin cultists known as the Bay’lor Institute. Comprised of mostly Tainted, the Bay’lors were a group of scientists that kept mostly to themselves and the studies. While the Institute had some connection with “dread surgeons” of old, those that stabilized the strains of Bad Brain in themselves chose to focus on science rather than the abductions and torture of their predecessors. These Tainted had been employed on contract by Moriarty, paid in the strange mysterious ore that had been found in Bravado recently.

However, several Bay'lor interns working on psionic research for Moriarty snuck out of the Manufactorum to observe the results of their work. Every good scientist knows proper science requires documentation, after all. Once out from the confines of their labs, they realized that their work was being used for less uplifting ends than they were led to believe. The de facto leader of the Baylor Institute, Headmaster D’Na Genome, made contact with residents of Bravado with a solution to their problems.

In exchange for helping them with an experiment for the Institute and providing them plausible deniability, the Darwins could provide inside information about the Manufactorum, including the defenses, further information about the experiments being performed inside, the specific location, and as much information as they could gather from the Rotgut guards. The Darwins were also able to confirm the presence of the Butcher, as she was in charge of the various psionic research projects they were contracted to complete. In fact, she was arriving to pick up a strange shipment that very evening.

A plan was quickly formed. Though the Manufactorum was swarming with Rotgut soldiers, it would be crucial to perform reconnaissance on the factory, and see what they could learn before they committed a force strong enough to pierce the defenses. If they could get inside by stealth, they could even identify a weaknesses they could use to shut down the facility for good.

the first assault on the manufactorum

When a team of Bravado citizens was assembled, they met with D’Na Genome and her scientists on the outskirts of the town. It would require a long and treacherous hike, but they would be able to approach the facility undetected if they were quiet enough. If they could clear the path, it would be much easier to approach the Manufactorum with vehicles and a larger force, provided they were successful. The few guards on the way were dispatched quickly and silently, and they finally emerged in a clearing near the factory.

The Manufactorum was built out of a shell of an old building, probably some storehouse used during the Hiway war, but it had been converted into a massive manufacturing plant. Heavy pipes cast waste chemicals into a nearby river, the source of the pollution effecting the ecosystem nearby. Vehicles left periodically carrying Rotgut soldiers into the wastes for distribution of their new drugs. The building also had a number of sniper towers set up with a commanding view of the approach and the defenses seemed impregnable.

Luckily, the advance team had brought the perfect weapon of subtlety - a rocket launcher. Fired by one of the boisterous Road Royals, KH4NV0Y, the blasts made short work of the sniper towers. A group of elite Rotgut soldiers engaged the team, but after a deadly skirmish they managed to take one of the Retrograde leaders alive for questioning.

The soldier confirmed what the Darwin’s intelligence had promised. Juliet Butcher would be at the plant that night to pick up a very large shipment of some new chemical the plant had made. According to the Darwins, this was some special project the Butcher had been working on as part of her agreement with Moriarty, but was using some byproduct of the crystal candy process to enable her research.

While a few stealthier folks infiltrated into the Manufactorum, the rest stayed outside to defend from any Rotguts that might have noticed (or survived) their first attack. They had the element of surprise for now, but knew they only had a short time before reinforcements arrived. Inside the factory, the scouts found the horrifying meat grinder of the candy factory and confirmed their worst fears. Not only was the scale of the operation beyond their imagination, it was clear that Moriarty was not stopping with Bravado. There was a huge shipment of the new Crystal Candy being prepared for transport, enough to flood every town from Bravado to the Clutch.

In the lowest levels of the factory, the advanced team found dozens and dozens of captured psions, all part of the assembly line of candy nucleation for the Butcher. Not only was the Butcher killing and harvesting candy from the psions, they had industrialized the process by simply grinding the brains and psion crystals in a massive machine to make a slurry they could crystallize into their foul chemicals. There were many more victims here than they suspected, and the Butcher was even using some to harvest their very Infection. It would take time to evacuate this many survivors from the factory, time they didn’t have during this first attack.

Worst of all, there was even a captured Blood Ghast with strange crystals growing from its head, a clear attempt to turn even the undead into harvest-able sources of crystal candy. With the supply of the creatures in the tunnels below Bravado and citizens captured by his Rotgut associates, there would be enough subjects to keep the Crystal Candy pipeline open forever. Moriarty’s plan had to be stopped by any means necessary, and it was clear they had to do something about it soon.

an explosive solution

Once back in Bravado, the team that had scouted the Manufactorum set about trying to form a plan to stop Moriarty. It was now clear the scope of his plot, but they needed some way to make sure he could not simply move his operation to a new location. They needed to shut down his factory in a way that he could not recover the research and equipment within. While they could simply leave it be and hope the RRC or the San Saba Board would act against Moriarty, inaction seemed like a plan that no one could stomach.

A plea for help interrupted their discussions, as D’Na fled into Bravado chased by several dangerous Rotgut mercenaries. One of the Rotgut leaders, a telepath named Shamrok, had uncovered their plan to sabatoge the factory and help the Vados stop Moriarty, and they had decided to rid themselves of the traitors violently. Swift reaction from the Vados provided a timely rescue to the Darwin scientist, and the town was able to defeat the mercenaries and chase Shamrok back into the wastes.

DN’a had managed to escape with a plan to stop the Manufactorum, but it would need to be enacted immediately. The Rotguts’ discovery of their plan meant they were preparing to move critical research out of the factory so the town could not damage their production lines. The Butcher would be arriving that night not only to move her shipment out of town, but she would be covering their tracks and taking the tools necessary to continue the process elsewhere.

The Bay’lor’s plan hinged on their intimate knowledge of the chemical processes that Juliet was using to make the new drugs. The Manufactorum was vulnerable to disruption thanks to a useful side effect of the nucleation process. The chemical slurry of blood and crystal left behind by the process was highly flammable and with the right application of Leviathan Salts, it could be turned into a powerful explosive - one capable of stopping Moriarty’s factory once and for all.

The town had two choices ahead.

The Darwins could manufacturer a dangerous reagent capable of starting a chain reaction that would disable the factory. By rigging the pressure valves on a primary condenser to overload, they could detonate the sub-tanks gathering the crystal precipitate. This solution would cause a magnificent explosion, but would likely kill many of the captured aberrants and experiments before they could be evacuated in time. It would be a terrible loss of life, and the ensuing destruction would likely have an impact on the zed that were released by the deaths at the factory. It would be a permanent and final end to the danger the factory represented, but a costly one.

Alternatively, the Darwin reagent could be used to simply contaminate the chemical slurry and render it inert. By connecting the centrifuge system to the recrystalization tank, they could manipulate the chemical mix to cause a crystalization failure. The product of Moriarty’s factory would be wasted, but it would leave the building and equipment mostly intact. This solution might provide them more time to quietly evacuate the survivors from the factory, but it would leave the Manufactorum as a potential problem for the future. Once the Rotguts had realized their shipment was contaminated, they would likely take their fury out on the citizens of Bravado instead.

The bovine monstrosity

Because the Bay’lor scientists has been forced to flee with the reagent half-finished, it required assistance from the town, particularly their culinary experts. As soon as the town had gathered the resources to finish the reagent, they gathered their firearms and blades to arm themselves for a final assault on the Manufactorum.

The remaining Darwins left behind in DN’a’s escape would be able to unlock the gates leading to the factory, so the townsfolk could quickly attack the facility before the Rotguts could react. Ideally, the Rotguts would be distracted by their own preparations to move the factory that they would be able to infiltrate in before they realized they were in their midst.

The townsfolk raced along the makeshift roads leading to the Manufactorum, reagent in hand. The potential of fire from the Rotgut guards was silenced by well-placed shots from their marksmen, and they were able to approach without much resistance. They split into several teams, one to rescue the trapped psions and to dispatch the mutated monsters, and a second to apply the reageant to the mass crystallization system. The remaining Vados would attempt to hold a line and keep the Rotguts from interfering.

A terrible roar came from the belly of the Manufactorum as a terrible mutated beast emerged. The crazed half breed abomination was a stitched monstrosity, with the head of a cow and the body of a man. Alongside the mutant came the ambushing force of the Rotguts, led by Juliet Butcher and Shamrok, intent on disrupting the attack on the factory. The battle was engaged, swords clanging against makeshift shields, the blast of rifles piercing armor and flesh, and the screams and battle cries of the attackers.

The bovine creature was nigh invulnerable. Bullet after bullet failed to pierce its hide. Clubs and choppers were turned aside as if hitting steel, and the creature ripped through their ranks with wicked claws unfazed by their attacks. Each time it killed one of the Vados, it would howl with an unearthly sound and devour the corpse in a brutal display of bloodshed. Each time, it seemed to get stronger as if it was gathering power and feeding with a primordial siphon.

Periodically, the creature would seem to be felled, but would simply be wracked with pain and anguish as its body regenerated and re-knit itself once more. It would slough off attacks and hit back with a murderous frenzy, its mutated form seeming to adapt and change in a constant necrotic mutation. Again, and again, the foul monster was driven back, while the Vados attempted to buy time for their assault.

the fall of the manufactorum

With a line of shields and swords attempting to keep the bovine monster and the Rotguts at bay, the rest of the Vados set to their work. Teams of doctors and assistants worked to unplug victims from filth ridden beds, ripping out plastic tubing and shackles that kept them as human livestock for the terrible byproduct of crystal candy. The Bay’lor Institute scientists used their access to unlock doors and helped the Vados evacuate the captured aberrants to the safety of their trucks.

When they pierced the defenses of the factory itself, they quickly set to disabling the Butcher’s strange machines. While a few of the more outspoken types had argued to simply detonate the factory and let the Grave Mind sort it out, cooler heads prevailed and they set to work contaminating the crystallization machine instead. A few of the drug-enhanced Rotguts offered resistance, turning the strange new candy into potent enhancements. With chemically induced strength and speed, they attempted to stop the process but were driven back by the defenders.

As they disabled the machine, they set to dealing with the recipes and materials that would enable Moriarty to continue his manufacture of the new crystal candy. With a few well placed firebombs, they set the offices ablaze, and took to destroying any bit of materials they could find. A few shady hands might have absconded with some of the the documents in the chaos, but the damage was done. The crystal candy pipeline would be finished thanks to their efforts.

In the basements of the Manufactorum, they also found more of the strange monstrosities like the one attacking their friends. The creatures were hybrid necro-mutants, combined of different creatures and something that once was a survivor, but all were in various states of preparation. One might have felt sorry for them as they pulled plugs and slit throats of the tormented creatures, save for a reminder of the terrible danger these things represented from the sounds of fighting outside. A series of notes nearby identified the things as THE BUTCHERED, the secret experiments of Juliet, but there was no sign of whatever else she was working on.

The butcher’s escape & Retaliation

Outside, the battle reached a climax. The strange mutant was clearly tiring. Each time they seemed to kill or disable it, it roared back to life and regenerated limbs and claws once more. But each time was a bit slower than the last. The Vados pressed the advantage, driving back Shamrok and his Rotguts, and evading the surgical strikes of the Butcher as she faded in and out of the darkness. With a final piercing blow, the bovine creature fell to the ground for a last time.

And then it exploded.

The psionic blast from the creature knocked back defender and Rotgut alike, the terrible force of its final discharge devastating the battlefield. Whatever was empowering it tore through armor and shield alike as it exploded into a cloud of gore and viscera, spraying bone and blood in every direction. The remaining Rotguts seemed to realize the tide had turned and proved themselves every bit the cowards they were as the Manufactorum defenders scattered into the night. Unfortunately, in the distraction of the explosion, both Shamrok and the Butcher had vanished, leaving their associates behind to cover their escape.

At the same time inside the factory, with a hiss of foul smoke and bubbling reactions, the chain reaction had began. The candy manufacturing and crystallization machine was contaminated by the reagent and filled the factory with poisonous gases. Evacuating the last of the survivors, a victorious shout let the defenders know it was time to withdraw. They had achieved their goal and disabled the Manufactorum, ending Moriarty’s foul plot and closing the pipelines of the candy trade.

However, despite the earlier tip, they had found no source of the shipment the Butcher was said to be moving during the night. They had found large stores of candy they were able to destroy, but whatever the Butcher had been working on in secret had already been moved. Someone had alerted her in time to let her move the project before they could arrive. She had obviously had help from someone in town, but there was no time to ponder the betrayal.

Safely in their vehicles the Vados withdrew, leaving the smoking and contaminated Manfactorum in their wake. While Crystal Candy was still a scourge of the wasteland, these new, more dangerous variants were stopped for good.

Threads of Note during the Valley of Fear

A large group of Recluse Nester raiders had moved into Bravado over the Burning Season. These strange raiders bred massive spiders and their nests were a dangerous threat that needed to be dealt with. Armed with a spray to dislodge the sticky fibers of their webbing, the Vados managed to destroy the nest, but it was clear that some more dangerous force was stirring the raiders towards their expansion — a spider queen!
Eyeless Jack, one of the Lifers of Killhouse was spotted in town with an ominous message. He claimed to be the “Herald of the Apocalypse” and warned the town that doom was headed their way on clouds of black smoke. While the crazed killer seemed to avoid his usual crimes of murder and eye mutilation, the eerie message seemed prophetic, and it reminded a few that his father, Grandfather Nichols had been away for many months working on something in secret.
A new mysterious ore was discovered in a tunnel beneath the morgue. This strange material seemed similar to a psionic crystal in nature, but inert. Perhaps the Eightfold Mother had seen a reason to rip a hole in the Mortis or maybe this was some new function of the Mortis Amaranthine. Regardless of the cause, the new ore seemed to spark the usual wildfire of greed and a rush to harvest the material. Teams of survivors took turns mining inside the morgue, seeking their fortunes in the strange purple ore, and graveheads took to trying to communicate with the Grave Mind for answers. There were even whispers of Grave Mind specters haunting a few unlucky townsfolk, appearing to them as if in a dream that only they could perceive.
The Rook was spotted in town, trying to convince the town to deal with the danger of crystal candy once and for all. The psion terrorist managed to whip several of the rogue vigilantes into a frenzy, seeking out Rotgut dealers and providing a murderous end to the crimes. One has to wonder if she had an opinion on how the town dealt with the Manufactorum…
Over the weekend, the curious white-robed cultists from Essex came into town bearing medical assistance and brews for the wounded and hurt. The Cult of the Tiny God was still active, even after the loss of the Fountainhead. The grave mind cultists seemed drawn to rumors of the new activity in the Grave Mind, but seemed more intent on helping than anything else.

Questions remaining…

The brave heroes of Bravado had struck a mighty blow at Moriarty, but the new Warden of Killhouse was still entrenched in his fortress of Prudence Penitentiary. Not only had the town made a decision to cripple the Crystal Candy trade in Bravado, they had chosen to rescue the survivors of the Manufactorum instead of destroying it with a mighty explosion. They had traveled through a valley of fear, and emerged triumphant over the genius machinations of the Spider of Killhouse.

But there were several questions remaining. What was the strange creature they had encountered at that Manufactorum? Who had helped Juliet Butcher escape, and how did she know about the attack? What was the strange shipment that had been moved from the Manufactorum before they arrived? Something was still moving in the shadows, and it was clear that Moriarty was just one part of the conspiracy that was unraveling in the San Saba.

wrap up

That’s it for today folks! I hope you enjoyed the narrative I crafted in this recap. I may have taken a few liberties here or there, but this covers the big points you should remember as we continue our season in February. Clever folks probably already see the connections of this game to the following National event, the NECROPHAGE. Clearly, Moriarty had a particular mad scientist helping him in his plots, and something wicked was headed towards Bravado.

Next week, we will cover the recap for PYROCLASM! See you soon! Enjoy the break, and I hope to see you in February!