Howdy Vados!
It’s Jonathan here with another signature DR:TX Rules Ramble, leading up to our March live event GIFTS OF SUFFERING! This is our next ST led over-arc game, led by Andrew Harper. 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 premise of our event, some content warnings, and some teasers about our upcoming event!
TICKETS FOR OUR MARCH EVENT ARE ON SALE NOW! WILL YOU CLAIM ONE OF BROTHER AGONY’S GIFTS?
If you had a great experience at our last event THE BREAKER OF CROWNS or had some suggestions for how we can improve, we’d love to hear from you! Did you get to meet the Oxkiller War Party while they were in town? Did you participate in the the Summit? Were you there for the arrest of Boss Debs? Did you finally get a chance to kill Rampart?
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Our photos for this post were taken from previous DR:TX events by our talented Photo Team, by Max Pohlmeier, Lauren Guzaldo, Sidney Betzina, and Jason Dumas.
The Premise
Oh? You received a helpful offer from a friendly traveler…
”Already your suffering is legendary. You choose to live in a place where a 4th of the year to stride under the open sky is to burn where you stand. Your own so-called marvels brought on a drought that threatened to turn your vibrant home into a sandy forsaken waste. And then, not yet finished, you landed a flying city on your own heads rather than divert it somewhere, anywhere else.
So I had to come and see it for myself. And the stories do not do it justice. To call the impact of that monument of poorly understood technology and hubris into Bravado a landing is an embellishment worthy of the tallest tale. You shall be living with that damage for seasons. Especially since you went and started a war rather than take the time to clean up your mess.
But do not look to me for help. For this is Hell and we are Damned. Suffering is the only certainty. So I, Brother Agony, have seen the heights of suffering you have already ascended and bring gifts to push you even farther. Gifts of suffering for all, and for those strong enough to hold onto it, gifts of power. Power to wield in your hasty rebellion against the Board. Power to defy the Prince Undying. One of course for those who see true. But Brother Agony is generous in his gifts, and brought enough for those who follow their delusions of the false truths also. If you truly wish to grasp the power I have offered, then you shall bring suffering in your wake and whatever false truth you cling to is irrelevant.
And should you seek to ignore the truth it is of no consequence. The Relics are crafted from potent psionic crystals. I don’t know the exact extent of how or what their presence will agitate the mortis to send forth. But I expect it will start with hordes of the undead. And the damned shall fight the dead as is the lot of all in Hell.
Yes you may attempt to undo my gifts. But to see true is to take and hold power in any form it takes. And even if you cling to false truths, figuring out how to destroy the Relics shall take time, pain, and of course suffering. As all roads lead to suffering. The question is not if. It is only a question of how you will suffer.
Suffer Well, Bravado…”
Inspiration & Tropes
This season in Bravado we have focused on bringing some new elements of Survival Horror to the forefront of the story. In our tradition of Radical Trust, we want to share some of the inspirational bits of media and movie magic that we feel help capture the themes and feelings of our upcoming event. If you are looking for a movie to inspire your role play for this event, here’s a list of our favorites to get ready for GIFTS OF SUFFERING:
Lord of the Rings
Diablo (Video Game)
Talk to Me
For this event, the common theme is the danger of using “artifacts of doom”, as well as the trope of “people are the real monsters”. When Brother Agony comes to Bravado, his gifts offer power to those that are willing to take it, in the tradition of the Final Knight faith. While these items have some attractive powers, they also encourage others to do something about you keeping them for long. While zombies and raiders can be scary, the real danger in the wasteland is other survivors.
While their power is real, the true potential of each gift is only unlocked through causing strife and conflict. With the scarce resources of the Gifts of Suffering, will you be able to hold onto the power once you’ve taken it, or will someone take it from you?
CONTENT WARNINGS
The themes of Dystopia Rising often touch close to our real world in ways we cannot always avoid. The DR:TX team believes that we can still tell these stories about challenging topics, but we also believe we need to be transparent about our intentions and set proper expectations for our content. In our tradition of radical trust, we want to also trust in each player that attends our game to know their own limits and be able to choose to avoid topics and situations that make them uncomfortable.
It’s important to watch for descriptions, situations, or events that you might want to avoid. You may find new limits that are unknown to you because the matter never came up. We encourage you to take the necessary steps for your own emotional safety. We want you to be comfortable with the types of horror in our events so you can enjoy the thrill of the zombie apocalypse and the nightmare creatures we introduce into the game space.
It’s one reason we take our OK Check-In system so seriously! We understand that these may not be stories you want to participate in, and that’s okay! Remember, you can always use the OK Check-In System to choose to leave a scene, even CVC!
You can always find a list of our Content Warnings on our website, but let’s talk about some of the specific things you might want to be prepared for during this February event.
Overall, this next event focuses heavily on the themes of FAITH and CONFLICT. These can be some serious themes, so let’s talk about some content warnings of note for GIFTS OF SUFFERING:
CVC, Character versus Character behaviors, conflict and hostility
Each of the relics of suffering will require CONFLICT with other player characters. In order to unlock the awesome power of these crowns, you’ll need to purposefully choose actions that bring you into conflict with other players.
These items will require you to purposefully volunteer for CVC involvement, similar to the SES List. While controlling one of these items you will effectively “flag” yourself for CVC conflict.
Religious conflict, religious-related death, corruption, and abuses of power (only in-game faiths - not real faiths)
Each of the relics brought to the player’s control by Brother Agony will be perverted icons of their respective faiths. These items will require you to subvert the expectations for those faiths, often acting in a heretical or conflicting manner to your faith.
This means that you can expect to see faith vs faith interactions, particularly between those of the faiths that are being exploited by the relics.
Intense emotional situations, where characters may be pushed to their emotional limits.
The lure of a powerful item that can offer you an advantage in the wasteland is likely to push you into situations where you need to embrace the paranoia and prepare for folks to betray you. This could be a stressful play style for the weekend, and could push you to your limits.
The conflict inherent to the gifts of suffering is going to provoke intense emotional roleplay, as your actions will often bring you into conflict with another character’s core belief.
Character vs Character Conflict
This next event is going to delve into one of the four pillars of DR, character versus character conflict, or CVC. If you get involved with this over-arc plot, you’ll need to be one of the folks gunning for the relics given by Brother Agony. While there will definitely be some roleplay and research about these mysterious gifts, the biggest part of this plot is going to be the challenge of holding onto one of the relics long enough to empower it.
The more powerful the item becomes, the more likely you are to attract the attention of others that are jealous of your newfound boon of power. They might want to do something to protect the town by using the relic to empower the strange monolith in town. They may just want to make sure that YOU can’t use the item to continue making a mockery of their faith. Regardless of the motivation, these items are going to create a lot of fun and interesting situations for CVC interactions.
With that in mind, I’ve covered a bunch of helpful tips and tricks for better CVC in Dystopia Rising. Here’s some helpful links to read up on before the March event:
We will cover some specifics of how these new unique items will work in a future blog post, but we expect that these items will create some interesting opportunities to lean into this avenue of play. We hope that you will take a plunge into this challenging and rewarding style of game, and really dig into the possibilities that the Gifts of Suffering offer.
Wrap Up
Tickets are on sale as of Monday, February 12th for our next event, and we are so excited to tell a story of zombies and faith, and to continue our season. We had some BIG events happen last game, so that will likely add to the conflict and story of the weekend! We hope that you will join us at Camp Bluebonnet Shores, and make the most of the weekend to survive the zombie apocalypse.
Will you attempt to claim one of the Gifts of Suffering? Are you strong enough to leverage the power you can gain by unlocking the relics of Brother Agony? Will you try to destroy these gifts, or use them to protect your town? Will you take a relic from another, and spill blood in the name of your personal path to power? With the San Saba Board breathing down on the town, can you deny any weapon or tool that will help you achieve your goals?
Not interested in claiming one of the relics? That’s okay too! There’s still going to be plenty of zombies and a bunch of follow up plots from our explosive mid season opener. Last month, the town of Bravado declared itself in REBELLION against the forces of the San Saba, and that’s sure to create some drama as the season continues.
Let’s find out together, when the GIFTS OF SUFFERING arrive in Bravado!
