What Happens When You Die?

It’s time for another Rules Ramble with Jonathan! Death and dying in the world of Dystopia Rising are tied heavily into the setting. The Zombie Apocalypse story means the concept of Death is always close by for our characters. In fact, when you character dies in Dystopia Rising, you actually get to enjoy an entirely different side of the game. So let’s talk about a side of the game that you may not know much about, particularly for those folks that are new to the game.

Life Cut short…

When your character finishes their Bleed Out count without getting healing, or gets a Killing Blow delivered to them while in Bleed Out, you are dead. D-E-A-D. But for characters with the Infection surging in their bodies, that’s not quite the end.

• If it is possible, you should remain in play as a corpse for no longer than 10 minutes to allow for opportunities to interact with the dead character. (DR Corebook, p. 208)

There are a few reasons to stay behind as a corpse:

First, there is actually a Skill in game that can resurrect a character that recently died, known as Master Faithful Will (DR Corebook, p. 140) — provided they can Target you as a corpse. This is a rarer skill in the game, as it requires a veteran player with at least 75 XP to be able to select this skill.

This skill allows someone of your same Faith that gets to you before that 10 minute timer is up to throw a white packet, spend 1 Resolve and stop you from losing an Infection. There are even items that let them use the Skill on people not of their same Faith. Better make buddies with that friendly priest! You still experience a Grave Mind Scene if this skill is used, so we’ll talk about that next.

Lastly, staying as a corpse allows enemies or other players to take things from your Supply Bag (which is a CvC action), allows Gorgers to cannibalize the corpse to gain Body, or even let your friends experience a role play opportunity as they react to finding your body.

You can choose to ‘sink’ into the Mortis Amaranthine when you are ready, going out of character and holding a hand to your head or wearing a green headband. Any items you still have on you are taken with you into the Mortis Amaranthine. You don’t have to wait the entire 10 minutes (especially if no one is around to find you), but you should give a reasonable amount of time for folks to react and respond to your death.

After Death: The Mortis Amaranthine

When your character dies in game, their body is claimed by the Grave Mind and absorbed into the Mortis Amaranthine. This normally appears to your character as if murky tendrils are dragging your body beneath the ground, but this is mainly a trope to explain why you disappear out of character. In the fiction books of Dystopia Rising, the decay of the corpse happens much differently but we don’t have the SFX budget of Hollywood!

Once you’ve spent your time as a corpse, you’ll proceed to the Logistics building. In DR:TX, this is known as the Grave Council Annex and is located in the building known as the Hopi Lodge. This is the same place you’ll come for your NPC shift, so it’ll be easy enough to find. The first thing we do is congratulate or console you on your death, and make sure you have water and space to decompress. Death isn’t really a “lose scenario”, but sometimes you need a few minutes so the adrenaline can wear off. It’s important to take care of the player too!

From there, our STs and Guides will make sure that the GRAVE BELL is rung, signaling to the other players and designated Groundskeepers (Guides that specialize in running Grave Mind scenes), that someone has recently died. This also lets players that want to use a Death Brew or the Necrokinetics Skill know they have an opportunity to do so. These powers allow another player to sit in and observe the Death scene by your side, provided you consent and give them permission to be there.

Once the Groundskeepers arrive, they will walk you through the next steps and mark on your character sheet the changes that happen. The Groundskeeper will also have a short discussion with you that will help them build a better Grave Mind scene by understanding how you died, working with you to choose an appropriate Fracture, and helping them tailor the scene to your character and their backstory. Once you are ready, the Groundskeeper will lead you through a Grave Mind Scene tailored to your character.

Now, this is a Rules Ramble, so let’s address the mechanical impact of death:

The Price of Death

A few things happen mechanically upon death:

• You lose 1 Infection. (p. 95, DR Corebook)

  • If this leaves you with zero Infection, your character is permanently dead and will return as a zombie instead. The ST will work with you to create a unique undead threat to plague the town for what is known as your “last walk”.

  • There are ways to regain lost Infection in game, including the Pallor Mortis procedure and the Candlepin Medical Kit. Gaining new Infection costs 10 XP per point and can only be done at your home game or a national cross-network event.

• You gain 1 Fracture. (p. 180, DR Corebook)

  • Remember, Fractures cannot be resolved for the first 2 hours after you gain one and they can prevent you from using certain Anomaly Skills and equipment while you have one.

• If the character is not permanently dead, when the character finishes the death scene they emerge with full Body and 5 Mind points remaining unless there is a plot or mechanic that changes this amount. They can choose to spend 1 Resolve to return to play with full Mind points.

  • If you do NOT lose an Infection (say, someone with Faithful Will was nearby), you may NOT spend an Resolve to return with full Mind Points.

• [DR:TX ONLY] The Groundskeeper will assess your Grave Tax. This is an optional story element, reinforcing one of the laws of the San Saba. When someone dies in our game, the Grave Council normally assigns them a tax based on how they died. This is meant as an avenue for story, not as a punishment, so the Groundskeeper will help you understand how to opt in or out of this experience.

• Dying also cures you of most diseases or psionic effects you might be suffering from, restores Mangled limbs and lost organs, and ends any other effects that do not persist after death.

One final oft overlooked rule is that if you want to OPT OUT of a Grave Mind Scene altogether, you can simply spend one Resolve and return to play with full Body, but only one Mind Point (p. 183, DR Corebook). You still lose Infection but you do NOT gain a Fracture as you did not have the traumatic post-death experience within the Mortis Amaranthine. (You also miss out on a neat personalized scene, but sometimes you gotta get back to your friends quick!)

Next week, we’ll talk a bit more about what happens during and after the Grave Mind Scene with the Groundskeeper. Stay tuned for Part 2!

Story Recap: Blood Feast

Good morning! It’s Jonathan here with a recap of the major Story events of our recent November Game: BLOOD FEAST. The goal of these Story Recap posts is to help fill in the blanks for those that might have missed an important mod, been at NPC camp or even sleeping, or simply were not able to attend the game. These are major points of continuity that might be important as our season continues, and I hope this will help with the FOMO feels.

There were a few major developments during the BLOOD FEAST event:

Gutscourge

Over the last few weeks, characters that live near Bravado or travel there regularly started to feel HUNGRIER than usual. These symptoms might have come on suddenly, or gradually, over the last 4 weeks. The symptoms were a bit innocuous at first and if a person was not particularly observant, they might not have even noticed the changes! But starting on the first night of game, it was increasingly clear that something was wrong. A large part of the population had been infected with a terrible new disease that was quickly identified as GUTSCOURGE.

Victims infected with Gutscourge were irritable, feverish, and experienced intense pangs of hunger that can only be sated by eating.  They were increasingly focused on eating any food available or even eating raw meat, as as the disease progressed it turned them into voracious cannibals capable of devouring blood and flesh in lieu of food. Each step of the disease compounded the last and once normal food no longer satiated their hunger, the infected could frenzy at the slightest provocation. For those that rode the edge of oblivion, the advanced stages of the disease deadened their nerves and turned them into unstoppable killing machines capable of shrugging off bullets and blades alike.

A literal puzzle the players had to solve as part of the Research Challenge

The town collectively poured their resources into researching and understanding the disease. The horrifying resolution of Gutscourge was discovered - if a cure was not found, the infected would progress and become terrible BLOOD GHASTS and be lost forever, no matter how many Infection they had left. However, no matter what treatment the town came up with or how much food they consumed, they could not permanently cure the disease but only send it into remission temporarily. Some other factor was making the disease incurable and resistant to medical treatment.

The town eventually discovered an old family recipe of the Lovelace Family to create BLOOD SOUP that helped them combat the disease. This “meal” not only served to satiate the hunger of the infected, it could even reduce and contain the disease that was ravaging their bodies. However, since the Blood Soup required the players to spend Body points to create the meal by bleeding into the concoction, it was costly to prepare.

In addition, three strange side effects of the disease emerged, each too specific to have been naturally occurring but rather aspects of the disease that had been purposefully advanced and WEAPONIZED. It was clear that this disease was an attack on the town by some nefarious villain.

Widow Clauthia, after her “tea”

• For Whom the Bell Tolls - Each and every time the GRAVE BELL sounded in town, anyone infected with Gutscourge was sent into a frenzy of violence and hunger AND their disease would advance one Stage. The Bell is normally sounded by the Groundskeeper EVERY time a person dies, so each death caused by frenzies ended up causing more and more chaos through the weekend. Somehow, the necrokinetic energy of the Bell was sustaining and advancing the disease.

• Object of Veneration - The most insidious side effect of Gutscourge is that it made the infected susceptible to coercion and control by someone they respected and looked up to. Whenever an NPC made a call of “Object of Veneration”, players infected with Gutscourge had to either spend Mind points to resist the compulsion or follow the commands. The Widow’s Tea on Saturday afternoon became particularly bloody as Widow Clauthia ordered her loyal Widows to bring her victims to consume.

• Infectious - Gutscourge was purposefully very, very transmissible. Every time an advanced Stage infected fed on a target, they would also spread the disease to them. If that person was already infected, BOTH players would increase their disease one Stage. Particularly advanced patients were so infectious that even players using Medical skills on them could risk infection if they were not careful. The disease even seemed to be even more infectious on Landsmen, particularly the Quiet Folk of the Lovelace Family.

Dr. Nichols’ Revenge

Last month, one of the most infamous Lifers known as Eyeless Jack was captured by the town. This month, his father came to town seeking revenge on both the town that captured his son and the Family that made him an outcast from his home of Widow’s Peak. Jack’s father is a Quiet Folk doctor named Dr. Hannibal Nichols-Lovelace. He operated a small free clinic on the outskirts of the Lovelace lands, and was sometimes called “Grandfather Nichols” by the locals. He was thought of as mostly harmless, but was kept at arm’s length by the Lovelace Family because of the crimes his son committed.

Dr. Nichols, Quiet Folk villain

Nichols was being brought to Bravado to answer for crimes that he had been recently implicated in. It appears that the “good” Doctor had more of a direct hand in teaching his son Eyeless Jack to be a serial killer than was first known, and gory trophies of travelers that disappeared on their way to Widow’s Peak were discovered in his clinic. Alongside Daniel the Quiet, one of the Lifers still at large, Dr. Nichols was being brought to a trial at the Gauntlet. Accompanying the accused was the majority of the Lovelace Family, including the matriarch of the family, Immacula Lovelace. The stage was set for Dr. Nichol’s plan and betrayal of his former Family.

The night of his arrival, the fanatic followers of his son known as the APOSTLES OF EYELESS JACK attacked the Law Dogs escorting him into town, and freed both him and Daniel the Quiet. Witnesses even reported that Immacula Lovelace gave her weapon to the doctor as if compelled before he escaped into the night. For the hours that followed, Dr. Nichols prowled the night, purposefully spreading the disease of Gutscourge while talking about “experiments” and ambushing travelers on the roads. It was quickly apparent that not only was Dr. Nichols the mastermind behind the plague, but that he had lured his family to the town on purpose to infect and destroy them. As the bell tolled from early deaths in the night, Lovelace Maniacs set themselves on the town in a cannibalistic frenzy. While nominally still people, they couldn’t help themselves from feasting on those they attacked and put into Bleed Out.

The Cure & Project Mutagen

The next day, Research plans continued and uncovered a bit more about the depth of Dr. Nichol’s plan to destroy his family. During the Indulgence, the Unstable genius known as the Butcher tasked the Lifers with gathering biomass from townsfolk as part of something called “PROJECT MUTAGEN”. It was quickly evident that Dr. Nichols was progressing the project forward and was actively involved. The weaponized disease of Gutscourge was the culmination of these efforts, combining aspects of the Bad Brain Disease with parts of the Bloodscouge disease spread by Blood Ghasts. With the ability to infect and create powerful super soldiers that would follow the orders of those in charge, the plague represented a major step forward towards calamity for the San Saba Territories.

After collecting water samples from around town, testing various meals cooked by the chefs of Bravado, harnessing blood samples from captured Blood Ghasts, the inhabitants of Bravado were able to create a cure for these disease and a treatment plan to mitigate the threat. However, no matter much they tried, each time the GRAVE BELL rang the disease surged again and spread. Something else was sustaining the disease.

After their hard work continuing the research, they realized that the disease had introduced tiny psionic crystals into the victims. These psionic crystals were reacting to the Grave Bell and sustaining the disease. Based on intel gathered by the town, it was discovered that a SECOND Grave Bell was being used by Dr. Nichols in the sleepy corner of Widow’s Walk that needed to be stopped in order to permanently cure Gutscourge. At the same time, Dr. Nichols was again out and about capturing residents as “guests of honor” for something he called FAMILY DINNER. If the town was to solve the crisis, they would have to deal with both the cannibal Lovelace Family and neutralize the second Grave Bell.

Family Dinner & the Death of the Lovelaces

Dr. Nichols final masterstroke took place in the candlelit dinner area constructed within Widow’s Walk, the traditional sanctum of the Widows of the Lone Star, another aspect of the Lovelace Family in the San Saba Territories. Joining him for dinner were his family members, Clauthia Lovelace, one of the leaders of the Widows, Immacula Lovelace, the matriarch, Abby Lovelace, her daughter, and Daniel the Quiet, the black sheep Lifer of the family. Alongside a throng of the Lovelace Maniacs, the family came together to celebrate their “guests of honor” that would be served as the MAIN COURSE of dinner.

When the town tried to interrupt the ritual, they discovered that not only was Dr. Nichols mind controlling each of the Lovelace family members to do his bidding, that he was functionally IMMORTAL. As soon as he was hurt, the wound would heal and his family would cry out in pain and anguish. He kept mocking the assembled heroes, saying that “My family sustains me. You cannot stop me” while attacking from the darkness. With an immortal enemy, waves of Lovelace Maniacs, and powerful Lovelace leaders, the Family Dinner was a scene of chaos and danger.

Eventually, the town concocted a plan to free the gathered Guests of Honor from their manacles securing them to the dinner table and survive the attacks of the Lovelaces while a second group worked to disable the second GRAVE BELL. With the help of some clutch uses of Master Biogenetics and a coordinated rush on the bell once the guests were freed, the insidious bell was silenced for good.

Frustrated by the plan being stopped, Dr. Nichols executed Immacula Lovelace at the dinner table and nearly escaped into the darkness. He was finally caught and captured outside of the General Store, but not before killing several other townsfolk. He was questioned and executed, but not before a chilling proclamation that Project Mutagen had been a success and had been shipped to his mysterious client that afternoon. Someone out in the wastes now has a tool to create dangerous super soldiers or the ability to sell that technology to the highest bidder.

The town had successfully stopped the evil Dr. Nichols and found a permanent cure for the disease of Gutscourge, but it came at a high price. The Lovelace Family has been decimated by the disease, and while several members of the Family were rescued and cured of the plague, the once powerful faction is now in shambles. It will take effort, money, and new blood in the ranks to rebuild after Dr. Nichol’s plot of revenge, but the Lovelace Family will endure.

EPILOGUE - The Monolith

At the end of the event, as the town was wearily gathering themselves for the last moments of printing, farming, and playing silly games, a dire warning came from the outskirts. Rising from the ground, a MONOLITH of flowing black stone has erupted from the Mortis Amaranthine at the edge of town. The tower of strange stone beckons exploration, and agents of the Grave Council have quickly moved to secure the perimeter of the structure. Whatever this Monolith may be, the similarity between it and the Fountainhead in Essex cannot be dismissed and you know that the next crisis facing Bravado is ahead, in our December Game - THE LONG NIGHT.

Faction Work Orders are HERE!

Howdy Vados!

Jonathan here with a quick update for our November event, BLOOD FEAST! I know I said I was making one last blog post on Wednesday before game, but now you get a last-last blog post instead!

This weekend will be premiering the next stage of the Work Order mechanic in our game!

We’ve put most of this on the website, and you can find the details HERE.

The TL;DR of this is that there are three types of Work Orders now in the game:

• Starter Work Orders can be completed ONCE per event, and include tasks like exploring the site and doing basic behaviors of Dystopia Rising. These are the primary way you can earn Basic Society Membership with a Faction.

• Settlement Work Orders are released periodically at the General Store and involve an out-of-character task that must be completed, like refilling the water and ice for NPCs at Ops or cleaning up garbage around the camp. If you complete these, you’ll get a reward of Brass and CAPS for the group that completes them.

• Faction Work Orders can be completed by folks with at least Basic Society Membership in one of the Factions of Bravado. These will involve more complicated tasks that are thematic to the faction and they might involve combat, exploration, roleplay, or CvC. Once completed, you can get a reward based on your level of Society Membership. You can complete different Faction Work Orders, but only ONE for each faction and some rewards can only be collected once no matter how many you complete.

These Work Orders are designed as a kind of “silent ST” that can help give you direction to get involved in the game and story we are sharing. Since you can do them on your own, you get to control when and where you do the tasks. For those that might hit moments in the game where they aren’t quite sure what to do next, Work Orders can be a great way to kickstart off activities that will help you experience the world of Bravado and Dystopia Rising.

Some commonly asked questions about Work Orders:

• Q: Can I complete both a Starter Work Order AND a Faction Work Order in the same game?

• A: Yup. Once you complete a Starter Work Order you get Basic Society Membership, so that means you can immediately complete a Faction Work Order for the faction you just helped.

• Q: What are the favored skills of the Faction?

• A: These will be listed on the Faction Work Orders this weekend, and I’ll have these updated on the website soon. Only so much time until game and I still gotta pack!

• Q: Can I do a Work Order on each of my characters?

• A: Sure! Each Work Orders can be completed once per event, per character, so if you have another character invested in a faction have at it.

Plus, at the end of the game we will be tracking how many Faction Work Orders are completed. If you have a vested interest in seeing your favorite Faction or NPC group succeed, make sure you complete a Work Order!

That’s all for today! See you tomorrow!

Introduction to Disease Mechanics, Part 2

It’s time for another Rules Ramble with Jonathan! This week is continuing our coverage of the Disease Mechanics in the Dystopia Rising Corebook! Today we are learning about how you actually deal with the Diseases you encounter in the game. This might be SUPER important soon, considering that our November game is dealing heavily with a Disease problem in Bravado…

This is a long post, so apologies in advance. It’s split basically into two sections - Researching a Disease and Resolving a Disease.

If you missed my first part of this post, you can find Part 1 HERE.

The full Disease rules can be found starting on page 190 in the DR: Evolved Corebook. You can download a free copy of the rulebook HERE.

When a Disease first starts to spread in the game, there are number of ways that your character can deal with it. For this next game, we are also adding an additional mechanic to “opt-out” of the Disease experience in case that’s not a story you want to tell.

Let’s look at a sample Disease, Bad Brain, from the DR Corebook on page 206, and pay particular attention to the Resolution section at the end.

Bad Brain Disease, commonly spread by most types of Raiders

RESEARCHING A DISEASE

So your town is in the middle of an Disease Outbreak. Oh shucks. What can you do to find out how to fix it? Once you encounter a strange new Disease (like a Disease that isn’t printed in the book like Bad Brain), the first thing to do is to learn more about it!

• When you use Basic Medical to examine a person, you can identify the Disease they are suffering from for zero mind using the “Check Status” mechanics. The infected character will reveal the name of the Disease they are suffering from and the current Stage of that Disease they are suffering from. This is the good place to start, but how do you learn more?

Luckily, the Corebook actually has a mechanic for how this works. Characters wishing to research a new Disease can do so per the mechanics on p.186 of the DR: Corebook. 

• After 20 minutes examining the patient with Lore: Medical, a character may spend 5 Mind points to learn more about the Disease and learn ONE fact about the Disease. Each 5 Mind points spent in addition to this may learn one additional fact about the vectors of transmission, stages, or treatment conditions. 

• If a Research Center room augment is used, the character with Lore: Medical may learn TWO facts instead of one when they spend 5 mind to research.

• If a Doctor Ottoman’s Disease Control Kit gizmo is used, the doctor may learn THREE facts about the Disease by spending 5 mind and 5 minutes of roleplay with an infected victim. This is a MUCH faster way to Research and doesn’t require Lore to use. (But what kind of doctor doesn’t have Lore: Medical?)

• These mechanics will see play through a series of RESEARCH CHALLENGES during our November event. These will be found normally in the Research Center in the Terminal Station Depot. Our goal is to be able to provide these answers quickly, without making folks wait for someone at the Post Office or have to track down an errant Shan or Jonathan.

So let’s talk briefly about how you build a Treatment Plan. Once you understand a bit more of how a Disease impacts the patient, you can be begin testing ways to cure the Disease.

A Treatment Plan will generally consist of a few things:

• Time - How long you need to spend treating the Disease

• Components - Some particularly deadly Diseases also require the use of item cards to fix. This is often an item that is expended, like using Infectious Material or a healing brew of some kind. Sometimes, the cost simply requires you to have something like a Candlepin Medical Kit that is used but not expended.

• Mind Points and Skill Use - A resolution to a Disease will generally cost some amount of Mind points to complete. Generally, this cost goes up as the Disease gets to a worse Stage. Most Diseases are cured by some combination of Lore or Medical skills.

• Treatment Frequency - A Treatment Plan will instruct you on how often a patient needs a treatment, whether it is one treatment or done over multiple stages.

• Stages of Treatment - Each stage of a Disease will be treated in a different manner. Generally, the challenge of treating a Disease increases as the Stage goes up.

• Remission versus Cure - Some Diseases cannot be permanently treated, but rather sent into Remission. They are still infected, but most of the negative effects are avoided. Other Diseases can be cured completely.

• Role-playing Requirements - A treatment will generally provide some kind of guidance for what kind of roleplay might be required during the process. Some Diseases might require a blood transfusion, while others might simply need you to eat a hearty meal.

You can always spend MORE resources that a Treatment Plan lists, but there will always be a MINIMUM amount that is needed to be successful.

For instance, in the Bad Brain cure above, if you didn’t have all the Research completed, you might need to guess and spend 15 Mind points for the Treatment Plan. Since it’s over the minimum 10 Mind needed, the cure works but you wasted 5 Mind points that could have been used on something else! It’s important to be thorough in your Treatment Plan so you can conserve your valuable Resources.

Once you have developed a Treatment Plan, you can begin to try to RESOLVE a Disease.

Resolving a Disease

Diseases generally need to be resolved in some form or fashion. There are four main ways to deal with a Disease, and a 5th way that will be available for our November event, BLOOD FEAST. Remember that Mutants can resist an initial source of Disease by spending Resolve, but once infected they still need to be treated like any other patient.

• Treatment - Common Diseases like Bad Brain and Radiation Sickness have well known ways to permanently fix the problem of the Disease. Once a cure is known, it can be applied by any character with the right Skills and materials as part of a Treatment Plan. Often, curing a Disease will simply reduce the Stage of the Disease by one step, but sometimes a Treatment just removes the Disease completely - especially if it’s still at Stage One.

• Remission - Some particularly deadly Diseases may not be able to be cured right away. In these cases, the Disease is simply suppressed for a short time, much like how you might temporarily relieve a Fracture. You are still infected by the Disease, but you do not suffer most of the side effects for a time. Since you are still infected, it means you might even still be contagious, so doctor beware!

  • If the Disease is somehow reactivated (like through another source of infection, or not getting timely Treatment the next game), it starts at the same Stage you were at before the Remission started.

• Inoculation - When a Disease is particularly contagious, the most common way to stop this is to actually prevent the Disease BEFORE it infects the patient. If a Disease is in an Outbreak stage, an Inoculation is a simple procedure for any character with the Basic Medical skill.

  • A character with Basic Medical may Inoculate an uninfected character by spending 5 mind and 5 minutes of roleplay protecting the patient from a particular Outbreak Disease. The next time an INFLICT DISEASE effect is used on this character, they may call “No Effect, Inoculated!”. This is only a simple treatment, so some particularly deadly Diseases might even overpower an Inoculation effect after an exposure. It’s always best to avoid the Disease source altogether!

• Equipment - The gizmo Dr. Ottoman’s Disease Control Kit is a powerful tool when dealing with a Disease. The effect of the Master Medical use is particularly potent, as it renders a patient IMMUNE to a Disease call for a short time.

  • Requires Master Medical. User may spend 10 Mind. After 5 minutes of Full Engagement Role-Playing taking samples from a Diseased Target, user makes a 2nd Target without the Disease immune to the 1st Target's Disease until the next 12s. The protected character may call “No Effect” until the next 12s when exposed to an INFLICT DISEASE mechanic. This is superior to the Inoculation effect as it cannot be overpowered.

The last way you can deal with a Disease is unique to our November event:

• Natural Immunity (OPT OUT MECHANIC):  

  If you would like to OPT-OUT of this Disease plot during the November 2021 event, you may write NATURAL IMMUNITY on your character sheet(s) before Game-on and if exposed to a situation where you would contract <REDACTED> at any level, you may call “No effect, Natural Immunity”. This immunity cannot be applied to any character, other than your own, through any in-game mechanic.

That’s about it for my Disease summary. Sorry for the REDACTION, but no Spoilers yet!!! Next week, we’ll divert a bit to talk about some common Rules and Skill calls that might be important during our upcoming event!

Introduction to Disease Mechanics, Part 1

Good morning!

It’s Jonathan with another weekly Rules Ramble! Today’s blog post is going to be covering the first part of some key rules from the Disease Mechanics for Dystopia Rising. In a perfect world, everyone would read every page of the rulebook, but we all know that’s really why you enjoy my rules posts summarizing the basics.

The full Disease rules can be found starting on page 190 in the DR: Evolved Corebook. You can download a free copy of the rulebook HERE.

It’s a long section, so I’m going to focus first on the basics of diseases and how you can interact with them. In my next post, I’ll go more into how to cure and treat a disease in Dystopia Rising.

Each disease in Dystopia Rising has some similar components:

• Name - This is pretty obvious, really. Some diseases that have seen play are Blood Scourge, Bad Brain, Radiation Sickness, the Plague of the Unfinished, and Black Fungal Disease. Some of those sound pretty scary!

• Type - While most diseases have set mechanics, sometimes a disease can change or worsen during a game. There are two ways this happens - either as an Outbreak, where the disease mutates to becomes more contagious, or when a disease is Weaponized, where someone purposefully spreads the disease. This last type is ALWAYS a CvC action if done by a player.

• Transmission Vector - Each disease is spread in a specific way. This can include being bitten or wounded, contact with bodily fluids, consuming tainted water or food, being touched by an infected victim, use of Anomaly skills, airborne transmission, or even environment factors like exposure to radiation or some other SCIENCE! type effect.

• Stages of Illness - Each disease has a series of Stages. Each stage compounds on the last as the disease worsens. A stage of an illness will generally have roleplay notes for the symptoms of the disease and how it should be portrayed. Most diseases have between 3 to 5 different Stages. For many diseases, the last Stage is particularly deadly and can result in a character dying or even being transformed into something like a Raider!

• Duration between Stages - Most diseases increase in Stages at set intervals. This might be at the next 12s for fast-acting diseases, or for slow-acting diseases it could increase at the next event. Some diseases can even worsen depending on a trigger, like another exposure to that disease. It’s important to know how deadly the disease is and how much time you have left!

• Mechanical Impact - Each disease will have some kind of mechanical impact on your character. Some diseases might prevent you from using certain Skills, cause a Fracture, prevent the use of Resolve, or even impact your total Mind or Body totals. Some diseases even give you new Traits that come with specific keywords and abilities.

• Resolution - Each disease has some specific ways it can be cured and treated. Unfortunately, these ways to resolve a disease are hidden until they are discovered through Research in the game. I’ll cover this step in more detail in my next blog post.

There are a few key ways you can interact with a disease during the game:

• Characters can identify the symptoms of the disease and the stage with the Basic Medical skill, for zero mind using “Check Status” rules. The infected character should reveal the name of the disease they are suffering from and the current Stage of that disease they are suffering from.

• Characters with the Mutant Lineage (that’s Remnants, Retrogrades, and Tainted) can spend a point of Resolve to ignore an INFLICT DISEASE mechanic call by calling “Mutated Immune System”. This prevents the character from contracting a new disease, but does not prevent a disease you are already infected with from progressing.

• Death at any stage of the Disease generally has some impact on the character. Often, a disease is cured when the character passes through the Mortis Amaranthine, but particularly nasty diseases can persist even after death.

• If a character is using a Helscape Deathmask or Dr. Ottoman’s Disease Control Kit, they may declare “No Effect!” to any infectious mechanics that might risk spreading the disease to them by working on an infected patient by using their gizmos. Doctors need to be careful around particularly virulent plagues!

• Any custom disease introduced in our game may not transfer outside the DR: TX game area for any reason. If a character leaves play before a plot-related disease is cured (like say, you leave early), the disease effects mysteriously fades over the next 12 hours. National-level diseases like Bad Brain can persist on your character sheet though, and can be taken back to a different chapter. It’s generally a bad idea to eat a Raider in any game!

So that’s about it for this blog post, but next time we will talk about Remission, Inoculation, and Curing a disease, as well as how you RESEARCH about what a disease can do. See you next week!