Howdy Vados!
It’s HEATHER here with another DR:TX Rules Ramble, leading up to our December live event THE RED DEATH! This is our next Premiere Event game, led by Heather Halstead and Jonathan Loyd. Each week, we’ll discuss in detail an aspect of the upcoming event, compiling the rules and lore into one easy place to read! This week, we are covering the Dragged to Hell and Caught Alone mechanics, and the function of The Red Death itself, plus a sneak peak at our vision for a unique Finale Mod — something I’m extremely excited about, that we’ve never attempted before.
TICKETS FOR OUR DECEMBER EVENT ARE ON SALE NOW! COME WATCH THE NIGHTS BLEED RED!
One last reminder to help us decorate our spaces for the Winter Lights Festival with RED tealights. The more lights, the better! Decorate your space! You can also simply use a red paper bag to place normal tea lights into to change the color to red. Please be sure to get tea lights with RED FLAMES, not just red exteriors!
TL;DR
It’s going to feel like I’m cover A LOT of custom mechanics in this post, but I want to assure you, it’s not that complicated. Here is the TL;DR - the bare bones you need to know for game:
Death is Weird this event! If you die, get back up with 1 body, and report to Ops within 15 minutes.
Night time will be extra dangerous, and you should watch for ZOMs on crafting stations.
Nightmare Bane does BANE damage (DOUBLE damage!) to YOU if you have Nightmares.
If you’re walking alone in the dark, report to Ops for a quick dice roll and a spooky encounter.
The Finale Mod will involve very little combat, but extreme amounts of Tension.
That’s it!
Everything else will be explained in the moment, or are things the ST senate is inflicting upon you, rather than rules you need to remember. But if you want more details, keep reading! Especially the bit at the bottom concerning the finale mod.
Our photos for this post were taken from previous DR:TX events by our talented Photo Team, by Max Pohlmeier, Lauren Guzaldo, Jason Dumas, and Maddeax Khole.
DR:TX UPDATES
Let’s cover a few things of note that have happened over the last few weeks:
Read our Event Premise and Content Warnings in the first blog post for this event, THE RED DEATH. You can learn how to Opt into The Dead Return in last weeks blog! This covers a lot of the stuff you should know before you buy a ticket, as well as an explanation of the story of the weekend.
LIT Cashout! For the next couple of weeks, you can purchase a $0 Ticket to have your LIT inventory cashed out and ready for pickup at the December Premier Event. This $0 ticket acts as your place in line, so just snag your ticket, and we’ll ensure your supplies are waiting for you when you check in on Friday, December 8th. This opportunity is only for players with Texas as their home chapter and will be handled first come first served. We will have 30 of these tickets open for this next event, and additional opportunities for the cash out if you miss out, don’t worry!
DRAGGED TO HELL
During this event, we will have a very special death mechanic in play.
As the Undying Prince grows nearer, and reality warps and shifts around the town of Bravado, death is somehow closer and more perverse. Those who die, whether by murder, a slow bleed, or a slit throat are… standing back up. Going about their day, rejoining the fray. It seems like death has no hold here.
Until it most assuredly does. Whispers of those ‘lucky’ folks who narrowly avoided death being hunted down by creatures made of nothing but shadow, and being dragged, kicking and screaming, into the blackness floating over the flames of red camp fires.
Death will always claim its due.
What does this mean for us?
For the December event, if you are lucky enough to die by any means, you will stand back up as though nothing occurred, at one (1) Body. You may continue fighting, talking, etc, as long as you report to, in character, to the Grave Annex within 15 minutes (come to Ops).
Once in Ops, the storyteller on duty will mark the infection loss in the death log and on your sheet, remove 1 Resolve, and give you 1 level of the Nightmares keyword. Once that’s done, they’ll give you a big yellow glowstick to wear, and send you back out into the world to role play.
But of course, there is a catch…
For the next two hours (beginning at nightfall if the death occurred during the day), or until captured, you will be targeted by Shades. These creatures of shadow will swarm you at any given opportunity, and attempt to “Drag You to Hell”. This will only be by physical touch if that is consented to by all parties, otherwise the default is boffers. You can attempt to evade them, but they are persistent, and lethal. Once consumed by the Shades, they, and you, disappear, and you may ring the bell and proceed to Ops for your Grave Mind scene.
Even if you evade the Shades, death is inevitable. If you have not been dragged away within two hours of the death, or two hours after nightfall, you will drop dead where you stand and must ring the bell, and report to Ops for your gravemind scene as usual. But if this happens, your Nightmare-ish Grave Mind scene may involve a potential bargain that can be struck…
…if you’re willing to accept HIS terms.
CAUGHT ALONE
A mechanic from last year that we’re bringing back this year! This is based on the Alone in the Dark mechanic originally created by Phil Grau from DR:VA, tweaked a bit for our own Texas flavor. The nights before the Long Night are dangerous, and even more so now, with the Red Death sweeping the land.
If at any time, you find yourself Alone if the Dark, or if an ST spots you Alone in the Dark, you must consider yourself CAUGHT ALONE, and report to Ops to roll for a consequence.
Some results of being Caught Alone are positive, some are strange and disturbing, some are dangerous, but nothing will take your infection just from a die roll. Once you’ve arrived at Ops, you will roll a D20, and be given your outcome.
You don’t have to be caught by an ST to be Caught Alone, though. It can be whenever you realize you’ve wandered from others and are alone in the dark, whether you were just left alone when all your friends vanished into the night, or if you are just looking for something to spice up the evening in Bravado.
Stick together, Vados. It’s spooky out there.
THE RED DEATH
As the miasma of red settled over the town, strange things begin to occur. Reality warps and bends. Things seem.. Wrong.
Insubstantial.
Formless and unknowable.
When the sun goes down, and all light has left the sky, a siren will sound and all the lights in town will turn RED. In these moments, combat will be more dangerous, and even simple shamblers will be fraught with nightmarish characteristics.
Every creature type will have additional stats during the night-time hours to show the way the Red Death is warping the world as we see it. And of course.. the Nightmares themselves will haunt the night. These creatures, the beings of mist and shadow, will be especially dangerous, and will have a new ability - Nightmare Bane. This will count as Bane damage for any LC with ANY level of Nightmares.
This bane will NOT be on the modified zombie/raider/strain threats, only on the ‘big kid’ Nightmare creatures. The ones that hunted down you or your friends last game, or screeched about the opening of a door. Or the Ones that used to look like Longwalkers...
In addition to increased danger of the red hued darkness, crafting will be more difficult as well.
When the haze of the Red Death settles over the town, every place seems oddly separate from reality, and requires you to force your will upon it to make it solid and workable. During the night time hours, please look for ZOMs about these effects on all crafting stations - they will need to be “activated” for a period of time, and how difficult this activation is will depend on the LCs level of Nightmare:
No level of Nightmares — 1 Resolve
Nightmares (1) — 30 Mind
Nightmares (2) — 20 Mind
Nightmares (3) — 10 Mind
The more warped your reality is, the easier it is to bend them to your will and force that imprint to ‘exist’. ANY LC will be able to activate a crafting station for use for a period of time, even if they do not have an appropriate skill to use that station. It does NOT have to be the LC actually using the station. Make sure you get that important crafting done in the comforting light of day!
THE CLEANSING RITUAL - FINALE MOD
Every game has a cadence, and we’re all very familiar with the idea that the main plot typically resolves in some way, usually in the form of a big FIGHT Saturday evening.
For this event, I wanted to try something different. Despite how dangerous the nights will be during this event (and TRUST ME, we have FIGHTS planned.), the Finale Mod itself will be largely a non-combat mod. While there will be a small group of LCs tasked to fight, the main crux of the mod will require the majority of the town to participate in a RITUAL that will preclude you from combat.
The design of this mod is still very dangerous for every character involved, and my goal is to invoke the same level of fear, tension, and adrenaline that a final fight provides, but in a setting that is focused less on combat, and more on non-violent actions. Some problems can’t be solved with violence, and I want us to try to highlight this, and also give our less combat oriented characters a chance to feel like they are the focus of the finale, instead of ancillary to it.
To be clear, you don’t have to be a non combat character to participate in this, but even if you are a combat character, your role in this fight will probably not be combat oriented.
I ask everyone lean into this, and try something new, and see how it goes. Hopefully, it will be a memorable experience and a kick ass story. I’ve been dying to put this idea into motion for months, and I’m so very excited to bring it to life for you all in a few weeks!
WRAP UP
We hope that you are ready for the challenge of THE RED DEATH. How can you stop the machinations of the Prince Undying? Can you survive a world where death itself is changed and the night is blanketed in red? Will you escape the Nightmare Walkers or worse? We have some some fun and exciting challenges planned for your characters in the nightmarish zombie apocalypse. But don’t worry, it’s not just all about the RED DEATH, you’ll still need to deal with (nightmare) zombies, (nightmare) Oxkillers, (nightmare) raiders and more!
TICKETS ARE ON SALE UNTIL FRIDAY!!!
See you next time Vados, when we talk about Rules You Should Know before the event and our other last minute announcements for the event! But for now, let’s take a sneak peek at the second of the two new National blueprints released during our upcoming Premiere Event!
