Rules You Should Know - April
Howdy Vados!
It’s Jonathan here with another signature DR:TX Rules Ramble, leading up to next Dystopia Rising Live event THE GUILTY AMONG US! This game will be led by Chase Lira, Casie Spivey, and Kalen Lewis. 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 some last minute Logistics Updates, some changes to important Blueprints, and some Rules You Should Know for this event.
TICKETS FOR OUR april EVENT ARE ON SALE at the door! will you risk it all for the score of a lifetime?
If you had a great experience at our last event OFF THE RAILS, or had some suggestions for how we can improve, we’d love to hear from you! We appreciate your high-fives and suggestions and always want to seek ways to improve our events.
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The national event DEATHCON has been announced for June! This will be hosted by our friends at DR New York and will be the next opportunity to earn some unique rewards and faction items from the Blacktide Hunters and the Wells Society. If you don’t have summer plans, this could be a cool way to break up the Burning Season!
Our 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. Race graphics were designed by Chase Lira and Casie Spivey.
april logistics update
I’ve created a brand new channel in our DR TX Discord, for #blueprint-updates. I’ll be cataloging changes to important blueprints here, as I receive the updates from our Network Support team. You’ll be able to see the changed blueprints in real time on the Juno Database, but I’ll keep a running tally of changes in those channels. You can’t post there, but feel free to ask any question in our other rules discussion channels.
However, with that said, there’s a few items that you need to be aware changed. If you have one of these item cards in play, please bring the card to the Post Office so we can issue you a corrected card.
Additionally, Meaty Bits is officially a GIZMO type item. If you have any of these items on a Produce card from Downfall or before, please bring these to the Post Office to swap out.
Society Memberships
I’ve updated our website with some of the new changes from the Social Creatures sourcebook. Starting with the April event, you’ll be able to add your Society Memberships back to your sheets in the database. You can read more at the Factions of the San Saba page on our website, but I’ve included a brief summary here.
Each character may join up to four (4) Local Societies and up to two (2) Network-Level Societies. (Social Creatures, p. 13)
This title and membership in a society does not cost you XP on your character, and can be added by an NPC or Faction Leader next event. You can only join a Network Level society with specific roleplay with certain NPCs, and this will be a bit harder to earn in game. Not every National group will be immediately available in our local game, but you’ll have your first opportunities during the April and May games.
Branch-level Society Memberships
Local societies operate at the level of a single settlement, and the nature of their obligations tends to be more fluid than those of the larger, global institutions. These groups represent the political, economic, and social fabric of the settlement, ranging from family dynasties to trade unions, from criminal enterprises to ideological movements. Membership in multiple local groups may be possible, but only to the extent that a character can reasonably maintain their standing, obligations, and usefulness within each one. Eventually, alliances will create conflicts of interest, and membership in one group may come at the cost of another.
The groups Murder Inc. and Black Market in DR:TX count as one of these Local Society slots. Approved DR:TX player-led factions may be added to the list over time.
Local Societies of the San Saba:
Railroad Conglomerate (RRC)
Grave Council
Junkerpunks
San Saba Republic
Law Dog Union
The Bravado Militia
Black Market
Murder Inc.
These are the six major local factions in the San Saba, the immediate 10-mile or so range around the settlement of Bravado. These organizations have been major influencers in the region over the last few years and have nearby headquarters or settlements of note. You can expect to encounter agents of these factions during a DR:TX event and membership in these factions can involve in you in the local stories and intrigues of that group. You can find more details about these organizations below.
Approved Player-Led Local Societies:
The Road Royals
Blood & Bone
Misfits & Maidens
Shields of the Lonestar
The Lucky Ram MC
Player-led Local Societies must have at least eight (8) active characters in regular attendance and must be approved by the DR:TX gamerunners. These groups will need to submit Design Docs detailing themes, narrative, and local membership requirements, and can be removed from the list if they fail to maintain an active presence. You can inquire more about adding a group to this list by sending an email to info@dystopiarisingtx.com.
Character Sheet Update - 4/15/25
On April 15th, 2025 (after our next event! whew!) the DR Live Database will transition fully to the Juno system for the new edition. At this point, you should see the database down for a bit as the conversion happens and we should have restored service before you know it. After this transition, there will be some BIG changes we need to account for. Consider this your warning, but all
You can access your characters on the new website, which will replace the old 3.0 versions. The old 3.0 database will be archived and deleted at a later date, but the core functions of your account profile will still be there on the new system.
All character sheets will be reset and experimental slots will be removed. This means you’ll need to rebuild your DR Live sheets one final time before the May event. You’ll still be able to see some saved versions of these characters or you can rebuild from scratch. Expect to hear a lot more about this in the near future and we have a few Discord events in mind to help folks out with questions.
Your XP totals will be combined into your primary slots. These slots will be set to “staged”, so you’ll need to choose your active slots and essentially activate them. We’ll have some more information on the specific steps in the next few weeks, don’t worry.
Once your new characters are set to live, you won’t be able to edit them without help from staff. I know I’ve enjoyed having easy access to try our new builds and skills over the past few months, but soon that will be over. You’ll need to pick your final build for DR Live, and if you’d like to make changes you’ll need to contact us to unlock the character sheet.
DR Live will be officially here in just a few short weeks! Exciting!
rules you should know - April
During our April event, THE GUILTY AMONG US, one of the primary dangers will be your fellow survivors. As such, let’s consider a few prominent skills that are useful in CVC as well as ones you might see on a few unique local threats.
Murder -- Target Both
With this skill, an individual may call “20 Body, Murder” and land a single Strike with a Melee Small or Ranged Attack to the torso. If successful, and if this strike causes the Target to fall into Bleed Out, the Target skips their Bleed Out count and is considered to have instantly received a Killing Blow.
Countered by Avoid: This skill can be negated by Avoid.
No Vitals to Stab: Most Zombies are immune to Murder.
Let’s cover a few important notes here. This is a skill that’s on a few different enemy raider, critter, and zed threats as well as being the signature ability of the Assassin Impact Skill Profession. This profession is based of off the Impact Skills Blinding and Piercing Strike, so you can generally expect a foe that can use this skill to have those abilities as well. You can also see this skill on a few deadly TRAPS as well.
Murder can only be delivered by certain weapons and traps. If it’s not a critter or zed, your enemy is gonna have to use specific equipment to use this skill. If the person is using a giant weapon, this is probably not a skill you’ll need to worry about. (Well, mostly…)
Most zombies are immune. Murder is mainly useful against living threats. Save it for your fellow survivors, critters, or raiders that aren’t in Raider Rage.
This attack is armor piercing. Murder deals Body damage, so this ignores any points of Armor the target may have. This makes this very effective against armored opponents and it makes it an excellent finishing blow after dealing some initial damage in the fight. Most assassins won’t lead with this attack, but will save it for an opportune moment when you can’t easily defend.'
It must be a fatal blow to count as a Killing Blow. If the 20 damage included in the strike as part of this ability isn’t enough to knock them into bleed out, then the Murder effect doesn’t trigger. It may take multiple uses of Murder to kill a particularly tough target with a lot of Body.
You need to be precise. The easiest way to escape a Murder call is if the attack contacts a weapon or shield first, or hits another part of your body other than the torso. This attack needs to hit a vital spot in order to work, so no, you can’t murder someone by striking their foot.
This is an attack that can (and should!) be prevented with Avoid. This means all of the items that work with Avoid are useful here, such as the Daline Go-With-the-Flow or even the armor ability of the Counterbalance Rigging. This is mostly used a finishing blow, so remember that a target in Bleed Out can’t really prevent this effect.
Master Faithful Miracles can stop this effect. Because the Murder call is functionally a Killing Blow, this is one of the few non-equipment means to stop the instant death attack. The Killing Blow will trigger the Knockback effect of the buff, so make sure you have a plan to get away once it goes off.
Proficient Biokinesis can DELAY the effect, but not prevent it. This is one of the skills that can be slowed down by the delaying effect, but you’ll take all the Murder calls 30 minutes later and they can’t be prevented. Murder is especially deadly if someone is using this ability.
This is an instant Killing Blow. This is probably one of the most useful parts of this ability. Because it is a much quicker deadly strike than a simple three-count Killing Blow, Murder prevents the target from using injectables or other quick healing to bounce back.
There’s a few pieces of crafted equipment that can modify this skill even further.
Brain Shudder Blade - This is a particularly deadly blade, stopping most means of preventing Infection loss. This is a powerful combination with the Murder skill.
Steel Main Gauche ‘Blade’ - This item lets you spend a use of Murder to call two smaller hits of Murder instead. This is great for dealing with multiple weaker threats, or quickly finishing off a downed victim.
Striker’s Coat - This is the only item that specifically stops Murder, but it costs Resolve and requires you to be in Murder Inc. It’s a powerful item, but a bit more restrictive to use in the new world of DR Live.
As you can tell, this is a very deadly ability in the hands of an Assassin. Let’s cover the bane of Assassins next, the terrifying ability that can let you NAIL someone in place - DEATH STALK.
Death Stalk -- Target Both (simultaneous)
With this skill, the user becomes a master of singling out a Target for pain. To activate, the user points at a Target while saying “Death Stalk, Nail” and ignores the first 20 seconds’ worth of strikes and effects while stalking toward the Target.
Movement Restrictions: The user must walk directly toward the Target, who must be no more than 15 strides away. The user cannot deviate, attack, or use any other skills while moving toward the Target.
Strike Requirement: Once the user reaches the Target, they must strike the Target. After this, the user begins taking damage and skill effects as per normal.
Immunity After Strike: For 3 seconds after the initial strike, the user is immune to skills that Target them.
Countered by Rescue: This skill is countered if another character uses Rescue on the Nailed Target.
This ability is seen on a few threats and while it may seem innocuous at first, it is one of the more powerful Profession abilities in the game. The NAIL ability is a hard counter to a number of popular abilities, so this can quickly turn a fight against you.
Nail lasts for 1 minute. Unlike some items, the skill itself doesn’t specific a time limit here so defaults to the base time for the keyword ability. You can find the Keyword for Nail in the back of the Player’s Guide on page 88. A minute is an eternity in a fight, and often when this ability is used the fight has already been decided.
Nail counters most movement abilities, including Never Here, Enhanced Movement, or Agile Movement. This is a recent change, but Nail is a hard counter for most of the common escape abilities. This means that Death Stalk is incredibly effective against sneaky enemies as it removes their ability to quickly get away from the fight.
Unlike the Grapple ability of Ground & Pound, this Nail effect is not ended by forced movement. This means that an unmodified use of Psychic Propulsion won’t end the Nail, and you can’t be moved from the spot until the condition ends. You’ll need some outside help or crafted equipment to do so. It does mean the target hit by the Nail effect can’t be moved by Knockback effects, which could be useful in some cheeky situations.
While the Reaper is moving towards their target, they are immune to damage and skills. This protection lasts for 20 seconds of moving towards the target, followed by 3 seconds of immunity after the strike. This can be deceptively powerful, as they can’t be stunned, knocked back, or really slowed down while they are pursuing their target. There are even some items that increase the damage of that initial strike, and it’s a great time to use dangerous skills like Mangle or Murder.
There are very few ways to remove Nail once it’s been applied. The primary way to save a friend targeted by a Reaper is to have a Combat Medic nearby with Rescue, or find a way to forcefully move them. This ability is the primary counter to Death Stalk, as it can break the Nail effect and get your friend to safety. The only other notable way to end the effect is the Feedback Loop Generator.
There are a few pieces of equipment that can interact with Death Stalk.
Claymore Vest Armor - This armor can be useful when targeted by the Nail effects, as it triggers a Knockback 10 effect. However, this armor doesn’t actually stop the Nail ability, it just gives you a bit of breathing room.
Feedback Loop Generator - This is one of the few non-Rescue ways to end a Nail effect, using the Psychic Propulsion impact skill. It only has one use, but it is an AOE ability so you can break the Nail effects for your nearby friends (or enemies).
Subcutaneous Magnifier - This item also breaks Nail, but uses the Telekinesis ability. It’s only single target, but you can get 5 uses from the item before it is expended.
There are some other ways to notably get the NAIL effect, including the Ground & Pound ability of the Shock Trooper profession (and most zombies) and certain items like Glue Moon Arrows or Toothpiq Throwing Spikes. While Death Stalk is probably the most flashy way to get this effect, it’s not the only way to slow down a would-be assassin.
The last threat ability we will cover today isn’t something you’ll see on most Lineage threats. But it may be useful to recognize this call when it happens…
Consume Flesh
Use this skill to deal 5 Body Damage to any Target stuck in Grapple or Nail. This represents taking a bite of flesh. This skill repeats every 5 seconds the Target is Grappled or Nailed without need for additional skill use.
This ability is deceptively powerful, allowing the [REDACTED] to be able to eat a stationary target. This is often combined with the effects of Ground & Pound or other grapple-style effects. Once you are locked in place, the threat can continue to use this ability to punch through your armor and quickly reduce you to bleed out and a tasty snack.
Body damage is armor piercing. This ability will quickly tear through your protections and just deals repeatable Body damage.
The skill can be used again and again on the same target. Once the target is Grappled or Nailed, the threat can use this ability over and over on the helpless target. Since most non-Lineage threats have only a few uses of each Impact Skill, this is a very notable way to allow the threat to swing for consistent damage. This will likely end in a person in Bleed Out if they don’t get immediate help.
Wrap Up
That’s it for today, Vados.
We hope that you will come join us for our next event, THE GUILTY AMONG US. While the festivities of the upcoming celebration are certain to impress, it’s a bit of a Bravado tradition for a big party to go horribly, horribly wrong. What threats lurk in the shadows of the horse races? Will you get a ticket into the VIP lounge to hobnob with the elite of the San Saba? Will you win it all in a game of chance or will the stakes be more than you are willing to pay? Will you uncover the deadly mystery at the heart of this event?
See you soon, Vados!
