Howdy Vados!
It’s Jonathan here with another signature DR:TX Rules Ramble, leading up to our May live event THE ATROCITY! This is our FINALE for Season 5, led by Heather Halstead and Jonathan Loyd. 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 MAY EVENT ARE ON SALE NOW! Will you survive the atrocity?
If you had a great experience at our last event WHISPERS FROM THE DEEP or had some suggestions for how we can improve, we’d love to hear from you! Did you encounter the EVE-volved or EVE herself? Did you fight glowing green zombies by moonlight? Did you help the Rebellion continue to push back against the San Saba Board? Let us know!
Fill out our Feedback Form!
Nominate another player for a Community Achievement!
CLEAN UP IS CHANGING! We will be continuing to experiment with a new process for Clean Up at the end of the event during our May games. Immediately after closing announcements, we will start with our Camp Cleanup first, and then complete our Personal Cleanup last! We had great success with this change during our April event, and we look to continue to improve!
Our Post Office times will be changing! Starting in May, we will return to opening up the Post Office at 8:00 AM on Saturday! Crafters and Econ Junkies rejoice!
Our photos for this post were taken from our April 2023 DR:TX event by the talented Lauren Guzaldo.
The Premise
Felicity Redfield is dead.
After months of secret imprisonment on charges of treason, Felicity was found slain in her cell in Essex, a Golden Spike lodged in her chest, her flame red hair extinguished with drying blood. There are no suspects, and there will be no investigation.
In Bravado, the drums of rebellion have beat a fevered cadence. The Rebellion is poised to strike against Essex, a final blow against the power of the Board. Chastized and rebuked by the town, the Chairman's wrath now burns solely for Bravado, eschewing the rest of the San Saba for vengeance.
The Chairman has brokered a deal, a bargain wrought in blood, crystal, and fell promises. Whispers on the wind speak of ill tidings. The sun darkened to blackness. The rivers of the San Saba rendered still. Farmers clawing at their eyes in their sleep until blind. These dark omens resonate with the Music of the Spheres, a portent of impending and terrible violence. A prophecy of an ATROCITY foretold in ancient Barogian manuscripts, an echo of a crime committed in the past.
And it is coming to Bravado.
The Obelisk at the crossroads has repelled The Prince Undying once, but it is unclear if it can withstand a second onslaught, or if it was created for something else entirely. With the Obelisk bolstered, any Nightmares that force their way into Bravado are disoriented, relying on sound to hunt their prey. To speak is to invite death, as your very words solidify the imprint of the living.
But Felicity has not left Bravado to weather this hardship unaided. There is a duty to uphold, and contracts to keep that not even death can hinder. There is none that rivaled her knowledge of the Lost City and its forgotten history, no architect of lore that matched her research. Rumors fly that her journal was smuggled out of Essex, and that it holds her most powerful secrets of the past meant for her beloved Bravado.
Everything that has happened before will happen again.
But what if didn’t?
Only if the prophecies can be unwritten, a Prince contained, and The Atrocity averted, can Bravado be poised to claim their destiny…
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 THE ATROCITY:
The Quiet Place
The Omen
Butterfly Effect
Much like the creatures in the Quiet Place, one of the major tropes we will explore in May is the importance of SILENCE. Furtive whisperings in the dark, struggling to stay unnoticed as predators stalk nearby, and the reliance on body language and communication are going to be highlighted during the game. The Nightmares that have periodically plagued the town will return in force, but this time with a brutal intent to hunt the living. Survivors will need to stay quiet and avoid drawing the attention of deadly enemies, and find new ways to warn their friends of imminent danger other than a shout or cry of distress.
Prophecy and legend will also take center stage for the end of this story. Much like the stories of Damien in the Omen, strange tidings are on the air, with individuals experiencing strange waking nightmares, portents and omens foretelling a catastrophic event coming soon, and a focus on the stories of old. Prophecies are only real if they come true, but the history of Bravado has an unfortunate tendency to repeat itself, again and again. Once again the town faces a dangerous horde bearing down on the town, driven by war and vengeance, and leaving the town with an important choice — stand and fight, or die trying.
Everything is connected, much like the Butterfly Effect. But what impact will the choices you make during this weekend have on the future? May is also a time of endings for stories, characters, and arcs in our narrative. As we continue to scale down our scope of story, we will be closing out stories that have tied together back since Season 1 of Bravado. Important faces will be replaced by new characters, new alliances will be forged, new factions formed, and a new future crafted for the survivors of Bravado.
Concluding Stories & Finale Events
We’ve established a bit of tradition with our May events in DR:TX. At the end of the season, we tell BIG stories, and we make some BIG changes to our setting. Previous events have involved us passing new laws for the San Saba, fighting a four-hour SIEGE as the City of Waking crashed nearby, enacting a dangerous plan to cure the Plague of the Unfinished and seal away the Cantankerous Matrix, and defeating Archons in the city of Essex as the city threatened to be overwhelmed by the dead.
We also end our season by firing our staff of Storytellers and Guides, and giving folks permission to take a break from the important roles of supporting our game. We will hire new STs and Guides over the summer, so that means that some stories will need to come to a conclusion because the ST may elect to stay a player for our next season. With that in mind, the finale event is a great time for us to wrap up loose ends, say goodbye to some NPCs, and clean up some of the continuity and lost stories that might have been missed during the season.
In our tradition of Radical Transparency, we want to be clear about some of the content of this next event as the architects of this overarc story. When Heather and I were faced with the idea of wrapping up the major loose threads and events from the season and telling our BIG story, we reached that the conclusion to that the story was simply too big to try to cram into one event. With villains like the Prince Undying and the Chairman, Arthur Lovelace, we can’t really do them justice if we try to make them share the limelight. We’d have to cram way too much content into one event, and it wouldn’t really be the satisfying conclusion we want to see.
So, we won’t make them share the story, or the conclusion.
The May event is going to be PART 1 of the conclusion of these stories, and we will be finishing the story of the The Fall of the San Saba Board during our September opening event as a PART 2 in a few months, after the summer. Think of this as a series finale of your favorite TV show that ends on a cliffhanger, with more to come! In the fall, we will pick right back up, with the resolution of the events of this game as we launch into a new and exciting Season 6.
During the May event, we will be focusing on the story of the Prince Undying, Sister Mammon, and Felicity Redfield we started with the revelation of Barogue three years ago. Our story will deal with the Nightmares as the primary antagonist, though you’ll still see a bit of your favorite mustache-twirling San Saba Board villains. You’ll still need to commit your units to the final battles across the San Saba as we continue to narrow our scope to focus on Bravado itself, but the primary enemy to face is the Prince Undying. If the ATROCITY can be stopped, there will be a new future in store for Bravado, and a new chapter for our story.
In September, we will use PART 2 to tell the story of the War that finally reaches Bravado, and you’ll be able to personally see to the final end of Arthur Lovelace, the San Saba Board, and the final end to the Rebellion story. Instead of rolling dice and pinning item cards to a bulletin board, you’ll need to fight actual skirmishes against enemy troops, defeat dangerous commanders on the field, and challenge the power of the Board itself in a final conflict. You’ll need to fight against some intelligent foes that use tactics against you and defend points around the camp from dangerous attacks. We are very excited to let you face the Chairman in a way that feels worthy of this foe, and we want to allow it to be the entire focus of the story.
So please be patient as finish out this season with THE ATROCITY, as we have many more stories to come in Season 6!
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 May event.
Overall, this next event focuses heavily on the themes of SUDDEN VIOLENCE, BODY HORROR, and LOSS OF AGENCY. These can be some serious themes, so let’s talk about some content warnings of note for THE ATROCITY:
SUDDEN VIOLENCE, JUMP SCARES, DEADLY SURPRISES
The Nightmare threats during this event will not be “visible” for most characters in the game, unless those characters have a specific Keyword, Nightmare Host. If you don’t have these keywords or see the purple glowsticks/headbands on the Threats, you’ll need to pretend you don’t see them approaching.
These stealthy threats will hunt anyone that makes noise, so you can avoid the sudden violence by avoiding their attention. However, only when the creatures attack will you be able to interact with them briefly, so you’ll need to stay quiet and hope they find other prey elsewhere.
When the Nightmares attack, these will be deadly, quick, and sudden attacks out of nowhere. They will primarily operate at nighttime, but they will also be active during the day as well. You’ll need to be prepared to suddenly stop a conversation, silence a musical instrument, or quickly shush a crowd to prevent an attack.
Body Horror, grotesque or disturbing mutations, visceral costumes and props
Certain creatures this weekend will have disgusting and visceral costumes and props that might require you to interact with unnerving, or terrible looking things. These props will change the features and silhouettes of certain threats and should be repulsive and terrifying.
If a module requires you to interact with chemicals or substances that might stain your clothing or costumes, we will announce these aspects as a “SPLATTER MOD”. We will try to give you a fair warning before engaging with these challenges, but we cannot guarantee clothing or items may not be affected by the disgusting goo in our mods.
LOSS OF AGENCY, UNSTOPPABLE THREATS, Consequences AFTER DEATH
Some threats during this weekend will not be things you can easily fight. While you may be able to defeat them temporarily, these Nightmares will be difficult to encounter because they will be “out of phase” until they attack. You won’t have long after a Nightmare attack to react to their presence, so you may not be able to truly confront or kill some of these threats.
The Prince Undying is not a Threat that can be truly killed but is something that must be stopped by other methods. When you seem the familiar ochre form of the Prince in play, just know that you are meant to survive and endure, not overcome.
Many horror stories involve this concept of loss of agency, where you are powerless to stop a monster that is itself a metaphor for the relentless advance of time, death, or war.
LOOSE THREADS & PLOTLINES
With the changing of the guard at the end of the season, we also have many new opportunities to come for folks that want to take a shot at telling their own stories in the Dystopia Rising world, or folks that want to serve as Guides in the Post Office and in the field. We will have some applications going up after we finish our season for those interested, so please make sure you don’t miss out on your chance to join the team!
With that in mind, we would love to see some Plot Requests and emails from you our players as we prepare for this event. Is there a particular story that you enjoyed that didn’t feel quite finished? Did you have you a particular NPC you’d like to see again, or a particular ST-led story that you enjoyed? Is there an answer you were hoping to uncover before the end of the season? Ask away, and we will do our best to wrap up as many loose threads as possible!
Send us a message via our email, at Dystopia Rising Texas, or send in a Plot Request through our form on the website. Let us know what you’d like to see during the final story of the season, so we can do our best to bring those stories to a satisfying conclusion!
wrap up
That’s it for today, Vados!
We hope that you will come join us for our next event, our finale of the Season 5 story. We have some fun surprises in store for you during this game, and we hope that you are ready to try and prevent the ATROCITY from happening. Will you be able to help to finally contain the danger of the Prince Undying? How will you protect those you love from the vengeance of a petty tyrant? Can you stay quiet while deadly Nightmares prowl around you?
Next week we will recap some of the important events from our last game, and catch up to speed on all the story continuity you’ll need as we face THE ATROCITY! See you soon, Vados!
