Howdy Vados!
It’s Jonathan here with another signature DR:TX Rules Ramble, leading up to our September live event THE FALL OF THE SAN SABA BOARD! This is our second part of our Season 5 finale, 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 a bit of the background of the villain of the hour, Arthur Lovelace, the Chairman of the San Saba Board.
wE WILL REVEAL THE NEW dYSTOPIA rISING lIVE BLUEPRINTS ON tHURSDAY, 8/29! CHECK OUT OUR DISCORD FOR MORE INFO!
Our photos for this post were taken from previous DR:TX events by our talented Photo Team, including Max Pohlmeier, Lauren Guzaldo, Sidney Betzina, Maddeax Cole, and Jason Dumas, and with artwork by Beau Lee.
IN THE BEGINNING…
When Bravado rebelled against the Board last season, it started a chain of events that undermined everything the Chairman had been working for over the past three years. In a moment, his dream of a united San Saba shattered, and that future disappeared. The death of that future has driven him to the rage he’s now directing towards our town, but it’s important to reflect on all that has gone wrong over the past few seasons.
In the beginning of our 3.0 story, the San Saba was mostly a collection of various factions and personalities like Felicity Redfield, Mr. K, Tabitha St. Mercy, Sinkerswim, and others. While the factions have stayed mostly the same over the years, the idea of the San Saba Board was envisioned by one man in the shadows — Arthur Lovelace, the future Chairman of the Board. This story was first envisioned by Sam Mars, Shan, and Aesa, and debuted during our online Season 2, kicking off with the event THE SHINING CITY. This game saw several world changing events occur in the midst of the Waste’s Faire and an attack on Waking Prime by the Oxkillers.
The faction we recognize today as the Railroad Conglomerate first emerged during this event. Formed of two opposing factions, the Conglomerate and the Railroad Commission, they agreed to work together to forge a new future for the San Saba.
During this event set in Waking Prime, the various factions agreed to sign a larger contract between them they would call the San Saba Charter. The architect of this plan was of course chosen to lead the new organization, and the San Saba Board was born.
One of our other factions, the Junkerpunks, was purposefully excluded from the San Saba Board. The Junkerpunks were slighted and the Chairman cast the deciding vote to exclude them from the new government, despite a good faith attempt to attend the Waste’s Faire. From the very beginning, the Chairman was not interested in folks that focused on freedom over order.
The Oxkillers led by Lord Hush made an attempt to kill the Chairman and the new Board with a surgical strike on Eureka Tower during the chaos of a raider attack. While the attack was foiled, this breach ended up leading to the events of QUEENSGRACE, when the Oxkillers broke from the San Saba Republic and killed Queen Jasper.
The original San Saba Board was composed of the following powerful figures:
The Chairman, Arthur Lovelace (RRC)
Felicity Redfield (RRC)
Dr. Stewart, aka “the Scientist” (RRC)
Tabitha St. Mercy (Prudence Penitentiary)
Holy Mother Queen Jasper (Tribes Disparate, now known as the San Saba Republic)
Takheeta Firstborn (Grave Council)
This became the leadership of the San Saba for the next few seasons, with a few changes as members were killed, removed from power, or cast into obscurity. Several others joined the Board or represented their faction over the years, including:
Mr. K (Grave Council)
Adam Moriarty (Prudence Penitentiary)
General Rampart, replacing the slain Takheeta Firstborn (Grave Council)
Admiral Sinkerswim (Junkerpunks)
Queen Lucy “Boss” Debs (San Saba Republic)
While the Law Dog Union was contracted to the Chairman directly, Boss Wyatt never actually held a seat on the council of the elite.
We’ve never had the privilege of Arthur Lovelace actually appearing in person for an event until this upcoming game. He made an appearance during the online event HEARTHBOUND, for a few select folks, but most have never interacted with Arthur directly. You might have heard their voice over a certain red telephone in May, but this event will be the first appearance in the live space for this villain.
Our story of the San Saba Board has always been one of the consequences of the wealthy and powerful becoming more and more severe as the San Saba slipped further into authoritarianism and fascism. The lies and compromises to keep the elite in control have led to more and more people getting caught up in the web of capitalism and power at the heart of the Board. As the Chairman’s iron grip tightened, the rise of the Bravado Rebellion was only a matter of time. But just because he’s showing up for the first time in September doesn’t mean his presence hasn’t been felt up until now…
“Oh cold, cold, rigid, dreadful Death, set up thine altar here, and dress it with such terrors as thou hast at thy command: for this is thy dominion! Leave that which you would kill here with me, and I shall see it done.” —- a Lovelace prayer for vengeance
The first Board meeting, from a comic by Beau Lee.
The Machinations of the Chairman
It’s important to first understand that not much is actually known about the Chairman.
From his first appearance, he’s been a bit of a shadowy figure and it’s all part of his plan. His true name wasn’t actually mentioned in any blog posts, modules, or stories. He was only referred to as the “The Chairman”, and we purposefully kept any other references vague. We’ve always used a surrogate to stand in for the Chairman, in the form of his assistant Lawrence Graves. The few bits of information shared in game were always simply signed with a mysterious “A.L.”, but it wasn’t until the fall of Waking during VOX POPULI that this information became publicly known. While a few fortunate survivors experienced a psionic vision guided by the Curators during our HEARTHBOUND event about his past, the exact details of exactly what happened in Widow’s Peak are mostly lost to history.
Arthur Lovelace was long thought dead during the Hiway War, fallen in battle against the undead hordes of Hiway Robb. Some even say he died a final time and was resurrected by the mysterious events after the Hiway War when the Grave Mind returned the long dead once more to life. It is even whispered by a few of the less loyal Lovelace contractors that he broke a promise to his family to help outsiders instead. While the story varies from telling to telling, they all generally mention that he defied the Lovelace Family to go help the folks in Bravo fight back when the Quiet Folk community voted against interfering in the war. He had always stood for order and rules since he was a young man in his community, and thought it was more important to help neighbors outside of Widow’s Peak rather than his bonds of family.
When he “died”, Clauthia Lovelace, his former wife and the head of the Widows of the Lone Star, swore to prevent the type of events that led to the war by any means necessary. Little did she know that Arthur had come to the same conclusion. In his mind, the main way to prevent the destruction that Hiway Robb inflicted on the Lone Star was to unite the various people under one banner, and to bring law and order to a lawless wasteland. If one voice could unite the people together, they could strike down any opposition with discipline and structure. But before a future could be created, his past had to die. That’s where the Railroad Conglomerate came in.
The RRC was the means for Arthur to enact his vision for a prosperous future. If people could travel safely, then towns could become communities, and communities could become a civilization. With steel, sweat, and brass, he funded the first scientists that developed the OX, a marvel of technology that would enable them to connect the San Saba in a way thought lost. He poured resources into legitimizing the other factions, helping them weather disease, famine, and the threats of the wasteland. He empowered Felicity Redfield to pursue her goals in Bravado as the new CEO, and helped negotiate the alliance between the Conglomerate to help her access the floating city of Waking. As long as the money kept flowing, no one in the RRC leadership really needed to know who was signing the orders. The Chairman was hard at work preparing for his magnum opus, the San Saba Charter, and for a time his need for secrecy was respected by the factions.
Contracts have long been the law of the land in the San Saba, the sum and whole of the law at times. What Arthur envisioned was a new contract, a walking contract shared by any that simply stepped foot in the wasteland of the Lone Star, and agreed upon by the people that really mattered — the powerful factions that arose after the Hiway War. With a shared contract enforced by the will and wealth of the elite, a new era could begin for the Lone Star, an era of control and prosperity.
The San Saba Charter would create a new social contract for the Lone Star, and established laws, government, and rights for the powerful factions. Because each supported the others in their own sphere of influence, each of the factions had a vested interest in propping up their peers. In return, they got to have a seat at the table, in the room where it all happened, helping to organize the new San Saba Board. While the actual planning took years of work, the people joined together into a new community and for a moment Arthur’s dream was nearly reality.
The fall of Waking Prime
The conspiracy of the Board
Arthur Lovelace knew that the real problem with uniting the wasteland was simply logistics. There simply aren’t enough survivors left, and the wasteland is a dangerous place to just exist. Between zed, raiders, and other survivors, getting anyone to agree to the dangerous work of building a better tomorrow was going to need help. The conspiracy at the heart of the San Saba Board was simple — Generate new manpower to fuel the endless churn of a better future. While some details have emerged about these machinations, there are still big pieces unknown about the final plans of the Chairman.
Imagine a world where a body persists after death, and where that body could be propelled by psionic means to heroic feats. To climb mountaintops beyond us, to plunge ocean depths that would kill a living Lineage - to dive into the bowels of the earth where the air is so hot and so humid it drowns us.
A halcyon world lies behind us, behind iron walls and thousands of years of progress gated by our own fragile bodies. I dream of undying workers, eternal engineers, running cables through an ocean trench to supply power to a distant island. A world built more quickly, a recovery and a revolution.
We are going to save the world. —- AL
(Excerpt from a heavily redacted letter, thought to have been penned by the Chairman)
The primary face of the Chairman has been his villainous accomplice, Lawrence Graves. For the past few seasons, Graves has been the “man from the railroad”, administering a calm and collected word in the right ears, and a knife in the back for others. Always prim and proper in his grey suit, Lawrence has been the terror behind the Waking Intelligence Service attacks, but it’s always been at the orders of the Chairman. When the town rebelled during THE SUMMIT, Lawrence was there to murder the Vados that stood in his path, and threatened the good works of the Chairman.
The Chairman was behind the plague known as the Necrophage, and the near destruction of the Lovelace Family. Tabitha St. Mercy was the first conspirator to be outed, fueling the research into a “super soldier” project with a plentiful supply of criminals locked away in Killhouse. With the help of her associates Juliet Butcher and Grandfather Nichols, they developed the NECROPHAGE, a dangerous concoction that threatened to end life across the wastes. The release of the disease devastated the Lovelace Family during emptied the halls of Killhouse and nearly killed everyone in Bravado. While Nichols was eventually stopped, dozens of vials of the Necrophage compound went missing before his death and are assumed to be in the possession of the Chairman even now.
The Chairman was behind the weapons of the Emerald Arsenal. Dr. Stewart and General Rampart were responsible for many of the advances of the Emerald Arsenal, debuted during the EMERALD GALA, at the direction of the Chairman. These weapons, first designed to combat the emerging threat of the Archon menace were quickly turned to more nefarious purposes in the service of control and “security”. Once the proverbial “Pandora’s Box” was opened, it was impossible to unlearn the knowledge that was created in pursuit of this goal. After Stewart’s death at the claws of the outsider threat, the Chairman used the missing seat on the Board to further his agenda. With the duty to break ties on the Board as Chairman, losing a seat on the Board increased Arthur’s influence over the day-to-day affairs of the San Saba.
The Chairman kept Queen Jasper alive long past her prime, through blackmail. While some of Dr. Nichol’s and Dr. Stewart’s research into the Necrophage was meant to save an ailing Queen of the San Saba Republic, this reliance on any means to stay in power began the fall of the Queen. The life-saving compound came with a catch, meaning the Queen Jasper was reliant on the next dose to stay alive, and was forced to sign off on many of the plans of the Board in exchange for simple survival. When she finally had enough, the Queen’s health quickly plummeted, but she managed to gather one last Summit of the Tribes during QUEENSGRACE to help secure her legacy. After her death at the hand of Nichols, (a former Lovelace associate of the Chair), the Chairman took advantage to leverage new more restrictive contracts against the new Queen, Boss Debs, as he continued his plan for domination.
The Chairman attempted to recreate the Resonant Choir and made contact with the Prince Undying. In the bowels of Barogue during THE LOST CITY, the RRC discovered the Resonant, psionically imbued Raiders with crystals implanted in their skulls. Based on the psi-tech they found in the ruins, Arthur believed they could create a new Resonant Choir, an eternal source of psionic energy that could fuel the next wave of expansion for the San Saba Territories. He dreamed of a more stable way to create his super soldier, by implanting Shards of the Red Crown into abducted citizens and creating the perfect worker for his new empire. This research likely led to the strange zed-controlling crystals used by the Reckoner Legions in their siege on Bravado.
One of the Chairman's conspirators, Malorous Mab
The Chairman used the Oxkiller Alliance threat to create an army for himself. The Oxkiller attack on Waking Prime had long been used to justify increased violence and brutal oppression by the Board, justifying the need for rules and laws by using the assassination attempt to gather sympathy from other powerful leaders. When the Oxkiller Alliance struck, Arthur forced a vote during the Stakeholder’s Meeting to form a new army for the San Saba through a declaration of war. While Vados narrowly stopped the leadership from being placed in the hands of Rampart or Tabitha, the Board instead funneled funds into forming a new private army for the Chairman known as the Praetorian Guard. For months, the Militia was forced to survive on their own while the lion’s share of the war supplies instead was diverted to his personal army.
The Chairman directed the attack by the Reckoners on Bravado during the peace talks. During the most recent Summit of the Tribes, General Rampart was discovered to be using the Emerald Gala weaponry to control massive hordes of undead in the service of the Reckoner Legions. He used the undead hordes to attempt to disrupt the peace talks with the Oxkiller Alliance, and attempted to assassinate the leaders with the psi-tech that whipped the zombies into a deadly frenzy. When General Rampart was eventually stopped, it was only after proving that no tactic was outside the depths of depravity the Chairman would pursue to hurt his enemies.
The Chairman provided the Prince Undying a chance to attack Bravado. While the exact details are unknown, it’s clear that some contact was made with the Prince Undying, likely through a strange black crystal known as the Trapozohedron. Last seen in the possession of General Rampart, the device was presented as a gift to the Chairman, and soon after the armies of undead marched once more on Bravado. Though General Rampart was found dead, consumed from within inside the strange Nightmare of the Prince Undying, some deal was struck. The undead hordes ignored Essex and Waking and swarmed past the seat of his power to attack Bravado instead.
The Chairman directed the bombardment of Essex in the final days of the rebellion. When the armies of General Hargrave marched into Essex to finish the Board during THE ATROCITY, the Chairman did the unthinkable — he turned the cannons of his flagship on his own city, causing massive destruction to the City of Light and Sound. Countless civilians and innocent lives were lost, in a scorched earth attack on the advancing armies. When the Rebellion routed the last forces of the Board in Essex, the Chairman had used the devastation to cover his escape. The city will be rebuilding for years to come and is a fragment of its former glory.
The true mastermind is Arthur Lovelace, the Chairman of the Board. While the entire Board was complicit in some fashion in the machinations of Arthur Lovelace, most of them did so only to further their own misguided interests. With the threat of invasion on their doorstep, the Chairman was able to rubber stamp almost any request from the Board in the name of security and safety. Behind every shady decision, every vote, and every order, the Chairman was working towards his insane plan of order in the wasteland by any means necessary. He manipulated each of the faction leaders, using their power to leverage hidden moves in the shadows, forcing votes during the annual Stakeholder’s Meetings, and pushing into a violent confrontation with the new Oxkiller Alliance.
When the Bravado Rebellion emerged as the unlikely end to his dream, it’s no wonder his anger has been turned towards our home. Despite the Chairman’s best attempts at establishing an authoritarian control over the San Saba, the residents of Bravado have been a repeated thorn in his side. In his final acts as Chairman of the Board, he has diverted every last resource in his possession into destroying the town of Bravado. Arthur has deployed mortars, airships, and countless soldier into the task of revenge, eschewing any chance of hiding and licking his wounds in favor of personally leading the fight home.
As Arthur Lovelace comes to Bravado for a final time, this time it’s not to bring aid against Hiway Robb in defiance of family, in the pursuit of a once-noble goal of uniting the wastelands. Instead, he brings anger, vengeance, and bitterness from a future denied to him, and he is intent on making Bravado pay.
The Gauntlet of Tabitha St. Mercy
The war comes home
That’s it for today, Vados!
Despite the volume of lore today, there’s still a few secrets left to learn about the Chairman during THE FALL OF THE SAN SABA BOARD. Will you be able to weather the rage of the Chairman as his last armies descend on your home? Will you be able to truly stop a tyrant in his tracks? Will you survive the assault of Lawrence Graves and the Praetorian Guard?
Tickets are on sale now for the FALL OF THE SAN SABA BOARD! Don’t miss your shot at defeating the Chairman once and for all!
Next time, I’ll dig into some of the mechanics of the weekend, from our “Capture the Flag” events to control the town, the weapons of war deployed against Bravado, and ways to use your Combat Units and War Supplies in the defense of your home.
See you soon, Vados!