Howdy Vados!
It’s Heather here with another story update, leading up to our February live event THE BREAKER OF CROWNS! This is our next game, led by Jonathan Loyd and Heather Halstead. Each week, we’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 story so far, leading up to the event.
TICKETS FOR OUR FEBRUARY EVENT ARE ON SALE NOW! GET READY for DEADLY POLITICS AND EVEN MORE ZOMBIES!
We are hosting a Discord Q+A this FRIDAY, Feb 2nd, at 7pm CST.
Join us in the Bravado After Party Discord server to talk about the latest updates on the game, network, and chapter changes. Have questions? Our goal is total transparency, so no question is too small! Feel free to submit them in advance through the provided link or ask them during the live session.
Submit Your Questions Here: https://forms.gle/E1DbRbw1J6mY1igw8
Bravado After Party (Discord link): https://discord.gg/NyHxcprg7N
If you had a great experience at our last event THE RED DEATH or had some suggestions for how we can improve, we’d love to hear from you! Did you survive the Nightmares of the Prince Undying? Did you translate the strange monolith in the crossroads? Did you meet a lost loved one when the dead returned? What did you like best? What memories did you make? How was your NPC shift? Did another player impress you?
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Nominate another player for a Community Achievement!
Our photos for this post were taken from previous DR:TX events by our talented Photo Team, by Max Pohlmeier, Lauren Guzaldo, Jason Dumas, Sid Betzina, and Maddeax Khole.
The Story so Far…
To shake off the frost of The Long Night, we wanted to give everyone a recap of this season’s story so we can all go into the next event with a fresh knowledge of How We Got Here. Not every plot point will be summed up in this post, but we’ll get into the broad strokes!
August: The Undying PRINCE
(This was our online game over the summer, and technically our first event of the season!)
Here was the premise we shared for this event:
Lake Bravo boils.
A lone white Obelisk stands undisturbed in the lake, the beacon that first drew delvers to the ruins underneath Bravado. A blackened monolith in the Dune Sea, once used as a waypoint through the desert begins to hum. A tree, formed of flowing stone in the center of Essex, begins to corrode. Unborn throughout the San Saba wander into the desert, mindlessly following the ‘music of the spheres’, a song unheard by any other strain. The melody seems to call them all towards the lost city of Barogue.
Amid the new threat of these monuments is the rising tension from the North. War is coming to the San Saba, and the new leader of the Oxkiller Alliance has declared Barogue a “profane monument of hubris that must be destroyed”. The technophobic zealots have moved their forces into the desert to deny the Board and the San Saba Territories a valuable route to the Broken Coast, a rattling saber heralding further conflict.
Legends and folklore still speak of The Prince Undying, the last leader of the lost city of Barogue before its fall, and whisper of his purpose in these strange objects. The Railroad Conglomerate has demanded the phenomenon be investigated, and the potential threat neutralized, before it interferes with forging a bright new future.
Barogue is the answer.
So the Vados found their way inside the ancient city once again. The Obelisk in question locked away. But that didn’t stop them for long, and soon not only was the Obelisk, known as The Gate of Worlds, reached, but a man, claiming to be The Prince Undying, was awoken.
Disoriented and confused, Vados and other survivors from around the wastes worked tirelessly to translate his language into something understandable. At the same time, traveling deeper into the mysterious city, encountering not only Resonant Raiders, but strange, new nightmarish threats that, at first, only appeared at the corners of their vision. Moving shadows, quiet malevolent whispers. They soon discovered no one could leave Barogue, and suddenly their mission had a new objective: escape.
Now able to communicate, the Prince voiced his fear for his lost people, and begged the wastelanders to go deeper and retrieve the fragments of his precious crown, to help set the wastelanders, and his people, free. But deeper meant more dangerous. Deeper is where the Nightmares would be unleashed.
Beset by the horrifying figures, but undeterred, The Wastelanders aided the Prince in creating a procedure to implant the Shards of the Red Crown into their bodies to go beyond the veil and into the Realm of Nightmares, a deep, deep layer of the Mortis Amaranthine, to finally escape the sealed city. They twisted their own minds and fragmented reality to fall into the Nightmare, overcoming their darkest fears, and vaulting through The Gate of Worlds opened by the Prince and into the hot sands beneath the Lonestar Skies. The Wastelanders were free, but the Prince Undying was nowhere to be found.
While the focus was on Barogue, the small settlement at Barogue was nearly destroyed by a surprise attack by the BREAKER OF CROWNS, the new leader of the Oxkiller Alliance. After spending the last year preparing, this new enemy attacked the northern corners of the San Saba, claiming the cities of Fort Worthless and Star City as their new home territory, annexing it by force from the Board. The assault was relatively bloodless, with the Oxkillers gaining a new alliance with the forces of Star City, the Mustang Loyalists. This was a clear act of escalation and war, and it was up to the San Saba Board to act next.
September: Beneath The Corpse of Waking
Here was the premise we shared for this event:
The San Saba Board has been bloodied with the fall of Waking. Never before has the San Saba Board’s power been challenged so successfully as the fall of Waking Prime. Despite the threat of strange Obelisks and the impending struggle against the dangerous Oxkiller Alliance, the Board is focused instead on containing the crisis that is the barely landed wreck of Waking Prime.
The wreckage of Waking Prime lays burning with fire and radiation on the doorstep of Bravado, leaching into the water, the soil, the Gravemind and the hearts of people who rely on the land for survival. The devastation is immense, and the clean up efforts will need to be just as extensive to restore the land to its previous state.
But beneath the corpse of the once mighty flying city is a brewing problem. The morgues are churning forth the undead in larger numbers than before, bringing back creatures that have been unseen since the Hiway War alongside the threat of radiation sickness. Somewhere within the underbelly of the city is the answer to stop the horde of undead, but the radioactive husk of Waking is lethal to even Retrogrades.
To fix the problem, the Railroad Conglomerate has contracted a series of Liquidation Runs into the corpse of the city for any brave enough to risk the delve. Brave the deadly radiation, get out alive, and you will be handsomely rewarded. However, the deadly threat of radiation kills more surely than the claws of a zombie or the cruel ax of a raider.
A certain and insidious death awaits those runners that tarry too long on their mission, get trapped by the undead, or get lost in the maze-like pathways inside the city. Stay too long on a liquidation run, and no amount of medical assistance or meals will save you. If you survive the lethal radiation, you’ll still have to contend with the raiding parties of the Oxkiller Alliance trying to stop any from saving the monument of the Board’s failure.
Can you survive beneath the corpse of Waking? Can you stem the tide of radiation and undead before it is too late?
During this event, the Railroad Conglomerate contracted a series of Liquidation Runs into the corpse of the city for any brave enough to risk the delve… and delve you did. During a run, the town had to survive deadly radiation to complete a series of tasks in under 10 minutes. Staying too long in the area was certain death, so it took a combination of coordination and speed to succeed.
The citizens of Bravado took the risks and managed to push the boundary line of the Waking Exclusion Zone back from encroaching on their town, and the surrounding area. Throughout the weekend, many Liquidation runs were undertaken, and several Vados died valiantly to mitigate the intense radioactive fallout until the radiation was at least contained, for now. Despite the efforts, the lands still remain contaminated, affecting the scrap and herb pulled from them, causing faster decay.
These runs occured amidst the first contact with the enemy forces of the Oxkiller Alliance, the opposing side of the new war threatening the San Saba, including the town fighting back against the Breaker of Crowns for the first time. This would be a conflict that would only expand to include the whole of the San Saba as the months went on.
And in light of this attack, a vote was cast for the leader of the new San Saba Militia. Last season, the players voted for a law that would allow the leader of the new military force of the Board to be chosen by popular vote. Despite being up against a very stacked deck, the people of Bravado managed to elect one of their own to lead the combat forces. Hargrave Moss-Iverspiit was elected and a war council formed after a grueling battle of politics. However, because the town had elected a write-in candidate, the road ahead for the Militia would be difficult and the town would be left to their own devices to fund and organize the war effort.
This event saw farmers wandering into town to drink their last before falling victim to their radiation sickness, yet another assassination of Felicity Redfield during an Investor Luncheon, and hordes of irradiated zed while a new mystery began to loom. An organization known as the Waking Intelligence Service, or more simply, “The Company”, has begun to appear, led by The Chair’s Representative Lawrence Graves. Acting as an investigative force, they claim to be here to assist the Law Dogs, but the alliance seems tenuous at best. The Law Dog Union has recently had a change of structure, no longer contracted directly with The Chair, they now hold a contract with the entire board, and have been granted more internal oversight. The Company arriving right after this proclamation can hardly be a coincidence.
Daniel Lovelace led the final Widow’s Tea, as the Widows and the Lovelace Family pull back from their involvement with Bravado in the wake of the threats Bravado levied at the Peak back in May that almost led the Quiet Folks entire settlement destroyed by the falling city. Not ones to forget even the smallest slight against them, The Family are now much less inclined to assist and interact with the citizens of Bravado. However, nature abhors a vacuum and in the absence of Clauthia’s information gathering endeavors, the Junkerpunks stepped forward as traders and collectors of information and secrets and the first Punker Drunk was held, a significantly more spirited way for Vado’s to learn and share knowledge.
And, finally, a strange altar is reported in the woods, and those affected by it begin to suffer horrific Nightmares, even in their waking hours. Visions that hint to a Barogian origin, and with The Prince Undying still missing after the events of the month prior, it only begs more questions.
October: Cirque de Dread
Here was the premise we shared for this event:
Times of trial and tragedy have begun to fall upon Bravado, after dealing with the brunt of Waking’s crash landing. Easy livelihood and a unified community have begun to feel increasingly lost, especially with open war with the Oxkiller Alliance erupting across the San Saba…The last thing this town needs is gangs of Thrill Kill raiders in garish clothes showing up, people running away from home or just straight up vanishing, Nemesis sightings, critters rampaging like mad, and best friends killing each other over random trinkets. It's too bad that that’s exactly what’s been happening to towns all over the wasteland. Even worse, all these problems seem to have a common denominator: each town was a stopping point for a flying carnival and none of this weirdness was happening before it arrived.
But who cares about all of these rumors? Raiders and critters and people vanishing? That happens all the time in the wasteland. You know what doesn’t? The once in a lifetime experience that is almost at our doorstep: Colonel Rictus’ Flying Carnival! The Ringmaster and their carnival are making their grand debut in Bravado! Beneath the Big Top you can find compelling wonders from across the world: Exotic animals! Horrors from around the world! Games (that are definitely not rigged) for the whole family! You won’t be able to pull yourself away from the fun! And what sort of carnival would this be if it didn’t have a grand finale? A dull one, that’s what!
Colonel Rictus has brought with them the ultimate prize: infection. Those interested need only obtain an entry medallion to earn their place in a grand game of skill (no luck involved) and a chance to extend their lives. How do you enter, you ask? Well, you’re in luck! There are plenty of ways for you to find to get your hands on one of these oddly entrancing Entry Medallions. Play some games, dig into the mysteries swirling around the carnival, or, if you’re very daring - or very desperate - you can put your own infection on the line. Just watch out for jealous folks trying to swipe your well-earned Medallion! Whether you hold one by skill, luck, money, or trouble, when the final curtain rises those eight lucky locals get a shot at the grand prize. And even should you come out with no Medallion, never fear!
There's plenty of compelling thrills for everybody at the carnival!
Colonel Rictus has brought with them the ultimate prize: infection. Those interested need only obtain an entry medallion to earn their place in a grand game of skill to extend their lives.
This trade meet was one that needed to be survived, more than “solved”. Those who found themselves with the coveted Medallions were compelled to play in the games, and throughout the carnival, It was revealed that Rictus had a more sinister plan. Under the cover of the many, many Nemesis that roamed the area and raiders that he seemed to control, Rictus performed experiments. It seems he had help, but from whom is unclear.
Ultimately, one Vado, Foxy, ended up with new infection, and Rictus’ experiments were the end of him, as his last appearance in the town was after being killed was emerging from the morgue as a horrific monstrosity. But his ‘business partners’, whoever they might be, were never found.
The war raged outside of Bravado, and the San Saba Militia had their first conflicts with the opposing Oxkiller Alliance. While they enjoyed some successes in defending Prudence Penitentiary and the Sweetwater Camp, they sadly lost the settlement of New Barogue to the Oxiller Alliance during the conflict, dramatically affecting future supply lines. Several new units were drafted from the populace, including forces from the people of Bravado, and the town established their very own War Table in the middle of the Depot to manage the conflict in the months ahead.
November: Emergence
Here was the premise we shared for this event:
Bloody fissures around the mouth. Extreme fragility. Missing organs.
These were the symptoms of four sailors returning from a leviathan hunt on Lake Bravo. So severe was the internal damage, the sailors were unable to produce coherent sound and died before any medical diagnosis could be reached. Doctors attempting an autopsy before processing developed the same symptoms and succumbed to internal bleeding within 12 hours. Despite no indications of green veins amongst the afflicted, none have returned from the Grave.
Drywater was quick to cordon off the port and quarantine all who had come in contact with the afflicted. But right as it appeared the situation was under control, the Torchlight tribe sent for urgent medical aid as a new grotesque monstrosity began attacking their deepest settlement, spreading a plague of touch. Before anything else could be done, a massive earthquake struck Bravado and a horde of shamblers bearing the same scars and fissures poured from a crack in the Earth. Victims, who have since died of the affliction, reported the Earth bulging just before the quake, as if something was pressing against it from beneath.
The situation grows worse by the hour as more vectors of infection are revealed, more people die without returning, and something stirs in the depths of Lake Bravo. The Board has called an emergency meeting to discuss the disease brewing at the heart of its territory but, while bureaucracy turns with rusted wheels, your saloons fall empty, your friends go missing, and your neighborhoods are locked down, left to fend for themselves. When a touch is deadly, how can you save Bravado?
A threat is building under the surface and if left untreated, Bravado, Drywawter, and the Torchlight Clans will be locked away with the key tossed aside.
The Board enacted an emergency quarantine of the Bravado and Drywater areas, enforced with lethal efficiency by the Reckoners with the help of the Montag Purifiers. Some could get in… but no one could get out without risking lives. Any that attempted to run the blockade were met with lethal force from the Purifiers, or the San Saba Militia forces within the town.
The Militia struggled to communicate with its leadership form behind the quarantine zone, and battles were hard fought. The southern coast was lost to the Oxkiller Alliance as Pirate Captain Carina Astora ambushed San Saba forces in a devastating loss, while the Militia held its own in the North, successfully protecting many of the major settlements and claiming the ruins of Abi’s Lament in a bid to cut off the forces in the Dune Sea.
The affliction was soon discovered to be a parasite, brooding in the body of an injured Leviathan in the boiling lake. Insanely easy to transmit- it only took one touch from an infected. And though it was easy to cure in the beginning stages, later stages were a mystery. Those who died reported being sent to digestion pits once they crawled out of the Mortis, only to be forced to escape yet another horror. As the town raced to find a cure, the Montags and representatives of both the Militia and the Reckoners who lived in Bravado were ordered to contain the threat, especially that posed by the few symbiotic infected, who were somehow compelled to infect as many around them as possible.
The research, aided by Vados, and Dr. Heavywater, finally uncovered that the parasites were originally Leviathan parasites that had mutated, potentially due to the radiation and exposure to the strange vibrating Monolith. This, combined with the boiling lake, created a perfect storm that allowed the creatures to flourish at an alarming speed. Quickly, teams were dispatched - one to put the Leviathan out of its misery and destroy the breeding grounds, one to deface the Obelisk, and stop its effects on the lake, and another to use massive amounts of alcohol to burn out the rest of the creatures as they tried to create a new nest within the town. Once destroyed, a cure was manufactured from the samples found in the nests and dispersed in the water supply.
But this was not without its own consequences. Reports of fires and lanterns turning Red at Widows Peak soon followed the desecration of the Obelisk and a crimson mist began to spread slowly across the San Saba, emanating from Barogue.
December: The Red Death
Here was the premise we shared for this event:
It began in Widow’s Peak, just as the first candles of Winter Lights lit cozy windows. Strange, alien sirens wailed across the Peak, and lantern flames turned red. Animals began barking at shadows. And as the lights shifted, the night became deadly.
The Longwalkers, creatures of myth and imprint made reality that haunt the San Saba during the Long Night have changed, transformed into something from our deepest nightmares. Fleeing Lovelace survivors speak of a terrible malevolence within the once predictable threats. No longer are they content to haunt the Long Night, but they move from the shadows into a new nightmare made reality.
Now that the ancient Obelisk in Lake Bravo is silent, a new song rises across the San Saba, an echo of the music of the spheres heard months ago. Changes roll across the Territories, as the red masque of death spreads from the Peak. The shadows begin to lengthen in Essex, in Waking, and the Clutch, the shadowy figures within marching towards a new destination.
These new monstrous Nightmare Walkers are called by this siren song back to Bravado, to answer the call of their new master, the Prince Undying, the mad architect of Barogue. His influence spreads across the wastes, warping reality, afflicting zed, creature and raider alike.
And yet the darkness is not only full of terrors. Reports of the long dead rising to bid their loved ones welcome during the Winter Lights spread just as quickly as the crimson mist. But as the truth of the world bends and folds around itself, what is real and what is a symptom of a creeping madness?
The desecrated Obelisk appears bloody red in the center of town. The first obvious sign of the unstable nature of reality as the Red Mist spreads. Nightmares, previously only seen by a few, are now in full view of all. Those who die do not sink, but are dragged away violently by horrible shadows and, it is rumored, cursed to face down the Prince himself in the Mortis and rebel or capitulate to his twisted schemes. Such death included that of Boss Debs, murdered by Nightmares early in the trade, and later dragged to hell by shadows as Vados, and even the Breaker of Crowns, tried in vain to save her.
The yearly Winter Lights celebration is somehow grotesque in the red glow and the night is treacherous as even lowly shamblers are infected with The Nightmare and become singular threats. The long dead began to appear, set on reminding the living of their past mistakes and heartaches. A ghoulish reflection of who they might have been in life.
But traditions hold power. Through the use of ceremony, research, and ritual, Bravado slowly uncovers information that the Prince tried to keep hidden when he dragged Bravado into a shallow level of the grave with his Nightmares. Piece by piece, the survivors uncovered how to reach the knowledge, how to cleanse the Longwalkers, and how to summon a fragment of the legendary Sister Mammon to push back the Prince’s incursion.
Invoking the power of Mammon and the nine obelisks across the San Saba, the survivors prepared for the largest ritual yet, to cleanse the Obelisk of the Prince’s Influence using fire and their own sins and regrets. And a strange shining trapezohedron brought back from Barogue was placed in the Obelisk, connecting it to the strange Nightmare of the Prince Undying. Candles were lit, prayers were uttered, and when the chaos and terror all settled, the Obelisk of Salvation glowed a strong blue light, burning away the red tinged shadows of the Prince Undying’s Nightmare.
But the Prince was not wholly robbed of his prize. Once the crisis was averted and the Militia set foot on the battlefield, they successfully defended Essex from a surprise attack that was aided by treasonous Lovelace youth. It is rumored that a telegram signed by someone important in Bravado let the Oxkiller Forces on the train in Widows Peak, but the traitor is still unknown. The Militia pushed the Oxkiller Alliance and their Mustang Loyalist troops away from Waking and Essex in a series of bloody battles, while fleeing from the pirate forces along the Spoiled Coast. Despite being outnumbered and outgunned, the Militia found success thanks to their planning and reinforcements, surviving in fights that would have cowed lesser forces.
Despite these successes, it was when they went to retake New Barogue that the Prince enacted his revenge. Expecting Oxkiller forces, the San Saba Militia arrived instead to find their enemies slaughtered, and an army of the Prince’s Nightmares to greet them. A new enemy had joined the War of Antlers, and the loss was staggering. Several units were completely destroyed. with Shennog and Lyra Winthrop, commanders of two such units missing, and presumed dead… for good.
Wrap up
So that leads us into our next event THE BREAKER OF CROWNS. Jonathan has already written a great blog on the premise of this event, please go give it a read! Next week, we will go over the NPCs of Note that will be out and about as well as Rules You Should Know and other information for the event.
We also hope that you will join us for our Staff Q&A on Friday, February 2nd at 7:00 pm CST. We will be discussing the recent shakeups in the network and answering any questions you might have about what happened and how it’s impacted our local game.
See you soon, Bravado!