Hey there Vados! This is a bit late, but I started by season Story Recap posts after our second game during Season 3, so I missed this one. I’m gonna cover the major events of note from this game that might be useful to know about as we progress through the season. It’s been a bit, so I’ll try to keep this brief on the major salient points.
As a note, this season directly follows up on the stories that we introduced during the shortened Season 1 (cut short in March by the pandemic), and the online Season 2 we ran that have been documented in our Lonestar Skies archive, found HERE.
The Second Founding - the premise
In the last year, the San Saba Territories have expanded to include hundreds of miles of new land. During that time new groups and philosophies have taken root in the gritty soil between the Dune Sea and The Spoiled Coast, fundamentally changing the face of the Lonestar. The sleepy scrap of dirt that was once Bravado has fallen into disrepair in the year since Felicity Redfield left following the Fountainhead Incident in Essex, and only due to the revelations in Barogue (pronounced “Buh-row-guh” :p) has she returned.
After returning from the Lost City, Felicity asserted her mineral rights over the city of New Bravado and sought to reclaim it from the raiders, ranchers and roughshods who had taken up residence there. In order to entice new Survivors to Bravado, the RRC leader offered tenement rights to any companionship, company or crew willing to help her settlement. The will of the San Saba and its Laws, must be brought to the untamed wastes through sweat and blood after all. However, a threat of Bad Brain had sprung up amongst the common folk and was beginning to become a problem…
New Laws, New Order
One of the major events that occurred during the online season was the official forming of the San Saba Board, a unification of the many factions of the area that banded together to enforce a system of law and order in the Territory. Their collective economic, military, and political will has placed them in a position to encourage the citizens of the area to comply.
During this event, we introduced several new faces and figures in the leadership of the territories. We also combined several factions into one, with the Conglomerate and the Railroad Commission uniting in one massive faction known as the Railroad Conglomerate (still conveniently using the RRC abbreviation so they could save on stationary and uniform costs).
The San Saba Board has offered some measure of stability in the chaotic wastes, and claims as its members several major factions from our Dramatis Personae:
The Chair
Holds the power of Veto
The Railroad Conglomerate, or RRC
2 seats; Felicity Redfield, CEO, Dr. Janus Stewart, COO, aka “The Scientist”
The Tribes Disparate
1 seat; The Speaker for the Tribes, Holy Mother Queen Jasper
The Grave Council
1 seat, Takheeta Firstborn
The Warden of Prudence Penitentiary
1 seat; Warden Tabitha St. Mercy
The Law Dogs
0 seats; Boss Wyatt is the liaison between the Board and the Law Dog Union
The Board has established several functional laws in the San Saba:
“The spilling of Blood and Bone is the prerogative of the Wastes. But to steal the Infection of the Body, or the Work of the Hands is forbidden.”
“Brass and Contracts are our Sacred Currency. Thems that break a Contract are a Breacher and are subject to the Gauntlet. Anyone not holding a Contract is a Vagrant and has no voice in Company Affairs.”
“None shall interfere with the Delivery of the Post. Nor the Collection of the Grave Tax.”
Additionally, the return to live events also gave our Survivors a chance to explore the curious choice of the mysterious Chairman in exercising his rare right VETO to prevent the rambunctious Junkerpunks from joining the alliances of the San Saba. The Junkerpunks have set themselves opposed to the RRC and will likely need your help in the future…
a Bloody return
Things do not stay the same when you leave them alone, they are subject to the forces of the universe regardless of the Survivor’s participation. In the year since any civilized person trod the scrap of dirt that is New Bravado, the disease known as Bad Brain had ravaged the agricultural population and produced a crop of Grave Head Raiders that submit to a monstrous Raider Queen known as the GUTMOTHER. The survivors had no choice but to eradicate the threat, save what farmers they can, and attempt to begin all over again.
The Gutmother; a Raider Queen which is a form of mutated leader of Raiders that rarely emerges, was at the head of a massive clan of Grave Head Raiders. These Raiders use crude chemical bombs to control and herd hordes of zombies. The Gutmother staked her claim in Bravado despite the Burning Season and rival clans pressing against her borders. If the RRC and the Survivors were to seek to settle her lands, they would have to eradicate the clan entirely and seize it themselves.
Unfortunately for the Vados, the Raider Queen possessed a unique ability to return from the Grave, seemingly, infinitely. Her great Herd of undead, whispered by some to be the infantile third Stampede, churned under her undying eye and only by locking her wholly in the Mortis, body and all, could the Vados hope to quiet the Gutmother long enough to find a way to kill her and scatter her troops to the four corners of the San Saba.
a prison of flesh, bone, and psionic will
After surviving several assaults on the town, the Grave Council, through their agent Commander Rampart came up with a plan to stop the Raider Queen. With the help of the townsfolk, they were able to construct a pocket within the Mortis Amaranthine that could could contain the Gutmother as a makeshift prison. If it worked, it could suspend the Gutmother’s endless recycling through the Gravemind. With a titanic expenditure of psionic crystals, resolve, and even the pickled head of the Gutmother from one of her deaths, the town was ready to lay their trap.
Rampart provided several Barougian Seals, psionic devices recovered from the Lost City, inscribed with the phrase “IMPRINT IS MATTER, MATTER IS IMPRINT”. This phrase, found in the writings of the Undying Prince, spoke to a truth of the world. The Grave Mind operates by returning your IMPRINT to the world as MATTER, so it could be inferred that MATTER could also be returned back to an IMPRINT. The Ritual of Imprisonment, designed by the Mystagogues of the Grave Council, would require killing the Gutmother over and over until her imprint could be locked into the ground for good.
During the terrible battle at the Maw, Rampart used a strange psionic device, a crystalline matrix imbued with limitless power, to lead the ritual. While the soldiers of the town dealt with the Grave Head Raiders throwing themselves at the shield wall protecting the ritual, a brave few struck out to take down the Gutmother in the midst of the fighting. Each time she fell, they would drag her screaming, bleeding form to the center of the ritual circle again and again. Each killing blow on the Raider Queen served to settle her imprint one step further into the ritual prison.
After THIRTEEN waves, the Gutmother weakly tried to fight back as the final killing blow sealed her into a psionic prison of flesh, bone, and psionic will. While not truly dead or alive, the Gutmother was sealed away to prevent the endless cycle of regeneration from continuing. However, shortly after the fight, the strange crystalline matrix was discovered to be missing, taken by an unknown foe in the chaos following the battle.
Hopefully, the strange seals holding the prison of the Gutmother will survive, lest a terrible Raider Queen be loosed on Bravado and the San Saba once more…
That’s it for this recap. Sorry that this is a bit less specific information than my later Story Recaps, but it was like 6 months ago so that’s basically forever… See you next time ‘Vados!