The Facility
Howdy Vados! Welcome back from the Winter Break!
It’s Jonathan here with another signature DR:TX Rules Ramble, leading up to our first official Dystopia Rising Live event CRADLE’S LULLABY! This first game in the new system will be led by Noah Goodman and Luka Drystan. Each week, I’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 LORE of the underground facility underneath Bravado!
TICKETS FOR OUR february EVENT ARE ON SALE NOW! can you survive the descent into the facility?
Item Exchange Submissions are Open!
Our Spreadsheet is open to submit your Item Exchanges in time for DR Live! Our due date for this project is Monday, January 27th, so we can have plenty of time to write these cards. After this point, you’ll have to use the Kitchen Sink Exchange in the Depot during the February event!
Some photos for this post were taken from previous DR:TX events by our talented Photo Team, including Lily-Jay Jones, Miranda Farmer, Noah Goodman, and Max Pohlmeier, and art by Shan Lind.
The Facility
Beneath Bravado stretches a network of engineered tunnels left from before the Fall of Man. Once some kind of cryo storage facility that housed a number of Semper Morts, the long-abandoned halls delve deep into the ground below the town. Brave delvers descend into the depths to salvage scrap metal, wiring, plating, and recovered electronics from the desiccated laboratories and destroyed chambers inside. The dead still walk the tunnels beneath, dangerous Gorehounds and worse, crawling into spaces and consuming unwary explorers.
Despite the risk, the RRC has sponsored numerous delves into Facility, claiming mineral rights to all resources within. While Felicity Redfield may have transferred her ownership of the land beneath Bravado to the citizens of the town after her death during the War of Antlers, the RRC remains the most focused on plundering the tunnels beneath the town for the forgotten resources left behind by the oldcestors. Scrap plating gets shipped to Essex to forge into new railroad ties, while wiring pulled from the walls gets integrated into armor and new equipment to delve further below. Glass shards are collected and melted down to form new windows in buildings on the surface, and larger pieces of plastics and machined components get converted into useful gizmos, weapons, and armor.
Some have pointed out repeated findings of a strange writing in the tunnels below Bravado, often finding signs marked as “CRADLE” or other handwritten notes in a foreign language. Some of this language seems to be the script of long lost Barogue, but others are messages from previous delvers and long-dead survivors. The trove of lore and history can tempt even the most stoic researcher, seeking some answers or understanding in the ruins beneath Bravado.
What Came Before
The story of the Facility began in our first season of 3.0, about six years ago, when we revamped our setting for the new edition. The original concept of Bravado was one of a boom town, reinvigorated by a discovery that drew explorers and survivors seeking something new from across the wasteland of the San Saba. After the Hiway War decimated the lands of Old Bravo and beyond, the bomb that leveled the old town had left not much behind. In the years that followed, a semblance of safety emerged from the ruins of the war and the living found a new home in the town that claimed the original name of the settlement that had existed before - BRAVADO.
It was only when the storms passed, and the end of the first year approached, that the lands Bravado became remotely livable again. A few wandering explorers returned, lured by the radiation and the promise of discovery. The Firebrands, raiders as mentioned above, made their first primitive settlements around the muddy caldera that had been Bravo. And a few dedicated and Darwin monks took up residence and the purpose of cataloging and understanding the slow and stately evolution of a land post-nuclear.
Instead of a town, there was now a lake. An imperfect circle of muddy, radioactive water. The air was barely breathable and only the hardiest, fool or otherwise, could live in the Lands Bravado without suffering sterility or sickness. But it was that they could live there at all that drew them. Radiation takes a long time to leech itself out of the soil, much longer than ten months.
It was in May of the year following the Second Stampede that the discovery was made. A pale and perfect edifice of stone rose up and out of the muddy ground that surrounded Old Bravo. Something older than the town that died there. Something older than any of us.
It was proximal to that obelisk of too-perfect rock that the town of Bravado was re-born.
- Concerning the Hiway War and Her Lasting Effects, Dr. Perenthius Goodfellow
The Obelisk in the lake was the first sign that something existed BELOW the town of Bravado. The Lascarians had longed used tunnels near the old town to survive the blasting heat of the Burning Season, but they had only scratched the surface of the underground depths below the surface. During our first 3.0 event, THE GOLDEN SPIKE, the town of Bravado was claimed by the Railroad Conglomerate, led by the forward thinking Felicity Redfield. She had claimed the ‘mineral rights’ of the town, but her true goal was to leverage the wealth that lay in the tunnels below the town.
The first tantalizing hints of something more came with the discovery of a strange sign that read C.R.A.D.L.E. Standing for “Cryo Assisted Dynamic Living Environment”, it was stamped on a massive steel door that was impenetrable and frustratingly broken. A vault of ancient treasures must be contained within, perhaps from before the Fall, so the considerable intellect of the Research & Development branch of the RRC was directed at the problem of how to gain entrance into the tunnels and levels they knew lay further beneath. Metal flooring prevented further excavation through traditional means, though each week they uncovered new openings in the upper levels that led into new locked barricades.
Over the months and years that followed, Delvers, those brave souls that were drawn by the promise of wealth and adventure flocked to the town on the Oxline. Each new find set off a spur of activity as the explorers descended into the earth and tried to find the answers that lay beneath. Promises were made to workers, offering funds for patience, hopeful that they could find some way inside. As the initial charm and mystery of a hidden facility drew workers to the town to explore deep into the primary tunnel known as THE MAW, the lack of true wealth frustrated many. Felicity’s honeyed words and lies bought a few brief months of reprieve, but no one is truly sure how she eventually found the answer to how to enter CRADLE.
Shortly before the Long Night that first year in Bravado, THE BREACH occurred, a terrible earthquake and winter storm that provided the first method of entry into the metallic tunnels of the Facility. In the area of the town now irradiated in the deadly Exclusion Zone, the Breach turned the town from a place of curiosity to a place of danger and great value. From within the tunnels below poured the dead, terrible undead things once called Blood Ghasts, and a wave of threats that nearly decimated the town. The town quickly rallied to fight off the undead horde, but had to collapse the tunnel to seal the breach in the outskirts of the town. However, with the steel doors at the Maw finally bypassed, simple labor could fix a pesky collapsed tunnel. In the aftermath of the Breach, the exploration of the Facility truly began.
Though a small community of Semper Morts emerged shortly after the Breach, the most immediate wealth of the Facility was the most ubiquitous resource of all - METAL. Where the Oldcestors had once reinforced tunnels with plating and flooring, the metal was far more useful in weapons, armor, and rail ties to expand the Oxline network. The RRC quickly organized work crews to strip the tunnels below of anything they could use. In the barren wasteland of the zombie apocalypse, fabricated resources are hard to come by. The scraps of machined components, recovered electronics, plastics and more were a treasure trove worth more than any precious gem or ore. Without any true ability to perform feats of metallurgy like the generations before, steel and scrap became the true currency of Bravado.
Copper wire plucked from the walls reinforced lights, bringing meager electricity from oxblood generators, or was used to weave durable ropes to aid explorers below. Fractured glass was melted and formed into new windows for the buildings in Bravado, offering a veneer of civilization for the town that inspired the first contracts between the RRC and the Conglomerate of old. Luxuries of relics and scavenged materials were shipped across the San Saba as collectibles for the wealthy and powerful. Forged metal bowls became cast-iron furnaces to provide heat for the town, while plastics and discarded struts formed reinforcements for the buildings. Lumber from the forests around the town shored up collapsing tunnels, and subterranean shelters were made to survive the brutal heat of the summer. In a short amount of time, the town of Bravado thrived because of the resources of the Facility, and it in turn was changed by the ravage of the town’s relentless commerce. In the heyday of the San Saba Board, the constant exploitation of the tunnels below the town fueled the iron grip of the Chairman and his machinations, as well as the successes of the Oxline.
The Facility Today
At the end of the War of Antlers, Felicity Redfield’s last act was to sign the ownership of the Facility and its wealth back to the citizens of Bravado. With the Rebellion that broke the back of the Chairman’s army, the town claimed their birthright back from Railroad Conglomerate, leaving the mysteries of the Facility back in the hands of those that had actually done the work to discover the secrets of CRADLE. While the allure of the Facility had waned during the final days of the war, in favor of far more pressing concerns above the ground, the lure of the Facility has brought Delvers once more to the town of Bravado.
After that first breach so many years ago, the exposure to the elements and exploration has quickly accelerated the decay within the tunnel network below. Plant life has grown into openings and mine shafts, while critters and others have sheltered in the upper levels of the complex. The radiation seeping from the Exclusion Zone into the original Breach has contaminated whole swathes of tunnels, and brought with it new dangers from the surface. While most of the upper levels are picked clean, Delvers fund new excavations in hope of finding some untouched trove of scrap and relics of the past.
Despite the new freedoms of the town, the RRC is still positioned to benefit from the CRADLE facility. Though they may not have the same unquestioned mineral rights once enjoyed by Felicity’s faction, they still possess the man power, the Oxlines, the equipment, the industries, and the know how to exploit the resources below. Now they are simply hired as contractors, advisors, explorers, and agents of the Bravado people. Brass trades in different hands, but the resources of the Facility are far from exhausted.
There are mysteries that still remain below.
The Facility seems to descend even further past the known discoveries, and seems to coexist with the Mortis Amaranthine. The Morgues of the town pierce the upper levels, but the fungal growth certainly descends further. The town was once able to claim power from some forgotten battery or source below that was never fully understood, but has since transitioned to generators and relics of the Hermits of Helios on the surface to power their comfort. There are still a number of tantalizingly closed doors and passages into unexplored networks of the Facility, the wealth inside yet to be claimed. The cryo labs that once housed Semper Morts in the area have been mostly looted, but the community of their kin is still hopeful that other slumbering strains may yet be discovered. The strange language of Barogue has been discovered in multiple places through the tunnels, the mad handwriting of the Prince Undying offering a glimpse into some forgotten history. New critters and undead seem to thrive in the tunnels below, adapting to the changes within CRADLE over the years.
Known Dangers within the Facility
In addition to the danger posed by your fellow survivors, the Facility is a lawless and dangerous location for a number of other reasons. Past the obvious woes of a lack of food or fresh water in the tunnels, explorers need to prepare for every contingency if they enter the Facility. From undead, raiders, traps, and radiation, every trip into the Facility is fraught with peril and danger. Only the foolhardy consider repeat trips into the tunnels, and countless delvers have disappeared in the tunnels below, never to be heard from again.
Traps - Every week some new delver finds a long-lost hatch or new chamber to plunder for spoils and sets off a new rush for scrap and valuables before the RRC can intervene. The more lucrative the new find, the more likely the delver takes it upon themselves to include deadly traps to protect their wealth until they can slowly cart it piece by piece to the surface. Once they clear out a new area, many neglect to remove the traps, so pitfalls and other dangerous devices can abruptly end a delver’s trip into the Facility. Past purposeful traps, collapsed flooring, ceilings, and stairs can create a sudden fall for unlucky survivors, often trapping them into new and inescapable sections of the Facility if they survive the abrupt descent.
Undead - The Mortis Amaranthine stretches beneath the ground and there are many known entrances into the fungal undergrowth beneath most settlements. Even the Morgue of Bravado is built into a chamber on the top layers of the Facility, but sometimes undead can be found in the deepest tunnels of the complex. Gorehounds and worse prowl the darkened halls, seeking out unwary delvers. Some even still wear the scraps of lab equipment from the old cryo chambers, the corpses left behind from the failed attempts of the oldcestors to survive the zombie apocalypse by freezing themselves.
Raiders - The tunnels of the Facility often reach the surface in new and unexplored locations near Bravado and Bastion. As such, other threats like Raiders can sometimes find their way into the complex, seeking shelter or new prey. A clan of Dread Surgeons has periodically claimed areas of the Facility, converting empty chambers into new torture pits for their recent captives. Other aberrant raiders will find shelter in the tunnels closest to the Exclusion Zone, letting new radioactive sludge into the chambers to create a warren or den of sorts.
Environmental Hazards - Some areas of the Facility sit dangerously near the Exclusion Zone, and the deadly radiation left behind after the catastrophic crash of Bastion seeps into chambers and tunnels below. Some areas have even been sealed and closed off by delvers, with signs and graffiti marking the areas where it hurts to breathe. Some areas flooded from a burst seal near the lake, stopping further exploration without the help of Saltwise or Full Dead. Other areas have developed strange clouds of fungal spores, the spore fields sapping the will to go on from survivors. Those caught too far from clean air or without some form of protection simply lay down and remain there until the zed find them. Other rarer areas sometimes have sparks of electricity from cobbled together cabling that retained some charge, or pools of acid from battery systems that once powered the Facility before the Fall.
Technology Limitations of the Facility
There is NO technology in the Facility that is salvageable beyond raw materials and components.
There are no working computers, security systems, cryo chambers or the like in the Facility. The only things of value from before the Fall that survived are Named Scrap like Plastics, Recovered Electronics, Machined Components, and similar scrap cards. Anything else from the original Facility has deteriorated or collapsed over the generations, as the steady march of time and radiation has destroyed what was once here. This area is simply an avenue for story and exploration for our town, and a way to expand our settlement in new ways for a new generation.
The Facility is still a mystery that can be explored in our new era of Dystopia Rising Live, but it’s not an excuse to bring in genre-breaching technology or stories.
You can find a list of the technological limitations and narrative guidelines of DR Live at the national webpage:
Wrap Up
That’s it for today, Vados.
We hope that you will come join us for our next event, our first DR:TX event using the new rules for Dystopia Rising Live. We have some fun surprises in store for you during this game, and we hope that you are ready to try brave the dangers of the Facility. Will you discover the source of the zombies that are plaguing the Lone Star? Will mark a hard choice about a fellow survivor seeking shelter and refuge? Will you put to rest the things that lay sleeping in the Facility once and for all?
Next week we will cover some of the ZONES OF MECHANICS you can find in the tunnels below the town! See you soon, Vados!
