The Legend of the Black Spot

It’s Jonathan here with our next weekly blog post for the upcoming event, THE RAGE THAT FILLS HER SAILS! This is leadup for our March DR:TX event written by our Overarc STs, Ed Sampson and Joel Vold. Today we will talk a bit about some of the LORE behind the mysterious malady you’ll face at our event. This is a bit of a ghost story with a surprise at the end, told from the perspective of an old sea dog telling a story at the Swaying Anker. Let’s explore THE LEGEND OF THE BLACK SPOT together…

A few reminders before we begin:

• Amber wrote a neat blog post on some updates to our Plot Request system. We’ve came up with a new process to streamline requests for custom mods, PFAs, and Backgrounds. In short, Personal Plot Requests, PFA Requests, and Faction Interviews are now being handled on a month-to-month basis. Check out what Amber’s put together!

• We are continuing our recent Boffer Donation Campaign in March. Next event, you can earn some CAPS by donating your gently used boffers! You can earn 25 caps for something we have to rebuilt, 50 caps for something that is useable right away, and 100 caps for something that is way too nice. See Shan at our next event to earn your caps and help the game replace some of our damaged boffers.

TICKETS FOR THE RAGE THAT FILLS HER SAILS ARE ON SALE until Friday, March 3rd! DON’T MISS OUT!!!

THIS POST WILL DISCUSS A FEW LIGHT STORY SPOILERS FOR OUR NEXT EVENT, SO WE HOPE YOU ENJOY WHAT WE HAVE IN STORE!

Let’s talk a little bit about one particular story you might have heard before the next event…

“It was around about the size of a crown piece. One side was blank, for it had been the last leaf; the other contained a verse or two of Revelation—these words among the rest, which struck sharply home upon my mind: "Without are dogs and murderers." The printed side had been blackened with wood ash, which already began to come off and soil my fingers; on the blank side had been written with the same material the one word "Depposed".” — Treasure Island, Robert Louis Stevenson

Photo credits in this post are from Max Pohlmeier, Lainey Weiss, Sydney Betzina, and Noah Goodman.

The Legend of the Black Spot

By Ed Sampson and Jonathan Loyd

It’s been a cold and stormy night so far, and nothing brings a smile to your face like catching a break from the chill inside the Swaying Anker. One of several drinking establishments in Bravado, it’s a place where you can find a quiet drink and sit back to soothe the ache in your bones from the winter weather. Plus, a muddled cider or a strong hooch would be the perfect thing to take your mind off the rumors of new threats on the waters, and the dire warnings from your friends in the Junkerpunks. Trouble is coming, they say, but for now you are only worried about nursing your drink in a comfy corner and getting a chance to warm up.

The light folk music playing from a dilapidated old music box near the bar doesn’t distract enough from your worries, and you can’t help but overhear an old sea dog at the table nearby spin a tale, a ghost story of sorts, for some frightened young sailors huddled nearby. After the old sailor bought a round for the whole bar, you figured you might enjoy a story while you regain the feeling in your fingers, and you take a seat nearby.

The old crusty sea dog leans back, his face turning a sly smile and he begins to weave his story…

“Have ye heard of the origin of the black spot, lads? THa legend of the dread captain, and tha curse she places on tha unwary?”

“The first tales of the Black Spot be from before the fall of man, carried with tha stories of the oldcestors and their journeys o’er wide-open seas before they became choked with fiery oil slicks, hurricanes, zed, and dark water. One captain, Billy Bones or Silver Steven, or something like that, I heard it be, spoke of the oldcestor tradition of the BLACK SPOT. I first heard the tale as a bit o’ history of our kind, but it be something else entirely now, a curse upon the living.”

“Pirates of old be presented with a “black spot” as a verdict of guilt and judgement, ye see. It be simple enough, a mark of ink on a piece of torn sail or parchment, maybe one side blackened while the other bore a warning. When placed in the hands of the accused, be he a murderer, a mutineer, or a traitorous snitch, or simply a greedy smuggler taking a bit more than her fair share of hooch, it be a mark of terror. It meant that the captain, they did KNOW your crimes. They be “putting you on the spot” as it were.”

“Sometimes the spot be marked on a piece of them religious scrawlinga, like them canticles the creatures of the Dune Sea peddle. I even heard of one foul traitor given an Ace of Spades, condemning him to death, ‘cause it has but a single black pip on the face, the truth of his crimes recorded on the back o’ the playing card. It’s be tradition, ye see. Carried o’er the waves and sea by our kind for generations. The Black Spot is a mark of death, a last judgement given to the damned, savvy?”

“This much be still true today, as the Black Spot be seen once more in the wastes...”

The old sea dog notices the young sailors squirming, and one in particular failing to meet his piercing gaze. You smirk, seeing the sailor bring the old legend to life, while you nurse your hooch in your corner.

“Have you seen the Black Spot, then?”

“Pull yer seat up, laddie, and let me get a look at ya.  Aye, I can see it clear as day.  You can hide that mark upon your hand as much as ya like, ye can wrap it or wear gloves.  But I can see it.  Ye been marked by the Black Spot.  Don’t matter how it happened, but it’s happened.  Sure as you’re born, that bell’ll soon ring for ya.”

“It starts small, so do I hear. Maybe it looked a wart, or some bit o’ grease. Like a rope rash gone rotten, it spreads into tha mark of the damned. No matter how hard ye scrub or what medicines you try, it be there for all to see. Cut it off with a sharp knife and it regrows again, foul and tainted. Yer sin carried like an albatross around ye neck, in that black spot. Bad luck, it be.”

“Best drink up while ye can, laddie. The end be in sight, no matter how much ye try to run.”

You can’t help but glance over to the young sailor, and you see a concerning growth on the back of his left hand, barely concealed by a filthy bandage. The misshapen mark is a deep black, round in shape, and red around the edges like an infected wound. You catch yourself leaning in a bit more, as the old sea dog continues, enraptured in the tale.

“Where does the black spot come from?” 

“No one knows, not for true.” 

“This ain’t some mark like those in history, this be something different. Maybe it be your guilt made manifest, a mark of some crime ye did on yer last voyage. Some say its’ one of them newfangled diseases, like some say it be Nichols’ last laugh. Others still say it come up out of the ground, where them delvers dig under our very feet right now, some curse of the oldcestors.  I even heard tale of a one poor soul who said someone told him a ghost story, and it appeared right quick after.”

“They’re all wrong, every last one of them.  This spot here?”

“It comes from her.”

“Ahh, like I said, I sense the mark upon you, landlubber.  You feel the eyes upon you yet?  The feeling of something waiting for ye in the dark?  Well, I’m here to tell you…yer not wrong.”

“If you’ve got the Spot upon you?  That means she’s coming for you.  Don’t matter where you hide, or how far you run.  As soon as you hear the bell from her flagship, you’ll have a choice to make. And a price to pay. You see, the Dread Captain demands ye serve, another soul to haul up the foul anchor of her mighty vessel.”

You struggle to suppress a shudder. That title, or perhaps a name, is spoken with a dread finality. If you were superstitious, you might think the lights had flickered a bit when the sea dog said it. The Anker's a nice enough place, but that’s just how electricity works in the wastes and that’s nothing out of the ordinary. Bulbs don’t flicker on cue, you assure yourself.

“Who is the dread captain? Ye must be joking, lad.”

“Joanna Waves, the Strainscourge of the Seas, dread captain of tha Amaranthine Armada.” 

“That be her name, but pray ye never have to speak it. Legend says she hears her name each time it’s spoken, like a gull on the wind, carried to her ears ‘cross the waves.”

“Aye, I can tell you about Joanna.  Careful though, ye may hear too much.  More than one sailor has heard these tales, and more than one of them have ended up serving a life before the mast.  Spend enough time with your soul in Dark Water, ye may soon come to find it forgets the smell of land.  But, on your own head be it.”

“Terror of the Waves, she be.  The Doom upon the Horizon.  The Dark of the Deep. The Scourge of All That Sail. Most sailors have seen her, but they won’t talk about her.  Anyone what sails the seas and plies their trade on tha water has seen her and her Juggernaut, and each and everyone of them has put their rudder to her and fled.  And those that don’t flee, perish.  Or worse.”

“I heard plenty of stories about the Dread Captain.  Some say she was betrayed, her family taken.  Others say she once swore a holy vow to never be powerless again.  A strange creature with a strange book told me once that she was foretold in some sort of Canticle of the Waves, whatever the hell that is.  Ain’t no one been close enough to ask her, and she ain’t one for pontificating.”

“Joanna herself?  Death on two legs, and nasty about it.  She be master of the blade, one of the best duelists I’ve e’er heard of.  And if that’s not enough be, she’s a psion of the worst sort, and I don’t know if any still living has seen her true limits.  She’s a terror, through and through.  And if you see that Juggernaut on the horizon, it’s already too late.”

Something about the ghost story sparks a memory. It sounds familiar to you, in a way you can’t quite put a finger on. You move about uncomfortably, the chill of the night causing an painful cramp in your hands and feet.

“All sailors know of her, you see.”

 “I heard she ran Admiral Hart out from Axport years ago, amid shell and storm and shot.  Speak her name around Grand Admiral Sinkerswim, and you’ll hear naught but curses. Even Carina Astora, the Saltwise Sweetheart steers clear of the Juggernaut. And if truth be told, she’s the reason ol’ Captain Nemo and Ironsides doesn’t sail north beyond Requiem.  Even if they don’t talk about her, they know. Cause the most dangerous part about her?  The Legend. Even now, she be listening in, hanging on our every word, cause ye asked.”

“Whoever and whatever she be, she’s here for one thing and one thing only.  When she drops that tentacled borne Anchor of hers and the Juggernaut deploys it’s mighty twelve pounders, she come here for power.  She come here to take what you have.  And she come here to take whoever she can.  Every soul she can cleave to her side is another one of the damned to serve her crusade.”

“And they will have no choice but to answer her call.”

You’ve heard that name before. The Juggernaut. You heard of a recent Junkerpunk clash near the Clutch, dozens of ships sunk, a massive armada working its way up the riverways of the San Saba, cannons blazing. You even remember hearing a few of the San Saba Republic Longberths mentioning something about arming vessels in Drywater. But that was like recent news, not some ghost story. It can’t be the same thing. It’s just a story.

“Aye, I called it the juggernaut. it be the flagship of the dread captain, the spear of the amaranthine armada.”

“Joanna and her Amaranthine Armada arrives on the storm, and the Dark Water she sails on follows her everywhere.  That water drown ye right quick, choking the breath from yer lungs, should ye be cast o’erboard. Some folks say she what sank Wahoo, others that she sails the Spoiled Coast daring any to come after her.  Each one of them could be true, who’s to say?  I heard from a guy who knows a guy that she once lived a normal life, free as you like.  How did she come to head the Juggernaut?  Escapes me.”

“The Juggernaut?  It’s a monster, plain and simple.  A demon from the Old World, held together by her hate and her power.  It’s got thick armor, heavy guns, and enough munitions to level any town in range of her guns.  It’s a titanic beast, made with the stuff of legends, alloys of steel like none can create anymore. And that’s not even talking about the Dread Anchor, that terrible tentacled thing she sinks into the Mortis Amaranthine.  Once the Juggernaut arrives, it’s only a matter of time.”

“And the Juggernaut ain’t the only danger. Her crew of the damned are a sight to see.  Folks from all over the Wastes, bound to her by the Black Spot and her will, carried far from family and kin.  Her loyal Sirens stalk the shadows of their passing, finding all those what refuse the call or try to escape.  The longer you stay aboard, the less you want to leave.  Once the Black Spot be upon you, you’ll hear the call.  It’ll be up to you if you serve or refuse, but no way is without sacrifice.”

The chill in the room is noticeable now. Those damn Lucky 7s should have the scratch to pay for firewood and lamp oil, you think. Why is it so damn cold this time of year? You scratch absently at your hand, as if feeling a presence looming upon you. Just silly old ghost stories, told by a crusty old sailor to scare the tenderhorns. That’s all.

“what are the Sirens, ye say? ARe ye mad?”

“So you’ve got the Spot upon you?  That means she’s coming for you.  Don’t matter where you hide, or how far you run.  As soon as you hear that bell, you’ll have a choice to make.  You can Resist, you might think.  Steel yer nerves, and tie yerself to the mizzenmast to prevent ye from walking o’erboard to her call. No matter, if ye resist, the story don’t end there.”

“The Dread Captain has her Sirens of the Deep, terrifying specters to chase down those what Refuse the Call.  No harbor or port can keep you safe, cause the Sirens of the Dread Captain will chase you to the end of the Wastes. They can sense the Black Spot, ye see. The Sirens will hunt those that put up too much of a fight, and the screams that ring out will pierce yer very soul, and yer guilt will be agonizing. It weighs ye down, ye see, like an anchor bound to yer soul.”

“Joanna, she be one of the craftiest and canniest terrors that ever haunted the waves.  And one of the ways she reaches out and strikes those what deny her are these Sirens.  Deadly daggers in the dark, these psionic specters walk between shadows to find you.  You bear the Mark and refuse the call, then you best keep both eyes open, lest the dark itself reach out for you.”

“They slip through the shadows of ye mind, ye see, like a whisp of smoke. Out o’ the corner of yer eye, like a figment they be lurking. Invisible, hidden, even in broad daylight. It no matter how you prepare, they be on you like a blink o’ lightnin’, flashing blades cutting you down so they can drag ye back to the ships of tha damned.

“Ye might be worried about the Thralls of the Dread Captain, but the true danger be her Sirens. Legend says that those that enjoyed their unholy service on her vessel, that answered tha call of the Dread Captain willingly, they be doomed to become a Siren when they die a final death. Those traitors of thar own kind bear the curse e’en past death itself.”

“Nothing escapes that damned Anchor, especially not souls marked with the betrayer’s mark.”

You heard tales of terrible machinery and strange devices used against the Archon incursion a few months back. Before then, maybe you would have chuckled at the idea of an Anchor that can reach into the Grave Mind, but you’ve seen some things lately. Shit, just the stuff out beneath the waves of the Spoiled Coast are enough to break the mind, but this is just some old ghost story. Your hand still itches, but you lean in closer.

Aye, I spoke of her Anchor. It reaches into the depths, and binds those that crew her fleet.

“You ever seen things you know ain’t real?  Green skies at night, angles that don’t look quite right.  Things that make your head hurt, your eyes bleed, your ears ring?”

“Well, the Dread Anchor ain’t one of those.  It’s real all right.  And it ain’t right at all.  I seen it, years ago, off the Spoiled Coast of the Rat Trap.  We were running bullets past House Triton during one of them wars, and the Juggernaut arrived.  They didn’t see my sloop, or we wouldn’t be having this talk.  But we saw it.”

“There was a lot of yelling, from the Strainscourge herself.  There was a smell in the air, spoiled meat and oily water.  And my hairs stood up, each and every one of ‘em.  And when that fleshy, tentacled, mass hit the water, it plunged deep.  Deep through the drink, right into the Mortis itself.  I swear you me, I felt the shake beneath my feet.”

“It be a terrible thing, I tell ye. The Tentacles of the Anchor, a terrible artifact of old Barogue, according to one story I heard. It’s a mighty thing, an anchor big enough to turn heel o’ the Juggernaut, but heavy enough to reach into the dark depths. The arms o’ the anchor twist upwards, like the arms of some sea creature, carved with barnacles and suckers like some damnable octopus. Each arm be carved with runes, old tongue of Barogue perhaps, speaking of some pact made with a lost sister and a voice below.”

“I don’t know how it works, or why.  But I do be knowin’ that as long as the Juggernaut is Anchored in yer waters, them who sink don’t come back normal like.  They go straight to her, to serve as the Damned.  That’s why she’s so dangerous, ye see. Any that die are marked by the Black Spot.”

“Even in death, you SERVE.”

You could swear you hear a bell ringing mournfully in the distance. Just the Grave Bell, ringing in some lost soul that ran afoul of hunters or gorehounds. The Groundskeepers will be along shortly, you think. Hopefully, it wasn’t anyone you know. I mean, it’s not like you did anything wrong on your way here. You’re sure those other folks made it back safely when you left them on the road out to Anyport. You have nothing to be ashamed of. No need to feel guilty. Damn, your hand itches.

What happens if ye answer the call o’ the dread captain?

“Now there’s a question, laddie. Mayhaps the right question.”

“Ye can resist the siren call of the Dread Captain fer a time. But, sometimes those damned souls that do bear the Black Spot choose the easy path. What’s a bit o’ work, after all? You can Serve.  One life before the mast, fulfilling Joanna Waves’s dreams of conquest. Not a high price to rid ye of the mark of the Black Spot.”

“Legend says those that die and are torn from the ground by her infernal Anchor, those that choose to serve become her Thralls, the souless dead, trapped ‘tween the world o’ the living and the damned. Remind me a bit o’ raiders, they do. Not quite zed, but not quite people either. Covered in seaweed, the mantle of the Armada, the gift of the waves themselves.”

“They be ferocious and deadly, and they’ll scuttle up the side of yer ship quick like. If they gaze into yer soul, you’ll be frozen in place, too scared to swing yer fancy pigsticker. But they bear the mark of the damned, and if they drag ye back to the mast, ye too shall serve the Dread Captain, and bear her mark of the Black Spot.”

“When that bell tolls, all yer former friends will be clamoring for your blood, new Thralls of the Dread Captain. It’ll be dangerous, but yer lucky the bell only tolls at the waning and waxing of the hidden tides beneath the dark depths of the ocean. Once at noon, and once at midnight, you be hearing the siren call of the bells o’ the Juggernaut calling ye to serve her mistress, Joanna Waves. That haunted crew will wash over yer ship like a tidal wave, claiming any that dare resist the call.”

“Choice’ll be up to you.  Stick around and survive, hide, or run. It be an overwhelming tide of the damned, and it be e’ery mate for ye self. When Joanna Waves comes calling, ye best be prepared.”

“What would I do, were I called?”

“Me? I heard the call long ago.”

“I been serving her for years now.  It’s not so bad, once you get used to it.  We’re all damned already, my friend, if ye believe them Final Knights. Do work, get paid, they say.”

“All those ghost stories?  They’re all true, when they’re told.  Real as you and I, maybe even realer.  If they’re told often enough, and believed often enough, who’s to say they aren’t real?  If you’ve heard everything I said now and believed her, then doesn’t that make her a little bit more real?  And if THAT’S the case…”

“Or I’m wrong.  It’s just a legend, after all.”

“Who’s to say?  I’m just an old sailor telling some spooky stories.  Now if you’ll excuse me, my ship’s headed out from Bravado soon to meet up with me friends.  And me friends do so like to make an entrance.”

“See you soon, Vados…”

Just ghost stories, you tell yourself. That old sea dog is just trying to rattle those youngsters. You’ve played a prank or two on your friends before. No harm, no foul. On the wind as you leave the bar, a jaunty tune that darkens your mood rings out from the sailors still inside. You swear you’ve heard it before, as you step out into the darkness, following the siren call of that bell you heard earlier. It reminds you of something, a tale you once heard in a bar, on a dark and stormy night a few days ago.

Your hand doesn’t itch as much anymore, now that the Black Spot is there. It feels like a weight on your arm, but you’ll be free of that burden as soon as you answer the call of Joanna Waves, the Strainscourge of the Seas and her infernal Anchor. You walk towards the water, the inky depths of dark water stretching as far as the eye can see, the words of that old song, “Joanna, Now We Mourn” in your ears…

Joanna, Now We Mourn

By Ed Sampson

There once was an orphan, who didn’t know her name

And there once was a town that would never be the same.

The orphan lived there, always scraping by for life,

Her food and roof and self kept safe by her knife.

The town didn’t care for the orphan, they didn’t want to know

And this orphan couldn’t leave, for where could she go?

The orphan met a family, who took her in from the cold.

The family loved the orphan, and welcomed her to the fold.

The orphan loved the family, and had a place to belong.

And if nothing had happened, this would be a very different song.

But the town fell to ruin, crime and despair.

And they began to hate the family, and everything seemed unfair.

The town butchered the family, to take their food and cash.

But the orphan was stronger now, and with her mind did lash.

The town is left abandoned now, its people long since gone.

And the orphan sails the seas now, singing her lonely song.

The orphan swore that day, in blood and bone and tears

That if she couldn’t live in peace, she would live in everyone’s fears.

All the fear and pain she’d felt, she would bring upon the Wastes.

And she’d never be scared again, or trust herself to fate.

For the orphan had power now, and a terrifying name.

And now it was the Wasteland, that would never be the same.

The Curse of the Black Spot

That’s it for today, Vados.

But I have one more request, gentle readers.

You see, this wasn’t any old ghost story we shared today.

It’s a bit more, and it’s called the Legend of the Black Spot.

The stories say that anyone that hears the tale of Joanna Waves, hears the tale of the Black Spot is soon cursed to answer the call of the Dread Captain.

Simply hearing the legend is enough, they say.

Like a memetic song, an ear worm that sticks with you long after story time is over.

You see, the Legend of the Black Spot is insidious.

It curse reaches into you, and reminds you of stories of old, tales to scare your friends in the dark.

It’s a bit of a memory, tied with a bit of superstition, and we all know that sometimes the thing that goes bump in the night in Dystopia Rising is very, very, real.

And sometimes, maybe the legends are true…

INFLICT BLACK SPOT!

You’ve now heard the tale and experienced this story today, through this humble blog post and ghost story, you’ve been cursed, by that very Legend of the Black Spot. And maybe there’s a chance that maybe that story you read on the internet sticks with through our next event, THE RAGE THAT FILLS HER SAILS.

At the next event, your characters may choose to take the BLACK SPOT, as you’ve now heard the Legend of the Black Spot and the story of Joanna Waves, the Strainscourge of the Seas. If you choose to OPT IN to this story mechanic, find Ed or Jonathan after opening announcements at the game, and we will provide you with a Black Spot card of your very own.

Now the choice is yours: do you RESIST, or do you SERVE?

In the words of an old crusty sea dog, “See you soon, Vados!”

Welcome to "The Rage That Fills Her Sails"

It’s Jonathan here with our first weekly blog post for the upcoming event, THE RAGE THAT FILLS HER SAILS! I could probably say the phrase “zombie pirates” and that would be enough hype for most of you, but here’s a blog post anyways!

This is leadup for our March DR:TX event written by our Overarc STs, Ed Sampson and Joel Vold. Today we will talk a bit about some story teasers, some core mechanics and concepts for the event, and a reminder of some of the benefits of pre-registration for one of our events. We will also reveal the details of one of the key mechanics of the weekend, THE CURSE OF THE BLACK SPOT.

• Our Feedback Form is up for our last event! Did something really amazing, exciting, or tragic happen at game? Was there a person who helped make your time better and welcomed you to the community? Perhaps nominate them for a Community Achievement! Tell us what you loved about game so we can make more of the content that you love and enjoy.  Conversely, if there is something you did not enjoy, or something which needs to be addressed, we would really like to hear about that too. 

• We have also featured our recent Boffer Donation Campaign on Facebook. This will be continuing into our next event so you can earn some CAPS by donating your gently used boffers! You can earn 25 caps for something we have to rebuilt, 50 caps for something that is useable right away, and 100 caps for something that is way too nice. See Shan at our next event to earn your caps and help the game replace some of our damaged boffers.

TICKETS FOR THE RAGE THAT FILLS HER SAILS are on sale now! don’t miss OUT!!!

THIS POST WILL DISCUSS A FEW LIGHT STORY SPOILERS FOR OUR NEXT EVENT, SO WE HOPE YOU ENJOY WHAT WE HAVE IN STORE!

Our artwork for this post was designed and generated by Shan Lind. The Canticle of Waves was written by Shan Lind.

Let’s talk a little bit about the story of the next event…

Awash in wind and sun was that place as sharp as whalesalt where the jagged atolls and rocks upon which dashed the warm and dark waves of the sickly Cimeran Sea... — The Canticle of the Waves

The Premise

In the weeks after the Long Night, the threat of piracy has increased throughout the San Saba. Merchant vessels of the Junkerpunks and the RRC alike are going missing along the shores of the Spoiled Coast and beyond, all the way into the interior rivers, waterways, and lakes of the San Saba. The impact on trade has been immediate but attempts to track down the source of the increased piracy has revealed only ghost stories and legends of crusty old sailors. But it is clear that the threat has escalated.

Now, patches of the inky black Dark Water have returned, and it’s brought with it a daemon of the old world.  Fierce and terrible ships now prowl the waters of the San Saba, and terrifying new Zed wade to shore, intent on more than just carnage.  The fisherman’s tale of the “Black Spot” has proven true, with people finding strange growths on their hands and dying shortly after.  And worse, the Mortis itself seems to be affected, barely returning anyone at all.

Out on the horizon, a massive Juggernaut awaits.  The largest ship ever seen on the waters, a marvel of oldcestor technology, it sits at the helm of a powerful Amaranthine Armada, choking off settlements and sacking all ships in their wake.  Cannon fire rakes the shores seemingly at random, and raiding parties sail up and down the riverways and coast, taking whatever, and whoever, they can.

Hope seems lost, but this is the San Saba.  Already, Junkerpunk captains, San Saba Republic privateers, and ships from all over the region are mobilizing to combat these new threats, and they’ve chosen Bravado as the staging point.  The choices made on the shores of our tiny town will determine who is left in the wake of the Amaranthine Armada, and who succumbs to the will of the Strainscourge of the Seas…

Amaymon would eat all the shambling and shuffling undead that would otherwise emerge from her waters, and she would in return grow even fatter on the blood of the common strain, which she was allowed one per sunrise of her own choosing forever. - The Canticle of the Waves

Nautical Nightmares

It is the nature of seafarers to be superstitious. Living and working on a ship in the middle of the real sea, much less the apocalyptic seas of Dystopia Rising, is a very dangerous job. Over time bluejackets and sailors have invented stories and rules to help them believe they could avoid terrible fates. The origins of many superstitions are lost in time, but some arose due to the natural tendency to look to the supernatural for causes of strange phenomena and to exaggerate mysterious occurrences, including in the post-apocalyptic wasteland.

Some sailors fear the dark water. The postapocalyptic biodiesel used as a fuel for ships and caravans alike is ultimately formed of carbon, compressed of dead things and decayed rot.  While most of the sea in the Spoiled Coast is covered in some kind of film of oil, it can pool in massive fields as far as the eye can see. Sometimes, this phenomenon called DARK WATER can serve as an impromptu morgue, half-remembering what life might be, releasing partially formed things that aren’t quite zed and not quite anything else. The oil slicks themselves can sometimes mimic life and drown unfortunate ships in an inky, oily blob of death.  A superstition common in the Clutch tells that “black tides in the morning are a sailor’s grim warning”.

Some sailors fear bad weather. The ravaged coastline of the Spoiled Coast and the Clutch suffers the extremes of poor weather, from radiation infused storms, oily acidic rain, or terrible hurricanes blown inland from the far sea.  Rain is a constant state at sea, and the sailors on the waterways of the San Saba are used to poor weather.  Even the most novice sailor has sailed through the worst weather imaginable, and their skills are unmatched due to a lifetime of survival in poor conditions.  This constant danger has hardened the seafaring people of the San Saba and is at the heart of their stubbornness and love of the freedom of the sea and sky.

Some sailors fear the depths below. Beneath the oilslick waves of the Spoiled Coast, light disperses entirely only a few feet beneath the surface. Any sailor that has fallen overboard has nightmares of the cold and unquenchable darkness under the surface. The horrible dark, blind eternity is so complete as to be opaque, and without visual depth. Beneath that, however, is the unspoiled salt water of the Deep.  Here, there is no sunlight - for the film of oil, some twenty feet thick, blocks it entirely. Instead, there is the low and nonspecific glow of bioluminescence, cast off by strange megafauna whose ecosystem dissolved thousands of years ago, replaced with crude oil and shadow.

Some sailors fear the dead. Every seaman has also heard stories of ghosts and paranormal activities haunting ships, especially after an unfortunate event has occurred on board. Many believe that spirits of those who have lost their lives on ships remain there for a long time. Many even make stories of their unusual experiences with ghosts and why they fear going to a particular area on the ship. In case a series of accidents or mishaps have taken place on board, it is said that the ship is cursed, and the blame is put on the spirits that are haunting the ship.

Some sailors fear zombies and raiders. What happens when a person dies at sea in a world with the Mortis Amaranthine? With no one to dream of the Gravemind, when a person dies at sea their body truly rots.  Once the body is returned close enough to shore for the Mortis to sense its presence, the Gravemind reacts with violent force to reclaim the biomass that was stolen from them.  Thus, sailors across the sea prefer to dump the dead overboard rather than risk a deadly return to the bottom of the ocean at port.  Some legends tell that those left to rot on a ship listless at sea will return as the Drowned Ones, deadly Raiders that pilot ships covered in the flesh of their victims or worse.  Regardless of the reason, keeping the dead on a vessel at sea is the worst of bad luck that a sailor can imagine.

ghost stories and legends

Imagine then, the ghost stories of a massive ship filled with the restless dead, the JUGGERNAUT, piloted by an evil spirit of the sea, JOANNA WAVES, the Strainscourge of the Sea. Some even say the anchor of the Juggernaut plunges into the depths of the Grave Mind itself. Known by Saltwise and Junkerpunks through the San Saba, Joanna Waves is a name given to the dark mistress of the evil spirits of the deep, often seen in various shapes, resting and waiting in the rigging before wild storms or shipwrecks and other disasters, always there to welcome new sailors to their watery graves. Some say she is flesh and blood, and simply harnesses the silly stories of old seadogs in her favor, but others still speak of unholy powers and darkness within her. Few have survived an encounter with the Strainscourge and all anyone really knows about her is second-hand tales of dread shared over a hooch in a damp bar near the waterfront.

Joanna Waves is superstition come to life, but sometimes if you believe in something hard enough in the San Saba, it becomes very, very, very real…

During our March event, THE RAGE THAT FILLS HER SAILS, we will be exploring some old ghost stories, legends, and a very real threat that has sailed into our town of Bravado. This is a pirate themed event, with spooky zombies, dangerous new enemies, plenty of sailing and submarine mods, and a strange malady that haunts those touched by the myth and legends of superstition.

Ed and Joel have cooked up some fun stories for this event, and we will be sharing more over the coming weeks. For now, let’s look at one of the key story mechanics of the weekend, THE CURSE OF THE BLACK SPOT.

The Mortis Amaranthine opened up around them like a billowing sheet, an unfurling sail in a sweet, blind wind, and the Black Pharaoh plunged into its blood waters like a knife. Under a sky filled with unfamiliar stars that glowed like flesh with firelight through it, the Black Pharaoh began its sluicing, plunging journey towards the nearest port of call… — The Canticle of the Waves

The CURSE OF THE Black Spot

One of the brand-new mechanics for this weekend will be THE CURSE OF THE BLACK SPOT. This is an affliction a few folks learned about on the Sunday of our last event, but it is quickly spreading. This is a new PSIONIC DISEASE, capable of spreading in strange and unusual ways to the population of Bravado.

This Keyword effect will be printed on one of our new Illustrated Item Cards, similar to other events this season and will be given to you in the form of a card with the following text and images:

The Black Spot

The Text on the Back of the Card.

Here’s the text of the Local Plot Card for those that may have trouble reading the image above:

You gain the [BLACK SPOT] Keyword while you possess this Local Plot Card.  At the start of each 12s, you must either choose to SERVE or RESIST the dread call of the Black Spot. 

SERVE - Go out of character to the Juggernaut site to become a THRALL of Joanna Waves.  After your service as an NPC, you may return this card to a Guide and lose the Keyword.

RESIST - You lose ALL Mind Points, and the 12s does not refresh your Mind.  You must keep this card until the next 12s, where you may choose to Resist or Serve again.

If you contract this disease, you’ll place the mark of the BLACK SPOT somewhere on you. We can provide makeup at Ops if you don’t have your own, or our NPCs will also have ways to represent the mark during certain mods. You can choose to keep the mark of death visible, or you can hide it from your friends, but regardless of where the curse manifests on your body it reacts to the passage of time…

At each 12s of our March event, at midnight and noon, those afflicted with the Black Spot will have a choice to make. Do they serve the wishes of the dread pirate captain Joanna Waves and join her forces to kill their friends? Or do they resist the siren call of the Juggernaut, and drain their resources to fight back against the tide of undead sailors?

If you choose to SERVE, you will report to the in-game site where the Juggernaut lies anchored, and you will be given a quick costume change and a Guide to provide you with the rules of the upcoming encounter. From there, you will temporarily become a new horde of undead THRALLS, sent to bring their victims back to serve at the feet of Joanna Waves. Once your NPC threat has been slain and dealt with, you will be free to return back to the Guide and turn in your Black Spot card, free from the terrible curse of Joanna Waves.

For a moment, at least.

If you choose to RESIST instead, you lose all of your current Mind points and no longer refresh at the 12s. This means you’ll need to rely on a meal or brew to recover your lost Mind points, spend CAPS on a Blue Plate Special, or have someone restore your Mind with entertainment or psionics. More importantly, you’ll be out of Mind for the upcoming wave of your friends as undead THRALLS of Joanna Waves.

As insult to injury, if you choose to resist, you’ll KEEP the curse of the Black Spot and you’ll have to make the same decision again at the next 12s.

Psionic Diseases

The Black Spot is perhaps the rarest form of disease in the wastes, a PSIONIC DISEASE. This kind of disease is mentioned on page 192 in the DR Core Book. While more mundane diseases like Bad Brain or the Necrophage can ravage the unwary via infection, these types of diseases can spread in unique ways that evade common resistances.

The Black Spot is a unique threat, as it is not spread via bacteria or virus, but instead by the act of psionic superstition. Common resistances, like the Mutant Strain advantage or equipment like the Helscape Deathmask won’t stop you from gaining the mark of the Black Spot. Once you’ve heard of the LEGEND OF THE BLACK SPOT, it’s already too late.

There’s two primary ways to “catch” this strange curse:

• Inflict Disease (Threat Skill): If one of the minions of the Strainscourge of the Seas inflicts their insidious curse on you, you’ll gain the keyword [Black Spot], and be bound in service once more. Certain minions will be able to INFLICT DISEASE as part of their attacks, and it will be as part of a Cannibalize call. If you are knocked into Bleed Out by Joanna Wave’s army of undead, you could be vulnerable to the Curse of the Black Spot.

• Superstition & Stories: Ghost stories have an insidious power in the San Saba, especially while the Juggernaut is nearby. If you partake in the telling of the Legend of the Black Spot, or if you simply HEAR the tale of woe told by a spooky old seadog, you could be inflicted with the Curse of the Black Spot. Certain enemies and even LCs may be able to spread this disease keyword through the power of memetic influence, affecting everyone in earshot with a By My Voice call. Be warned — those campfire tales have suddenly grown dangerous!

Lastly, this affliction will be OPT IN as well. If you think your character has heard the Legend of the Black Spot told on a dark and stormy night, then you can simply come to Ops and receive the Curse of the Black Spot card. You can simply choose to be marked by the disease, even from the start of the game.

Clearly, this is a problem for Bravado, but I think it’s one that will be fun and rewarding.

I hope that you choose to engage with the CURSE OF THE BLACK SPOT. There will be ways to research the cause of this strange disease, ways to seek out a cure, and ways to fight back against the dread pirate Joanna Waves. The Black Spot is simply a herald of her arrival, but it’s not the only threat you’ll face in March.

Remember, you will always be able to opt out of mechanics like this by using the OK Check-In System in game. Just thumbs down the encounter and turn in your BLACK SPOT card to a Guide.

This is the blind and screaming moment we have dreamt our most beteous nights to, siblings mine. Venerated are we, and is our pursuit, by the demons and men who have died and lived before and behind us. It is in these deep tissues that we will meet the old death of man, and the god that death begot. - The Canticle of the Waves

wrap up

That’s it today Vados! We are excited to tell a story of zombie pirates and curses, and I hope you are excited to attend our next event THE RAGE THAT FILLS HER SAILS! Make sure to get your tickets in advance, so you can save time at the door getting your character sheet. Save that time to tell spooky ghost stories, and maybe even the LEGEND OF THE BLACK SPOT…

Next week, we will delve a bit more into this specific ghost story of the BLACK SPOT that some of you might have heard, and a bit more into the Characters of Note for this weekend.

I’ll leave you with some poetry from the Canticle of the Waves, a Final Knight text written by our own Shan Lind, that has some illuminating tales within…

"By the Bone and by the Brack, 

Bear the Crown both Fore and Back, 

Neath the Waters of the Grave, 

In the Swelling Deadman’s Waves, 

Seek the Whale who Was a Man, 

Pursue Demon Leviathan.

Amass the Alexandrian, 

Relics Left of Fallen Lands. 

Kill the Whale and Keep the Gold, 

Buried ‘neath this old Atoll. 

Keep it Secret all your Life,

And with your Ivory Treasure die. 

And as a Lich go into Death, 

Pursue Demon with Corpses’s Breath. 

Hunt him through the Grave until, 

At last Leviathan is killed. "

— The Canticle of the Waves

Crisis of Faith: Rules You Should Know

It’s Jonathan here again with another Rules Ramble! Each week, I’ll introduce a topic that will be important in an upcoming game, explain some new mechanic or system for DR:TX, or discuss a particular rule from the DR Corebook. In each ramble, I’ll focus on explaining that topic in more detail than the book alone can provide and help provide one place to reference all the various errata or rulings that might be relevant. Sometimes I’ll even drop a few Story Teasers or provide a summary of the last game in a Game Recap.

As we get ready for our next event this weekend, CRISIS OF FAITH, I'm going to be covering a bit about Rules You Should Know. We have a number of special things happening during this game, and we want to make sure you have a head start on any particular mechanics to watch out for. This week, we are going to cover some Characters of Note you will see in play, some recent local Rules Changes (including a change to LIT Inventory for live events), and some key Threat mechanics like the Benediction of the Reborn, Faithful Strike, and Test of Faith.

TICKETS ARE still on sale at the door starting at 5pm on Friday! DON’T MISS OUT ON THE NEXT DR:TX EVENT!

We’ve shared some interesting teasers this week, including a few announcements of note:

• The Girl Scouts of Central Texas will be present at our February event to sell cookies! You’ll find our favorite cookie raiders by the Depot on Friday from 4p-7p and on Sunday 12p-2p. This is a great way to support Camp Kachina and the scouts who use it. You can pre-order here (or place an order for delivery if you aren’t able to make it to game):

  • Cookie Preorders!

• Heather Halstead and Stephanie Patrick-Munoz did an excellent teaser video highlighting one of the villains we will talk about today. You can find the video below:

  • Pfilomena’s Return

• We had a Wastelander article release this week, with a bit of news from Essex!

  • Essex in Lockdown!

Photo credits in this post are from Max Pohlmeier, Lainey Weiss, Sydney Betzina, and Noah Goodman.

Notable Rules Changes and errata

There’s been a few updates at the National level since the last time we had a live event. Let’s cover a few of the notable changes:

LIT Inventory 2.0

DR National has updated the rules for how you can interact with your LIT inventory at a live event. This breaks down into three big changes, and all took effect as of January 1st, 2023. That means this will be the first live event under these new changes. The link above will take you to the blog post they released on December 20th, 2022.

Here’s the specifics:

• All items that were expired were removed from LIT inventory. This was mostly stuff like Meals or Legacy Buy List items (Lock Poppers, and stuff that changed last year) that were still out there. Most of y’all weren’t affected by this.

• All items that didn’t have an expiration date in LIT (like Herbs, equipment, etc) will now be entered with a proper expiration date, and will automatically expire if left in your inventory past that expiration date. This just means those herbs sitting in your LIT for three years will finally expire.

• Chapters should no longer be adding items to LIT at live events, barring extenuating circumstances.

What does that mean for our next game?

You can WITHDRAW items from your LIT, but we can’t ADD new items into your LIT inventory.

This change means we will no longer be issuing the LIT Trade Sheets for character to character transfers during check in. If you need to trade with someone, you’ll need to first remove the items from your LIT inventory, then physically give them the item card for that item.

You’ll still have limited access to remove items from your LIT inventory at the Post Office, but you should not be removing more than 10 total item cards each event. If you still have a large amount of items past this, send us an email at info@dystopiarisingtx.com so we can work out a way to get your cards to you.

If you have questions on this policy, please let either Shan or I know. We want to make the transition away from LIT as seamless as possible, but we want to let you have a reasonable amount of time to withdraw these items while we comply with National’s new changes.

National Blueprint Change log

Periodically, National updates certain Blueprints with changes. We had an update on 1/4/23 with a change to stop an exploit with a popular cooking blueprint. I also keep a list of all the Updated Blueprints on our DR:TX page, in case you want to makes you have all the latest updated dates on your collection of blueprints.

• “Glitter Gulch Prep Station: A character utilizing the Culinary skill in the area this augment has been set up in to create a meal may be assisted by another character who has at least Basic Culinary. The time required for crafting is reduced to half, and the Mind and Resolve costs of creating the meal can be split between the two characters however they wish. Both characters must abide by the rules regarding crafting. Any PFA benefits utilized during crafting must be provided by the primary crafter.”

National Errata & FAQ

You can browse a list of major changes to the Corebook at the link above. One common sense change was added here since our last game:

• “Blueprints: Copying a blueprint requires Active Roleplay and Full-Engagement.”

• This just means you can’t use other Skills while copying a Blueprint, and you can be interrupted while duplicating a blueprint. This has been how most folks have already done this, but now it’s officially on the FAQ page.

San Saba Socials

We had one minor update to one of the custom Proficient Society Membership items in DR:TX. The San Saba Republic has had to place a limit on their Open Market, thanks to some clever interactions from our players.

• The Open Market San Saba Social now has a limit of 25 Herb or Produce traded per character.

You’ll still be able to trade Herb for Brass at a decent rate, but you’ll be limited to numbers that are attainable in a live event.

characters of Note: CRISIS OF FAITH

This weekend, you’ll encounter several new faces in town, probably trying to convert you to the Cult of the Reborn one way or another. Each of these Face NPC characters will be in town this weekend and they will have more information about their respective causes during the CRISIS OF FAITH. We’ve mentioned a few of these folks in previous blogs, but let’s make sure you have the basics of what to expect:

Sister Greywand, the Prophet Reborn

Sister Greywand is a Full Dead whose body has become more mummified rather than freshly decaying. She still wears the ragged clothes that she “woke up” in, patched and repaired through the years and she wears a veil across her face to conceal the worst parts of the decay. Through her new title as the Prophet Reborn, she leads the recently renamed Cult of the Reborn. While she is not much of a physical threat in her own right, she is always surrounded by an entourage of fanatical devotees to whom she is psionically linked.

It was shortly after the violence surrounding the Dead Man’s Hand Tournament that Sister Greywand first showed up in Essex security reports. She was frequently spotted in the House of Books, pouring over religious tracts and collecting as many accounts of the life and teachings of Pfilomena as possible. While her contributions to organizing the varying apocrypha of the cult into a cohesive history were appreciated, initially her position within leadership was minimal and other scholars noted her to be kind but distant, often lost in the intense thoughts and the echoed memories that are known to plague her Strain. 

Ever since the Monolith erupted forth over one year ago, the cult, ever seeking signs from their Lost Prophet, started looking closer at Bravado. A schism began to form in the leadership of the cult, with a growing number of fanatical devotees stating that the events in Bravado were a sign from Pfilomena of the long-awaited end-times, while the main body of faithful, cleaving still to Pfilomena’s surviving son, Caleb Lovelace, took a more tempered approach to understanding the message being sent. Greywand kept sequestered in the House of Books, however she sent some of her protege’s out with Caleb, seeking knowledge about the events that had unfolded in the past and were anticipated to come.

The tipping point came in the lead up to the Archon’s anticipated return. As events unfolded just as the Midnight Orrery foretold, Sister Greywand presented an ambitious claim; she now knew the hour and the form that the Great Miracle would take. According to her new revelation, within the myriad echoes of her mind rests the imprint of Pfilomena Lovelace, and through her the Prophet is Reborn. When the ensuing power struggle settled down Caleb, initially opposed to the claim, was in agreement with her claim and Greywand now had the reins.

Sister Greywand seeks to create a unified chorus of Faithful voices heralding their singular intent for the Fountainhead’s second coming- rather than the cacophony of desires that greeted it at its birth. To achieve this, discordant voices of any person who acts counter to the "true faith" must be brought in tune, or made silent.

Caleb, the Mad Prophet of Cutthroat Alley

Caleb Lovelace is the son of Pfilomena Lovelace, the deceased leader of the Church of the Tiny God and, until recently, her reluctant, de facto successor. A gangly teenager with lank red hair that wears rags wrapped around his entire body save for the crown of his head and his hands.

The bandages on his face hide a disfiguring crystalline growth that hampers his vision and make him sensitive to radio waves and other signals. He claims to hear screams through the crystal and is a potent psion. Caleb is known to brave the most dangerous corners of Essex looking for people that he can help, and wanders Cutthroat Alley rambling about the dead voices of the Fountainhead, through lips the color of poison.

While initially disenchanted with the faith following his mother’s death, his kinship to her drew her despondent faithful to seek his comfort and guidance. His first forays into Bravado were out of curiosity at the similarities between the events of the Monolith and that of the Fountainhead, seeking the patterns and signs Pfilomena always spoke of, but he was opposed to the radical new faction within the church claiming that the Monolith was a portent of Pfilomena's return. His general personality is peaceful, kind and likable, but he has shown he is also capable of great passion and even violence, particularly where faith and the plight of Psions is involved.

Caleb’s sudden support of Sister Greywand has been instrumental in the Cult of the Reborn solidifying their message and reaching new voices in Essex, and he is as equally fervent about the prophecies and faith of the Cult as the new Prophet Reborn.

Gabriel, THE INQUISITOR

In a response to the recent unrest caused by the Cult of the Reborn, the RRC and the San Saba Board has opened a new contract with the Red Ledger to deal with the threat. The Red Ledger is something of an expert on the Cult, as they first gained prominence during the Dead Man’s Hand Tournament and defended Essex against the zealots. Gustav Glasseyes, the leader of the Red Ledger, has personally assigned one of his best Strikers to deal with these cultists in the way they know best — showing them the power of incredible violence.

The man known as Gabriel is a member of the Fallow Hope who has married his position in the church to his business with the Red Ledger. He claims the title of Inquisitor and is a master of a firearm and wielding his faith as a weapon. The Inquisitor is skilled at interrogation and hunting the Reborn cultists, no matter where they may hide or who they pretend to be. The Red Ledger attracts warrior monks and ascetics to their zealous cause of constant self-improvement and readiness, and Gabriel is no different. Seeing himself as one of the last Watchers of the Crossroad, he believes he is the last line of defense from another Fall.

Gabriel was at the fall of Temple Station during the Hiway War and is known to be fierce in his protection of the faithful and a former colleague of Reckoner-General Rampart of the Grave Council. With the disappearance of Colonel Sabbath Jacinto from Essex, the Inquisitor of the Red Ledger has taken the new Board contract as a personal crusade to root out the heresy of the Cult of the Reborn and rip it out at its roots. The cultists have been marked for their sins, and Gabriel and those that follow him will not rest until the sun can rise upon a wasteland safe from their machinations and misery.

Threat Skills of Note: CRISIS OF FAITH

The Cult of the Reborn will be a major threat of the weekend, and they are bringing a few new tools of the trade with them to aid them in their war of faith.

We covered the Benediction of the Reborn in our first blog post, but it’s worth repeating here:

• BENEDICTION OF THE REBORN (Threat Skill)

  • The NPC spends 10 seconds roleplaying the ritual conversion and then gives a Subdued or willing target the REBORN or HERETIC keyword.  Call “Benediction of the Reborn: Inflict [REBORN/HERETIC] Keyword, Red Star Immune”.

  • Characters Baptized into a Faith may spend 1 Resolve to declare “No Effect!”

  • If a character is Faithless or cannot spend Resolve, they cannot resist.

  • Characters of the Red Star Strain are IMMUNE to this Skill and it has no effect.

  • Keywords remain on the victim until specifically removed by another plot effect.

Like I mentioned in my blog post, this is functionally just a new version of attack monsters will use on you when you get taken down in combat. If you get knocked into Bleed Out or otherwise Subdued, they will use this Skill to give you a new Keyword. Make sure you save an Injectable to get yourself out of a tough situation!

Most of the Cultists you’ll encounter this weekend will have some ability to perform Faithful Anomaly Skills (and will also be vulnerable to Aberrant Bane!). This means there are a few particular common Faithful Skills worth mentioning here:

• proficient faithful patterns

  Countered by Basic Mental Endurance. This skill is delivered via a Psionic Attack, and the NPC this weekend will call out “Psionic: Suggestion, Declare your Faith and Devotion: Are you Heretic or Reborn?” The Cult of the Reborn will use this to question if you have the HERETIC or REBORN keywords with this Skill, so it might be a good idea to save some Mind to resist the attack if you are trying to keep a certain allegiance a secret…

• Basic Faithful Spirit & Faithful Vessel

  These Skills are normally used to buff a member of your faith. Faithful Spirit makes a target immune to next Mangle or Blinding, while Faithful Vessel will make the target immune to next Break Armor. If you throw an attack against a Cultist that is protected by one of these effects, the power of their faith will let them resist the FIRST use of these Skills. The Cultist will answer with “No Effect!” to let you know the attack failed.

• Proficient Biogenetics

  Countered by Basic Mental Endurance. By engaging in a Psionic Attack, the user can cause the target to be knocked Unconscious (p. 108). They will call “Psionic: Unconscious” after using this skill, but it does not work on zombies and most forms of Undead. Remember, while you are Unconscious you cannot use any skills, you are unable to move on your own, and can’t resist attacks like the Benediction of the Reborn. You can awaken someone from this state by spending 30 seconds of Active Role Play waking them, otherwise they are out for 10 minutes!

• Proficient Faithful Vessel

  Countered by Basic Mental Endurance. By engaging in a Psionic Attack, the user can cause the target to become inundated with a debilitating volume of hallucinations centered around the themes of a crisis of faith (get it?) and otherworldly wrath for 1 minute, making the Target incapable of using ANY Anomaly skills. To use this skill, the NPC will call “Psionic: 1 minute no Anomalies!”

Next, let’s consider a few unique Threat Skills that you might hear from our white-robed Cultists this weekend:

• Terror (Threat Skill)

  Countered by Basic Mental Endurance. Often delivered as an area or Line of Sight effect, those affected by Terror are overcome by an urge to flee from the source of it. For 30 seconds, they must attempt to flee from the presence of the source of Terror, regardless of (IG) safety. If they cannot for some reason escape, they will cower as best as possible. The target may still defend themselves, but fleeing will always be a priority when possible. Effects and items that give immunity to Fear do not give immunity to Terror unless noted otherwise.

• Faithful Strike (New Threat Skill)

  Countered by Avoid. This is the basic offensive attack the Cultists will use against their enemies. This is a Strike, so it can be Avoided, or simply blocked with a shield. The NPC will call “10 damage, Heretic Bane!” after a successful hit. If you have the HERETIC keyword, you will take DOUBLE damage from this attack.

• Test of Faith (New Threat Skill)

  Countered by Basic Mental Endurance. A powerful attack used by the leaders of the Cult of the Reborn, this will allow the Cult to quickly identify their enemies in the midst of a crowd. The Cultist will call “Area of Effect: All Heretics, Agony!”. Agony is an ability that causes intense physical and/or mental pain in the character affected, making it difficult if not impossible to act through the torment. This effect normally lasts 10 seconds if not otherwise specified, and during that time, the character cannot use Skills or items but can move at a slow pace and defend themselves. Agony Interrupts skills being used when it is called. 

• Reborn Strike (New Threat Skill)

  Countered by Basic Mental Endurance. The Cult of the Reborn can wear down their foes and weaken their ability to resist the powerful Benediction of the Reborn. This dangerous attack will be delivered by a Psionic Attack or touch, and the NPC will call “Psionic: Heretics lose 1 Resolve! Red Star Immune!”. If you do not resist this ability, you immediately lose 1 Resolve, which could cause a Fracture if you hit zero. Since you need to spend Resolve to resist their conversion, this pushes you one step closer to being marked as part of the Cult. Watch out!

• Shield of Faith (New Threat Skill)

  Certain powerful members of the Cult of the Reborn can force their way through a crowd by sheer force of will. When this skill is used, anyone nearby will be repulsed away from them with a Knockback effect similar to the effects of Master Biogenetics. The NPC will call “AOE: Shield of Faith, None May Approach!”. If you are near the NPC, you must leave their immediate area and you may not re-enter as long as they keep their hand raised in a fist. There may be ways to overcome this protection, but you’ll have to find out more in game.

Wrap Up

That’s it for today Vados! We still have a few more surprises in store this week, and we can’t wait to see you this weekend! Steph and Chase have put a lot of hard work into crafting the story this weekend, and I hope you find a way to survive your CRISIS OF FAITH!

See you soon Vados!

Story Recap: Imprint by Design

Good morning! It’s Jonathan here with a STORY RECAP for the November 2022 event, IMPRINT BY DESIGN ®. 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, sleeping, or simply were not able to attend the game. These are major points of continuity that might be important throughout the season, and I hope this will help with the FOMO feels or answer some questions you had about what happened.

Photo credits in this post are from Max Pohlmeier, Lainey Weiss, Francine Ilac, Crystal Louise Remy, and Noah Goodman.

This was our second ST Overarc of the season, led by the very talented Brett Pittman. This was a smaller, more intimate event coming off the gargantuan story of the National Event the month previous. The focus of this event was on Roleplay and allowed players to explore the miracle of a STRAIN CHANGE. This event was kicked off by a questionnaire that players could fill out to opt into the dramatic changes to their character, but players that showed up later were able to participate as well. We also teased a bit of this story at the end of our National Event when the main NPC of this game showed up on Sunday to talk about some exciting new research.

The lead-up to this event also featured a deep dive into a few mechanics:

• The Strain change process required players to undergo a Roleplay Burden, a unique DR:TX rule found on our Local Mechanics page. We introduced this concept during VALLEY OF FEAR, but this was a different take on a similar mechanic.

• We also dug into the rules for Lineages and Strains in a Rules Ramble before the event.

You can also find our other game recaps from this season here:

• Season 4, Episode 1: THE VALLEY OF FEAR

• Season 4, Episode 2: PYROCLASM

So once you’ve been caught up, let’s refresh our memories about the premise behind the event…

Premise of Imprint By Design ®

Grandfather Nichols has breathed his last, and that black heart pumped out the last of his ichor-like vitality upon the shores of Lake Bravado.  But in the wake of his final death, the impact of his Grand Finale is still being felt across the San Saba.  Dr. I.E. Esgrove, a visitor to Bravado that was shocked by the ravages of the Necrophage, has been spurred to pursue funding from one Felicity Redfield regarding a new revelation.  Esgrove has found the waste of the Necrophage and its cure clinging to the Infection of individuals across the San Saba, and realized the new potential it can offer for change and restoration.

With the new blessing of the RRC, Dr. Esgrove has been working around the clock delving deep into the Facility underneath Bravado to fuel their machine, a device he calls the T.I.T.A.N Processor.  Escrow has declared the next trade to be the great unveiling of his creation, and there is a call out to the wastes for the brightest, driven, and best – gearheads, scientists, and tinkerers alike to come and join in the culmination.  Miss Felicity Redfield has even graciously volunteered to display her trust in Bravado and Esgrove by being the first test subject.  

The T.I.T.A.N. Processor has been set up on the edge of the Facility, just a short trek from Downtown Bravado, for all to come see the flash of great brilliance when the switches are thrown.  Come one, come all, to witness a new miracle of science!

An Exodus from Waking

Over the past several months, the capital of Waking Prime has been experiencing problems that are either catastrophic or very minor irritations depending on which person you talk to. This floating city is a wonder of oldcestor technology, kept afloat by the mysterious Capacity Engine and the constant tinkering of the RRC’s brightest minds. While some of the muckrakers and opponents of the opulence of the floating city have suggested that they are simply delaying an inevitable doom, others still have sought out additional resources and support for aiding the ailing airship’s engines.

Near the end of the Burning Season, a sudden loss of altitude caused by a failed surface engine caused the city to tilt off course and damaged several key structures built on top of the capital ship. When those buildings were damaged, it inspired several scientists in the city to either pursue a career in a safer environment, or perhaps even some were left go from contracts as funding dried up. Regardless of the truth of the danger to Waking, none can deny that the population of the city continues to shrink as the challenges to the city grow more dire.

One such brilliant mind that had left the city of Waking Prime to seek out his prospects elsewhere was a scientist by the name of I.E. Esgrove. When the city’s problems began, it activated a clause in his contract with Waking and left him in Bravado at the end of the Necrophage crisis as a free agent. He had been hired on originally as part of Research & Development, a sub-sect of the RRC, and had been a man of science since he was old enough to understand it.

Esgrove saw the devastation wrought at the hands of Nichols and vowed to help, being rapidly recruited by Felicity Redfield, the CEO of the RRC. The scientists’ specialty was in math, advanced harmonics, and electrical manipulation of radiation. He was a brilliant man, but he was driven to help others in a way he had been unable to during his tenure in Waking. After discovering that Bravado seemed to be ground zero for Nichol’s machinations and the site of his last stand, he realized he needed a direct connection with the people of the town to continue his research.

Shortly before Esgrove’s exodus from Waking, he had stumbled into a unique side effect of the deadly Necrophage disease that had been spread in the past few weeks. Each of those affected by the disease had a unique marker in their blood and biomass that had mutated the very building blocks of their IMPRINT into a state of instability. While radiation often provoked mutations in Strains, this unstable condition could be manipulated with the right application of science and electricity. The very blueprint of what made a Strain a Strain had become… mutable.

A Mutated Imprint

While this new condition of IMPRINT DISSONANCE might eventually be repaired over time, the symptoms of the condition were spreading. Some of the earliest affected had started reporting strange quirks of behavior and temporary mutations that resembled those of other Strains. A pacifist Unborn might suddenly seem to distance themselves from their Gravemind worship and fall into a rage of the Tainted strain. A rambunctious Diesel Jock might suddenly manifest the signs of an Accensorite accension, or a Baywalker might find themselves suddenly glowing red as if they were an Iron. A friendly Remnant might suddenly grow fangs and begin to thirst for the blood of the living, or a Pureblood might suddenly have become the black sheep of the family when they gained the rot of a Retrograde.

Like oldcestor diseases before it, it seemed like the Necrophage would have serious long term effects for some of its victims, but it also presented a unique opportunity. If the Imprint itself was mutable, then it might be possible to realize one of Esgrove’s dreams — the mutation of a Strain into a completely different Strain.

There had some limited successes before, to be fair. Juliet Butcher, the Butcher of Killhouse, had successfully pioneered a process she called Project Lurid to convert a strain into an Unstable. She had performed the procedure on herself, but she had also transmogrified the psychotic killer known as Eyeless Jack from his former Quiet Folk strain. However, while the Butcher’s process seemed to embrace the chaotic instability to force someone into a permanent Unstable mutation, it seemed to work only one way. A scientist from Hayven named Mica Snow had also pioneered a procedure to “cure” Bad Brain by converting a victim into what became known more commonly as the Tainted. Like the Butcher’s process, this was also limited to a one-way change.

There had of course been the strangeness from after the Hiway War when a number of folks had spontaneously changed their Strains, but that was widely considered to be part of the instability that had occurred when the long dead returned to life and the Grave Mind seemed to regurgitate those that had been lost. However, this phenomenon was short-lived and ended almost 4 years ago and no one had successfully replicated what had happened.

The taint of the Necrophage could be a catalyst that could be used to achieve the unthinkable, but it would need a significant power source to enact Esgrove’s experiment.

The TITAN Processor

Esgrove’s masterpiece was a massive machine filled with wires, electrodes, aether tubing, capacitors, and transformer-generators. Dubbed the TITAN Processor, Esgrove claimed this machine was capable of the Transfer of Imprint, Thoughts, And Neuropathways between two patients. By the use of carefully targeted blasts of radiation, alteration of harmonic frequencies, and the unique instability of the Imprint created by the Necrophage, Esgrove was sure he could create a stable Strain change thanks to his research. The machine could even effectively “copy” the unique signatures of one person to another, provided both hosts were willing and similar enough in Strain and Lineage. If someone had transformed into a different Strain, it would be capable of returning them to their original Strain or stabilizing the Imprint to make their new Strain permanent.

While he had been able to smuggle most of the resources out of Waking with his new benefactor’s help, one thing that Felicity could not help Esgrove immediately obtain was a stable power supply. While the city of Waking was a technological marvel in itself, the presence of the lightning storm generators and the Capacity Engine meant that scientists never wanted for lack of electricity or power for projects. In order to power the TITAN Processor, they would need a replacement for the extreme power demands of the conversion process.

Felicity Redfield once again came through with a solution. Underneath the town of Bravado lurked a massive oldcestor complex, known to some as C.R.A.D.L.E. but to most simply as the “Facility” — a source of metal, wiring, and artifacts that drove delvers and fortune seekers to the tiny town off the Oxline. The deepest parts of the facility sometimes still held dormant devices that brimmed with power, and they could tap into the Facility itself as a source for the TITAN Processor. With Felicity’s help and the RRC’s resources, they would be able to complete the first test of the device.

Calling his fellow scientists of R&D and the brightest minds of the San Saba to Bravado, Esgrove hoped to show off the power of his new device and provide a tangible way for the citizens of the area to recover from the Imprint-warping effects of the Necrophage. For once, he would be able to do some good with his creations, and help those that were either suffering from a lost Strain or those who sought a change to what they desired to become.

the First Test

Early Friday evening, I.E. Esgrove arrived back in Bravado with the first candidate of the TITAN Process, the CEO of the Railroad Conglomerate: Felicity Redfield. As part of her agreement to fund Esgrove’s project, Felicity was to be the first focus of the new experiment. A sitting board member on the San Saba Board and the executive leader of the RRC being willing to be a guinea pig was a major vote of confidence in Esgrove’s project.

As Esgrove finished the last-minute calculations, Felicity assured those gathered to watch the experiment of her confidence in the TITAN Process and how they would use the machine to help those that needed it. The Strain changes were still spreading, and more townsfolk were exhibiting changes. For some, Strain was a part of their identity, and they were eager to return back to the form they were most comfortable in. Some embraced the change, hoping that the TITAN Process could help them become this new form of what they were meant to be. And others still were still on the fence, clearly not completely satisfied with the change but reluctant to make such a big decision without time and contemplation.

Esgrove had large cables and wiring running into an exposed hatch that led into one of the sub-levels of the Facility near the Maw. According to Felicity, the area was a redundant system that could be used to power the device and it should have no ill effect on the town. While most of the Facility lacked power, those isolated pockets that retained some form of energy could be tapped into with the RRC’s patented electrical converters. Lights lit up the night around the TITAN Processor, makeshift engines whirred to life, and fluid processors bubbled with kinetic energy as the machine was turned towards its first test.

Felicity Redfield stepped into one of the Titan chambers, eager to prove her investment successful, trusting that she was perfect as is and needed no major changes from the device. Instead, for this first test they would just be solidifying her Imprint and preventing the decay that was affecting other Strains. If this worked, they could proceed to a more robust plan of altering Strains on a purposeful and profitable basis. It could allow them to sell an elective strain change to any that wanted to invest in the project, offering a future where they could truly offer an Imprint by Design ® service.

With a click and a hum, the machine was spun up, and the TITAN Process began.

Sweat broke out on Esgrove’s face as a sudden strange ticking and beeping came from the device. Smoke poured from the machine as he frantically moved levers and knobs across his device from within his control booth. As he calibrated and adjusted the machine in the way that only he had mastered, it was clear something was wrong.

A failed Experiment

Esgrove began a system shutdown, hoping that Felicity had not been injured or even killed by the device. The TITAN Processor screeched and hissed as if complaining about the aborted procedure, lights flaring and sirens buzzing in protest. Esgrove moved with a fever, trying his best to contain the sudden release of energy from the device. The process had been halted, but the TITAN machine had stored too much power to stop so abruptly. With a reluctant switch, he forced the power flow back into the Facility to avoid a critical failure.

The emergency protocols locked into place, the great whirring sounds of the TITAN Processor slowed and came to a jarring halt. With a giant blast of steam and the peculiar buzzing in the night of ionized air escaping from vents, the chamber opened once more.

Felicity emerged cautiously, still unaware of the problems that Esgrove was trying to contain. As she asked for a mirror, she was horrified. Instead of the face she expected to see in the mirror, she had been transformed. Felicity now had strange psionic growths emerging from all over her body. A ridge of crystals across her face dimly glowed in the moonlight, and at any place where the skin was tougher like a knee or elbow had suddenly grew crystalline formations. However, despite the dramatic and obvious change, she was still alive!

After a quick check over by Esgrove with the help of the town’s doctors, it became clear that while something had changed, she had survived a dose of lethal radiation that should have killed her. The reason why Felicity was still alive was surprising to most of the town — Felicity was not a Pureblood as folks had assumed, but she was secretly a Remnant!

Had the machine worked as intended during the abrupt stop, Esgrove explained, it would have likely melted her to a pool of biomass and radioactive sludge. The lie that Felicity had maintained for so long had worked in her favor. Her bright red curly hair was simply a wig, and carefully concealed beneath her finery she normally had rough patches of skin and the scaly hide of the Mutant lineage. Felicity had always wanted to be able to claim the birthright of the Elitariats and be accepted amongst her peers in the RRC and Waking, and something as simple as being the wrong Strain wasn’t something that would prevent her from her rise to power in the RRC.

The device had worked, but it had supercharged her Remnant strain. The new mutations were clearly a side effect of the math of the process being unbalanced and incomplete, but in some ways, it was still a successful result. Felicity had stayed a Remnant. Esgrove would need to run some more tests, but it should still be possible to successfully change the Strain of someone suffering from the strange Imprint Dissonance. Despite the first test failing, it was simply a matter of balancing the equation and discovering the right combination of factors to control the TITAN process.

But a sudden rumble beneath their feet brought an end to the relief of Felicity’s survival…

THE WEEPING

It had been quiet so far in the evening, almost eerily so. Few zed and raiders had made it past patrols, and it seemed as if the night was holding its breath for something to happen. The town’s population was focused on the reveal of Esgrove’s machine, so it was immediately obvious that something was wrong so close to the Maw.

A rumble under the ground grew and grew as it built into an earthquake. The ground rent open in places, and in some holes were opened up into places deeper underground. The ionic charge in the air sparked in the night, resembling a thunderstorm building as ball lightning danced across the sky. Areas near the lake collapsed into dangerous quicksand pits, and chasms opened up across the town.

The power rerouted back into the Facility had done something. Some previously unknown section of the Facility must have been affected by the power draw of the TITAN Processor. And deep in the tunnels below Bravado, something answered.

The town had long dealt with the peculiar undead threats of the Facility. Previous explorers had discovered several rooms full of Semper Mort patients, dead in cryogenic tubes and rotting in their prisons separated from the Grave Mind. This half-death led to the things known as BLOOD GHASTS becoming a threat. If the tubes were broken, the things that escaped resembled undead Semper Morts with a hunger for flesh borne of a millennium of starvation. They were dangerous enough enemies, but their numbers were rarely more than a handful released at once.

But now an earthquake inside the Facility had changed all that.

Bloodghasts could feed on survivors and mutate at an accelerated rate, advancing into more and more dangerous forms of the undead. The Bloodghasts had always been unstable creatures, and even the dangerous Bloodghast Alphas were nothing compared to a new threat that emerged from below - the WEEPING.

The first encounters with the Weeping happened as a swarm of the Bloodghasts escaped from a cavernous rent in the group in the forest. First named for the black ichor dripping from their eyes that appeared to be hideous tears, the Weeping were dangerous. Somehow impacted by the radiation of the TITAN Processor, the creatures had evolved even past what was thought possible for a Bloodghast, but they were just as feral, vicious, and HUNGRY. They had become stronger, smarter, more deadly, and possessed new and dangerous abilities to cause immense pain and agony in a target with a strike or to even hyper adapt a defense to those that tried to kill them.

The Weeping would adapt to whatever threat they faced, growing rock-like scales in a moment to resist the crushing blow of a hammer, bone-like plating that reflected bullets, or strange crystalline growths that resisted the strongest psionic flame. The adaptation was quick and rendered them nearly immune to repeated forms of the same attacks. A clever survivor took advantage of the response to make one of the Weeping immune to his gunfire while his friends hacked it to pieces up close.

It was possible to kill the Weeping, but one shuddered to think of a horde of the creatures. It took an entire organized group of the Fallow Hope to put down one of the creatures, much less an entire wave of the things. Whatever was causing this new form of Bloodghast to evolve in the depths of the Facility needed to be dealt with quickly.

Restless Dreams

After a harrowing night evading attacks from Bloodghasts and the Weeping, some of the Strain changes were worsening. The mutation was evolving at a rapid pace for some, and the changes were becoming more dangerous. A person might suddenly mutate through multiple Accensorite ascensions, or the hunger for meat might drive a new Lascarian to kill. Without a lifetime of living as that Strain, minor inconveniences that others had learned to live with became crippling hindrances in the newly changed.

Esgrove returned in the morning, haggard and restless, having spent the previous night trying to understand the mistakes that had been made the night before. He was full of ideas and looking for research assistants to help him fix the TITAN Processor, hoping to bring some relief to those that were undergoing the growing pains of their new Strain. With their help, they could research new equations to balance the chemical mutations of the machine and restore functionality to the process.

The TITAN machine was built around two large chambers, originally powered by a tap into the primary power systems of the Facility. Esgrove’s vision was that the first chamber would collect data from the background radiation of the world to offer a clear and untainted blueprint of that subject. From there, they could apply that template to a subject in the second chamber to force a similar mutation to match, or to stabilize the Imprint in the subject back to its original form.

When Esgrove had performed the procedure on Felicity, they had done so without a donor on the other end, so the effect on her Imprint had been random and not deliberate. If the equation was balanced, it might be possible to predict and manipulate how that mutation of the Imprint resolved. With these variables uncovered, they would simply need to account for the various specific quirks of the Imprint in various subjects of all Strains. Simple blood tests and math could help isolate these genetic differences between the Strains so they could adapt the compounds used in the machine to match.

In addition to finding a new equation for his process, Esgrove identified a way to safely power the machine by using subsystems in the Facility instead. The first attempt had attempted to tap into a main line, and it overloaded the process or perhaps whatever system it had been connected to. The recent earthquakes and release of the Weeping were likely related to that system, so they could not risk further damage by using the same source of power as before.

However, the surge of energy from the machine had activated new mechanical readouts and gauges that had not worked for generations and opened doors and chambers that had yet to be explored. A map of sorts was now lit within one of the hub rooms of the facility, offering new insight into how the Facility was organized. They now had more information into the mysterious function of the Facility than they had ever had before, and Felicity’s delvers were already planning eager expeditions into newly unlocked tunnels.

Esgrove’s theory was that if they could tap into a smaller system instead, they could drain the batteries of that system and keep the process contained. It would disable the subsystem they used, but it would provide enough power to keep the TITAN Processor active for hours at a time. With some coordination and a bit of luck, they could process dozens of patients at once and offer a cure to the Imprint Dissonance plaguing the town.

The RRC scientist had located eight sub systems that he believed could “safely” supply power to the machine, but they would have unknowable effects on the Facility itself when they were disabled. He would need the town to help make a decision about what systems to use to power the TITAN engine, as they would deal with the consequences in the future.

Powering the TITAN Processor

Deciphering the archaic text of the Facility was no easy task, but the researchers believed they had identified functions of several eligible subsystems. By cannibalizing power, they could help solve the problem facing Bravado, but each risked causing long term complications. Without more info, even the information they could find was simply a guess. Any systems that remained could perhaps even be accessed later, and would be a resource they could use in the future once the crisis passed.

There were eight systems that had enough power to function for the TITAN Processor’s needs:

Life Support 

• This gargantuan, pythonic coil of rubber and insulation extended down deep into The Facility. Of the subsystems, this one easily carried the most power and disseminated it the furthest. Water, electricity, and a kind of osseous and generic slurry that resembled something between hot cereal and cement, flowed through those isolated rivers of caloric density and power deep into the fathomless depths of the Facility. Whatever was being fueled by the water and slurry of Life Support would be left to die once the system lost power, lost to a makeshift tomb in the tunnels below.

Hydroponics Bay 

• The electricity required to keep the artificial sunlight on in rooms so deep underground they have never seen the real thing, was laughably negligible. Still, it was enough to get the job done. The surprising readout on this system was that this section of the Facility had never lost power. It is very possible, in fact, that whatever biome survived inside the Hydroponics Bay could represent one of the last contained, uninfluenced ecosystems, since the Fall. Untouched, the RRC could perhaps even discover new herbs, medicines, and plants from before the Fall if they could access the chamber.

Containment Maglocks 

• The complicated and ancient mechanical blueprint of the Facility that was their reference indicated the existence of magnetically locking doors throughout its deep structures. These doors were currently powered and sealed. Unlocking the Containment Maglocks would mean access to the titanic amounts of electricity that kept them shut, but whatever the doors contained might be released. With the recent release of the Weeping, one shuddered to think what might still lurk below.

Resonance Lab

• When they first spliced into the wires that were labeled [RESONANCE LAB], the material inside them appeared at first fiber optic, possessing a crystalline structure and the ability to transmit light along its length purely by being exposed to it. The makeshift voltage tester they used clearly indicated a strong current moving through the substance and it would easily function as the power source they required. Still, when one survivor wrapped his palm around the wires, he felt a vaguely unpleasant tingle in his arm, almost like a very sour electrocution. The power here in the Resonance Lab could be more easily tapped for later use if they didn’t use it to power the TITAN machine. A readily accessible electrical source in the Facility would be a boon to future exploration below Bravado.

Virology 

• This thick bundle of wires terminated in a fuse box not far beneath the San Saba Soil labeled Virology. The complicated mechanisms being powered in this system ranged from “decontamination” to what appeared to be a weekly cycle of radiation that was applied beyond the bounds of the read-out’s date calculation. Despite the wear and tear of millennia, protection from the elements had mostly kept this system up and running since the Fall. Whatever viral samples kept suspended in the subsystem would risk new plagues and outbreaks to rival that of the Necrophage, but could offer new insight into the diseases of the wastelands.

Water Treatment

• The pile of tubing and purification infrastructure known as Water Treatment was powered by an enormous cable that reached up and towards Lake Bravado like a tentacle of some insidious beast. This seemed to be connected to the monolith of stone in the lake that was first revealed in the explosion that destroyed Old Bravo years ago. The treatment system matched the edifice of white stone and black metal that had first drawn the RRC to Bravado to delve into the mysteries of the Facility. It had power, though it seemed the system was hardly functional after eons of exposure. It would be a useful tool to process the tainted lake water, if they could keep it operational.

Acoustic Dampers 

• These heavy-duty power cables seemed attached directly to a series of enormous underground plates at the very bottom of the Facility core, if the schematics were to be believed. With cable shielding made of lead, or some similar substance, the best guess was that this system was crucial to make underground tectonic platters tilt and shift according to some ancient design. The Acoustic Dampers required an enormous amount of energy, second only to Life Support. If they disabled these systems, it would likely aggravate and accelerate the tectonic activity that had occurred when the TITAN machine first turned on the night before.

The Stitch 

• This cable was singular, and kept inside a plexiglass tube for its entire, unfathomable length. Bright orange, though faded with the eons, it read [THE STITCH] in red letters outlined in black. Whenever this place was built, the designer took pains to keep this particular system completely isolated from the rest of the Facility’s inner workings. It was not listed on any blueprints and was omitted from the mechanical maps they had uncovered. But it was clear that The Stitch was routed through every section of the Facility to its deepest, most chasmic and charnel laboratories.

Each of the subsystems represented a dangerous choice, but the town needed to bring the TITAN Processor back online if they hoped to find some cure to the Imprint Dissonance.

The TITAN Process Restored

Once the TITAN Processor was ready, Esgrove was ready to try the first mass test of the machine. With the help of a fellow operator, Esgrove could lead a group of survivors into the test chambers and help them prepare for the transformation. He had built an elaborate mechanism for the machine that would only respond to him, to keep potential martyrs in the town from trying anything catastrophic.

Esgrove was slightly more harried and was struggling. The effort to reconfigure the machine was no easy task, and he had barely slept the night before. By his best calculations they would have enough power to try several times, but he had no idea how long the energy surge that powered the Facility below would last, so they had to act quickly. It was an endeavor to wrangle the townsfolk of Bravado, but they found their first test subjects willing to risk the process to either lock in their transformation or return their Imprint to its original state.

The key to the process would be having the correct donor and recipient. The previous mistake had been trying to convert Felicity alone. If they could provide the machine with another person to stand in as a source of the Imprint, he could effectively “copy” the Imprint onto the other patient, returning them to a stable condition, free of the Imprint Dissonance. As long as the patients were close to the desired Strain, they would have a chance. It would still be dangerous and exhausting, and if they survived, they would need immediate medical attention.

The town split into several groups. The size of the machine limited access to a few dozen patients at a time, and they would need a second assistant to help Esgrove outside, as well as doctors to assist. Moreover, they would need to make sure they had compatible pairs of patients to fix the condition. It was a logistical nightmare, but it would be worth the risk.

With a now-familiar whir, the TITAN Processor was brought online for the first successful test.

Correcting the Imprint

From the outside, the process seemed mostly mundane. A lot of smoke, lights, sounds, and such, but it was effectively watching Esgrove move back and forth flipping switches inside the operations chamber he used to monitor the process. It was somewhat anticlimactic for onlookers, but Esgrove assured them that this time it would work. He had routed power from the Water Treatment subsystem for their first attempt, hoping that the system’s supply of electricity would be enough.

The chambers were bathed with a soft glow, and a sweet-smelling gas was piped into the chambers. Those inside drifted into a dreamless sleep, cradled in the oblong depressions in the chamber. Once conscious faded, what the survivors experienced inside was entirely different.

They awoke to a pseudo-landscape of Bravado, an eerily familiar forest without the gargantuan machinery of the TITAN machine where they stood, but something else. The fog of sleep gave way to the cool mist of the forest floor.

Out of that primordial fog stumbled a smoked-glass reflection of the Imprint they were not saddled with but had chosen. Each of the survivors seemed to be connected to them and could hear their thoughts as your own. Each heartbeat in time with their IMPRINT-SHADE, their doppelgänger face resembling the donor in the other chamber, but almost as if someone else was wrapped up in their skin too. 

It seemed like the sleepless realm was something close to the Near Death. This couldn’t be though, as it would be impossible to be that deep in the Mortis. In fact, above them they could see the sky filtering through the Amaranthine-like sunlight layer. The Imprints around them seemed malleable, and impermanent. How easy it would be for all of this to go terribly wrong.

At the edge of their vision, they could each perceive a Threshold, almost as if a glowing doorway was beckoning them across. But in their way stood the Imprint-Shade, mirroring each of their movements and preventing them from drawing closer. One by one, each patient attempted to escape the strange dreamscape, but each time they were confronted by the Shade. Some described the Shade asking questions, while others described quick and cutting blows seeking their flesh.

Frustrated, the first of survivors simply pushed their way not past the Shade, but instead THROUGH it. It was a struggle, almost as if they were slipping into a compressed tube, squeezing themselves in an impossible way to fit into the reflection of what they desired to be. The words of ancient Barogue filtered through their head — “Imprint is Matter, and Matter is Imprint”. The machine was simply a catalyst for the choice ahead. It would be their belief that made a change reality and permanent, not the pseudo-science of the TITAN Process.

Esgrove had simply opened a door across the threshold and made the change possible. They would still need to walk through, if they could.

It was a deeply personal experience for each. The challenge of the Imprint-Shade was only a task they could complete if they were willing. It was not something to be fought against, but rather accepted. As they each stepped into the shadow of the Imprint as if it was their own shadow, they felt fire in their blood and a blinding light as they crossed the Threshold back into reality.

group processing

After about an hour in the strange machine, the survivors emerged from the TITAN Processor. Bleeding and coughing, covered in a strange byproduct of fluid and biomass, they each emerged liked newborns into the chill afternoon. Smiles and thanks were quick to follow, as each of the patients discovered that they had emerged changed by the experience. For those matched with the donor of their original Strain, the Dissonance had faded back into their former Strains. For those that found the change something they actively sought instead, they found themselves in new bodies, transmogrified by the TITAN Process into the Strain that matched their desired outcome.

The first group had been a success, so all that remained was to organize the rest of the town and have folks decided how they would choose to resolve the Imprint Dissonance.

Each successive group chose a new subsystem to cannibalize for the process. While the first group has disabled the easiest system, Water Purification, the others were left with more difficult choices. The second group settled on disabling the Acoustic Dampers, fueling the machine once more to complete the harrowing transformation of the TITAN Process. No one felt comfortable disabling the ominous system marked only as the Stitch, fearing some terrible threat from beyond death.

Throughout the afternoon, the symptoms plaguing the town grew worse. The assaults of Bloodghasts and the Weeping threatened survivors across Bravado, as new crevices and chasms opened into the Facility below. Early delving teams from the RRC reported radioactive water flowing once more from the Facility back into the lake, a consequence of the failed Water Purification system. The earthquakes and quicksand pits continued as well, provoked by the loss of the Acoustic Dampers.

Esgrove worked with a stoic and focused determination through each group, despite the danger. Each time a new group was ready, he would descend into the tunnels of the Facility to complete the final connections to the power supplies inside. Each time, he emerged more worn and haggard, sometimes beaten and bloody by the treacherous descent. One by one, the town disabled the Hydroponics Lab and Life Support and rushed to find anyone that was willing to endure the process to stabilize their Imprint. Travelers from nearby Essex had arrived throughout the afternoon, seeking out the opportunity to embrace a new life, change by the life-altering powers of Esgrove’s masterpiece. Hours stretched by as dozens of those inflicted by Imprint Dissonance chose to brave the TITAN machine under Esgrove’s careful operation.

While the town was dealing with the struggle of powering the TITAN Processor for what might be its final process, they discovered that two of the powered subsystems had been shut down during the early evening - the Containment Maglocks and the Resonance Lab. Why the Facility suddenly lost power is unknown, but the timing was very suspicious. Thankfully, the power loss did not affect the The Stitch, but it still forced a harder decision on the town. It’s possible that someone could have tampered with the connections, but who would have had the knowledge and equipment to do such sabotage?

The Final Price

When Esgrove emerged from the Facility after completing the next connection, he reported back on what they had feared. This would be the last time the TITAN Process would have enough power to operate. The Facility was becoming more dangerous and the power overload was reaching a critical point. If they kept pushing and cannibalizing the systems of the Facility, they could risk a colossal failure of every system still active in the Facility. It wasn’t something Esgrove was willing to do, no matter the cost. But another complication made sure this was to be the last song of the TITAN machine.

Esgrove was dying.

The constant descents into the Facility to connected exposed wiring, or perhaps the flood of radiation from countless procedures that bathed the unshield control bay of the machine with lethal doses had been too much. There was no way to save him at this point. He had given his all to try to leave a lasting legacy of his invention. With skin flaking off, his hair shedding, and his muscles literally eating themselves, he steeled himself for the final task at hand. He would spend his dying breath making sure that his dream was made reality.

Perhaps his notes would be enough for the RRC to replicate the process in the future. Some of the townsfolk had refused the treatment, choosing instead to find alternate ways to cure the Imprint Dissonance. Some simply couldn’t make such a monumental decision in a night, no matter the risk of death they faced. Even his patron had made a choice.

Despite the years of lies, the manuevering and dreams of a life as a Pureblood, Felicity Redfield had entered the chambers of the TITAN machine with a soft smile for Esgrove and a determination in her stride that had made her famously successful. At her side was another Remnant, a purposeful choice to keep her original Strain intact instead of pursuing the life she had pretended to want. She was perfect as she was, after all, just like she had said that first night. It had been only with the help of the townsfolk, and the example of Esgrove’s sacrifice that she had realized the truth.

The final TITAN Process went as flawlessly as his first attempt that afternoon. The survivors emerged, either returned or transformed, the perfect result of the process that Esgrove had perfected at the cost of his own life.

As the light faded, and the starry Lonestar skies shone above, the town sat in contemplation, mourning the loss of the strange scientist. While Imprint by Design ® might have been his goal, the echoes of the decisions made by Bravado would carry them into a hopeful future.

Threads of Note from IMPRINT BY DESIGN ®

• Fear Eaters - On Friday night, a strange creature was spotted in Bravado. It seemed to be some kind of psionic Raider, already a rarity in the familiar threat to the wastelands. Strange geometric crystals were growing from its eyes and body, similar to the creatures that were first encountered in the vaulted halls of lost Barogue. Is it possible that the Resonant raiders have escaped the lost city and spread throughout the San Saba, or were these raiders coming from somewhere else?

• All of My Sins Remembered - A familiar face of the Reckoners of the Grave Council, Solomon was rescued from the morgue thanks to the efforts of the Vados. The skull-faced Retrograde had been targeted by someone called the “Memory Thief” and had lost several crucial memories of his past and was heavily fractured after his trip through the Mortis Amaranthine. With the town’s help, they delved into the story of Solomon’s past and his unique connection with Grandfather Nichols and helped him deal with the lost memories.

• The Accountant - An official from the Railroad Conglomerate came into Bravado offering a unique service to exchange currencies from around the wastes. You could trade in your smaller Brass notes to trade up to easier-to-carry Lead or Tin. You could even purchase other currencies that were in the Accountant’s binder for a direct 1:1 exchange. Many survivors make a collection of the various currencies used around the wasteland, and this was an excellent opportunity to add some rare choices to their collection. Unfortunately, the Accountant’s trip was cut short when a group of thieves activated a personal Shredder Bomb that wiped out the thieves and the collection in an explosive blast. Ooof!

Wrap Up

That’s it for today Vados! We still have one more recap to go to finish up our story for the first half of Season 4. We will be ramping up our production for the next episode, CRISIS OF FAITH, very soon. Regular content will resume the week of January 18th, but we have a pretty neat side project with an online game series we are calling “Lonestar Skies Virtual Events”.

These one-day stories will feature some areas of the San Saba we can’t explore directly and will offer a unique online DR:TX experience. Our first Lonestar Skies Event is called IN THE WOODS and will be run by the peerless Shan on Saturday, January 21st.

Story Recap: Pyroclasm

Good morning! It’s Jonathan here with a STORY RECAP for our last National event, THE NECROPHAGE: PYROCLASM. 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, sleeping, or simply were not able to attend the game. These are major points of continuity that might be important throughout the season, and I hope this will help with the FOMO feels or answer some questions you had about what happened.

Photo credits in this post are from Max Pohlmeier, Lainey Weiss, Crystal Louise Remy, and Noah Goodman.

This was our first live National Event of 3.0, and it was preceded by the online event STORM WALL, ran by our friends at DR: Connecticut. This event featured several characters online that were later introduced in person during the PYROCLASM.

We released several teasers for this event including a very fun text adventure written by Shan Lind.

• Characters of Note for Season 4

• The Consternation of Doctor Nichols (Text Adventure)

• Killhouse Has Fallen (Teaser)

• The Necrophage: Pyroclasm Website

You can also find our other game recaps from this season here:

• Season 4, Episode 1: THE VALLEY OF FEAR

So once you’ve been caught up, let’s refresh our memories about the premise behind the event…

The Premise of The Necrophage: Pyroclasm

Something wicked this way comes...

Grandfather Nichols and the evil forces of Killhouse Prison’s extended network of murderers, candymen, maniacs and machinators, have come home to roost in the Lonestar at last.  From the necrotic swamps of the Wailing Shores, the mad Nemesis doctor brings with him The Necrophage, a powerful mutagenic disease that turns anyone who breathes it into pliant super soldiers and eventually, living bombs.  Nichols seeks to destroy the system that betrayed him twice, by immolating the San Saba Territories with the very brains of the people who committed each layer of badly broken faith. 

Nichols sieges Killhouse Prison; lair to the most foul and murderous personalities in the Lonestar Wastes, recruiting an army from within. The Necrophage spreads out before him like a black carpet, but in his way is the township of New Bravado, where the Oxline pulls into station. When Nichols steps off the train, with his newly Necrophage-infused soldiers in tow, it will be with the intention to complete the genocide of the San Saba people, a feat denied to him one year ago. With the successful test of his mutagen on Bravado, Nichols will be able to market The Necrophage to tyrants and warmongers across the Greater Wastes as a tool to create armies from enemies. 

As the Necrophage creeps across the Blastlands, rendering common strains into vicious and merciless killers, it must be to be the will of the Survivors that rise up to meet the ardent monsters who stride across the San Saba unshackled. Left unchecked, The Necrophage will first infect everyone in the San Saba and then beyond.  In an act of ironic Indulgence, the Survivors must team up with the new Warden of Killhouse Prison one last time to cleanse the waste of criminal filth once contained within, and thereafter choose the ultimate fate of the unlawful in the San Saba. 

A cell, or a coffin.

The Prelude to Necrophage: The Storm wall

From the bustling metroplex of Essex to the distant islands of the Wailing Shores, the Oxline traveled north before its return journey back home to Bravado with a dangerous cargo - the Nemesis Mastermind known as Grandfather Nichols. Storm clouds darkened the horizon, a foul omen of the danger to come. A deal was struck between two powerful families to return an enemy of Bravado and the San Saba Territories back to where he can finally answer for the many crimes he has committed.

Dr. Hannibal Nichols-Lovelace, sometimes known as “Grandfather”, is a talented Quiet Folk doctor that has spent his life perfecting the art of disease manipulation. He moonlights as a member of the Nemesis Cult, following a persona of his own devising that he refers to as the “Plague Doctor”, combining the menace of the Hannibal Lector, Springheeled Jack, Dr. Moriarty, Dr. Moreau, and other various evil doctors in the lore of the murderous cult. He has recruited a cult of Nemesis worshipers known as the “Acolytes of Eyeless Jack”, using the population of Lifers of Killhouse Prison to build a cult of personality around his family, and his son, Eyeless Jack, who has followed in his footsteps as a Nemesis. Grandfather Nichols was responsible for the slaughter of the Lovelace Family matriarch, the assassination of Holy Mother Queen Jasper, and the release of a terrible weaponized plague known as Gutscourge last year.

When a record storm threatened to wipe out Brownstone Island in the Wailing Shores, several survivors from Bravado and beyond were able to question the Nemesis Plague Doctor from inside his prison cell underneath the Lighthouse. Like his namesake “Hannibal”, the crazed doctor gave cryptic answers and taunted his captors from the safety of his cell while promising of his impending escape. Nichols spoke of a plan to return back to Bravado with a black miasma of his revenge made manifest, and of a new disease he had crafted to enact his plan - THE NECROPHAGE.

Strange creatures emerged from the sea to assail the storm walls of the island, mutated Necrophage Mutants and Necrotitans, abominations created by the early experiments of the disease. Nearly invulnerable, the creatures exploded in a blast of psionic fire when they died, the pyroclastic bombardment of the disease that ravaged their bodies. These creatures were strangely reminiscent of the Butchered, the strange creations of Juliet Butcher during the events of VALLEY OF FEAR. Though the storm and the undead assault threatened to release the prisoners, the survivors of the town managed to shore up the defenses of the island and its storm wall, uncover a murderous plot by the Lighthouse Keeper and return her to a cell of her own, and stop several dangerous criminals from escaping.

As the storm waned, the Oxline was loaded with Grandfather Nichols and several of his cellmates from the dungeons underneath the Lighthouse. Part of a prisoner transfer with the Brownstone Island leadership, the Oxline carried a number of dangerous prisoners from the north including the serial killer Knife-Tooth Jack, and Charlie Dales, the Lighthouse Keeper and crazed cultist of the Voiceless Deep. Thanks to the efforts of the survivors during the storm, they released the maniacal Glassmaker from his imprisonment, preventing him from making the journey to Bravado with Nichols and his allies.

However, in the chaos of the storm, the Oxline had been loaded with an another passenger — the disease known as the Necrophage.

The Necrophage, a perfect weapon

Barrels and barrels of the foul black substance known as the Necrophage Catalyst accompanied the prisoners from the Wailing Shores. This chemical was highly infectious, capable of spreading a new compounded disease crafted by Grandfather Nichols, with the assistance of the necro-scientists of Brownstone Island. Combining elements of several dangerous diseases, including Bad Brain, Gutscourge, the Plague of the Unfinished, and Black Fungal Disease, the Necrophage was capable of converting any exposed to the compound into obedient soldiers while giving them an incredible resistance to damage and an unquenchable thirst for violence and blood.

The disease was subtle at first, lying dormant in the host but beginning a terrible process. While the infected suffered no obvious symptoms other than a inflamed wound in the shape of an “X” at the injection site, they were helpless to resist the psionic commands of the disease’s creator. His insidious compulsions created sleeper agents that helped him enact his terrible plans wherever he went. These unwilling agents of his revenge would open the doors to his cell, bring him the supplies he needed for his research, and load the Ox with barrels of his foul plague and train cars filled with his crazed Necrophage Mutants.

Once exposed to the airborne Necrophage toxins he brought with him from the Wailing Shores, the disease would activate in the infected, reaching a maturity and pushing the infected towards a terrible fate. Once activated, the grand disease of Nichols was capable of removing the infected from the INFECTIOUS CYCLE itself. While those that would die would normally follow the cycle of life and death known throughout the wastes, the Necrophage disease pulled the host forcibly from this cycle.

If the disease ran its course, the infected would burn through their own biomass as a personal morgue, fueling a new cycle that made them invulnerable soldiers capable of absorbing the imprints of those they killed to fuel their primordial siphon. The amaranthine armor that regenerated their wounds as fast as they were dealt could be eventually worn down with overwhelming trauma through gunfire or blade, but it simply activated the last poison pill hidden within the disease. When the diseased finally died a final death, they would not enter the Mortis Amaranthine, but rather die a final death in a massive explosion of psionic energy — THE PYROCLASM.

Separated from the infectious cycle, the disease created a unique side effect in the newly deceased. In the wake of this pyroclastic explosion was left a corpse. The last time a corpse was left behind was before the infectious cycle started with the fall of mankind, and it presented new and curious challenges. Filled to the brim with the infectious plague of the Necrophage, these corpses threatened to provoke a new mutation and outbreak of the already dangerous disease. If enough people were to fall to the Necrophage, the waves of plague would spread across every being in the wastes.

Nichol’s perfect revenge. A world ending plague. An end to all stories.

The Fall of Killhouse

The fortress-prison of Prudence Penitentiary stands north of the tiny town of Bravado, an imposing edifice of justice and sin. Nicknamed “Killhouse” after a terrible massacre that occurred in the early days after the Hiway War, the prison was home to the worst criminals in the San Saba. It was also soon to be the new home of Grandfather Nichols. It would be a homecoming of sorts, uniting Nichols with his son, the Nemesis killer known as Eyeless Jack, as well as throngs of the orange-clad LIFERS, the permanent inhabitants of the prison. Too dangerous to kill, but too dangerous to let leave, the prison would be a final destination for the mad doctor.

A place to contain his danger and madness, safe from the world at large.

However, unknown to the new Warden, during the weeks prior to the arrival of Grandfather Nichols, his advance agents were hard at work spreading the tendrils of his disease throughout the guards and inhabitants of the prison. From Essex to the Clutch, there were reports of midnight abductions and forced injections with a strange black chemical, but the lack of obvious symptoms hid the menace that lied dormant. The disease was already infecting a number of key linchpins, waiting for the honeyed words of Grandfather Nichols to enact his master plan.

When the Oxline arrived at Killhouse, it did not take long for Nichols to conquer. Rather than being escorted to a cell, Nichol’s manacles were removed and he was set free with the Penitentiary. With a quick command, the guards were turned to his employ and led their new leader through the prison. At each cell block, Nichols spread the foul poison of the Necrophage, turning each of the Lifers into a new army of NECRO-SOLDIERS, or converting those that were previously infected.

In a matter of hours, the disease had ravaged the prison, converting almost all of the inhabitants into slaves of Nichol’s mania. At his side, stood the LIFER PRIMES, those specific agents that were allowed more autonomy than the common Necro-Soldier. The halls of the prison were emptied, leaving the vacant cells of Killhouse a vacant tomb, with only the voices of dead remaining. Before they could be claimed as new servants of Nichols, the Warden and his allies fled the prison, carrying a dire message of warning to the next stop on the Oxline..

Bravado Station.

The Heralds of Grandfather Nichols

Juliet Butcher, the Unstable head Surgeon of Killhouse, arrived in town first. Despite being captured one month previously for her role in creating a terrible Crystal Candy Manufactorum, she was once again free and curiously eager to assist the town of Bravado. She brought with her information that the town could use to protect themselves from the plague. The Butcher had turned against her former ally, and provided reams of notes from the Nemesis Plague Doctor detailing his research into the cruel disease of Necrophage. Provided they could decipher the strange ciphers, the materials could help them understand what was happening.

The town was not defenseless, even in spite of a strange new disease. The plague had been built on the scaffolding of diseases before it, so the doctors of Bravado already had the ability to employ inoculations, disease kits, and strange Grave-Bell Shards provided by the RRC and the scientist known as the Architect. While the disease was something new, it might be possible to find a cure given enough time.

But time was not on their side.

The wail of the Oxline approaching, a once welcome sound, rang eerily in the night as the last train from Killhouse arrived at the station. Pouring from the holds of the train came the foul mutants, early experiments of the disease and hordes of the LIFERS, the infected soldiers of Grandfather Nichols, and the heralds of this arrival. The assault was brutal and quick, and the survivors of the initial attack fled into town pursued by the strange creatures. Upgraded forms of the BUTCHERED they encountered in September, the Necrophage Mutants were simply the first wave of the attack.

As they spread the terror of the night, Grandfather Nichols arrived, accompanied by his chosen Lifer Primes, the most dangerous and deadly of his followers recruited from with the prisons of the Wailing Shores and Killhouse. With him was a riotous host of criminals and villains, those worthy of carrying his message of destruction to the town. Including the likes of Eyeless Jack, his protege and son, the former Lighthouse Keeper of Brownstone Island, Charlie Dales, the murderous drug dealer known as Sugargums, the duplicitous Knife-Tooth Jack, it was clear that the Nemesis doctor had a rogue’s gallery of assistance in his plot.

As the noose tightened, residents that attempted to find safety on the Ox found the cargo holds trapped and filled with explosives, locking down the primary escape by land from the town. Other attempts to flee to Anyport or Lake Bravado were met by Lifers and Necro-Soldiers cutting off escape by water. The trap was set, and the town was at the mercy of the invading forces of the Necrophage-infused killers, just in time for the INDULGENCE.

The Last indulgence

The Indulgence was a heretical Hedon ritual, celebrating an annual October release of prisoners from Killhouse, but it was canceled by the new Warden Moriarty starting this year. For the past three years, it had supposedly marked a reason for the Prison to exist, as long as you ignored how easily the prisoners were released into the Lone Star. Founded by the former Warden, Tabitha St. Mercy, the ritual was a night of macabre violence and murder that ignored the laws of the San Saba in favor of holy gluttony and wrath. After her removal from the role, it was thought that the “holiday” could be redeemed, and the night of death ended once and for all.

Besieging the town, Nichols declared that tonight would be the LAST INDULGENCE, a night of murder and terror where anyone that was not on his side would instead be a victim of the Necrophage. He spoke as if presenting to a stage, using the Tellingvisonary language of screen and movie to monologue his intent to the town. With him he carried dozens of vials of the Necrophage plague. With each vial, he would infect a new army to march with him to the homelands of the Lovelace Family, his hated enemy.

Nichols and his army swept across Bravado. Each time they found a resident of the town, they pounced on them with a vim and vigor of the zealot, knocking them into bleed out and vulnerable to the forced injections of the Necrophage. Survivor after survivor was dosed with the virulent plague, drug from their homes and tents to be subjected to the dangerous disease. A last stand of sorts took place at the Swaying Anker, the light of the Hedon bar standing as a last bastion of defense against the hordes of Lifers.

Eyeless Jack and his father swept the darkness, killing those that were strangely immune to his disease, and infecting others. With a sinuous command, Nichols drew out the defenders that succumbed to his strange compulsions one by one, executing them in front of the resistance at the Swaying Anker. The hoots and hollers of the Lifers echoed in the moonlit night, as the armies of Grandfather Nichols swept through the town virtually unopposed.

Those that fought back noticed a few of the Lifers stabilizing the victims of the assault. Some even strangely saved a few victims, subtly defying Nichols commands to execute the resistance. According to those subjected to the black ichor of the Necrophage, the disease needed time to settle int their systems before they could be turned once and for all into new Necro-Soldiers.

Eventually, the defense at the bar broke, and the few remaining survivors escaped into the darkness to try and survive the Last Indulgence. Nichols gathered a handful of survivors inside to preach his insane plan, describing the next steps of his plot like only a villainous madman could. It was “good TV” as he described it. Nichols insisted he would return in the morning, once the plague had had time to ravage their systems and render them ready for the black clouds of his Necrophage canisters and activating compounds.

As the screams of the dying were abruptly cut short across the town, the night quickly grew silent.

Understanding the Disease

In the early morning, after weathering the deadly nighttime assault from Killhouse, the town set itself to understanding more about the Necrophage.

The Necrophage Virus had incorporated elements carefully isolated and combined through a combination of mad genius, oldcestor technology, and the unique mutations of the Infection itself. The Necrophage was not a naturally occurring plague and incorporated elements of each of the unique diseases it mutates from. Each one added a trait to the disease that made it deadly than the original diseases.

From Bad Brain, the disease had gained control over the target's emotions and actions. With the base of Bloodscourge, a local plague contained within the strange undead hybrids that lurked in the tunnels underneath Bravado, added the ability for the disease to feed off the biomass of the victim, devouring their body from within. The mutation of Gutmother Bad Brain local to Bravado added a susceptibility to psionic compulsion, and the ability to effect the change between the Infectious Cycle and something else. Gutscourge's impact on the endocrine system created a way to sustain the disease on the body, bolstering the host with renewed vigor and near invulnerability. The final puzzle piece of Black Fungal Disease added the ability to hide the disease at early stages and used its violent reaction to air, using modified fungal spores to deploy the disease.

Underneath all of the diseases though was something else. Each time someone died of the Necrophage, something was changing in the world. The body was removed from the Infectious Cycle, and this transformation was powered by something not natural and something not quite a disease. The tie to Nichols was a pervasive and unique connection to something specific about the doctor’s bloodline. He had been PATIENT ZERO, purposefully infecting himself with the disease to cultivate it into his weapon. This tie that enabled the doctor to control his victims was tied to something deeper, something beyond death itself — some plan the town could not yet understand.

The miasma Spreads

True to his word, Grandfather Nichols returned to Bravado in the morning. This time the good doctor brought a new weapon with him - Necrophage Canisters, filled with the toxic black gas, a miasma of disease that activated the compound they had spread the night before. This new compound created an immediate response in those that had been infected during the assaults of that night and previous attacks by his advanced agents. The gas awoke something deeper in the victim, pushing them away from the cycle of life and death into a violence-fueled haze.

The rampage of Dr. Nichols started innocuously at first, but quickly grew violent. The doctor and his chief ally in the north, Charlie Dales, came into town with a small force of the Lifers of Killhouse. They worked meticulously, moving from building to building spreading the disease throughout the town. Resistance was met with extreme prejudice, as Nichols gave mocking smiles as he slit throats and killed the residents of Bravado. In his wake, a horde of zombies emerged from the morgues, as if in response to the sudden arrival of the Necrophage.

Nichols was attacked at the crossroads, but as one Tenderhorn drew his sights on the doctor, a honeyed word asked a favor. “Could I see your gun for a moment?” seemed like an innocent enough request, but the compulsion was not something he could resist. Looking over the rifle he claimed from the young man, Nichols grinned and thanked him for the new gift. For you see, Nichols was not only a talented graverobber and chemist, but he had portrayed a particular role as a Nemesis once before — the lone gunman, the Professional. With a single well placed shot, he had slain the Queen of the Tribes Disparate, and he was quite skilled with firearms.

The weapon he stole from the young man was of fine make. The master-crafted Mountain Rifle proved deadly in the hands of Nichols, as his talents as a Marksman were brought to bear on his enemies. The crack of a rifle shot rang out across the fields near the General Store as he opened fire, cutting down those that were fleeing with a well-placed shot into their backs. Each time he fired, a Vado fell bleeding, helpless as he approached. With a quick cut of his blade, their cries for help were cut short, even if they cursed his name as they died.

In his wake, were left bodies.

Violent Ends for Violent Delights

The next stage of Dr. Nichol’s attack manifested in an unexpected way. in addition to the threat of the bodies left behind by his rampage in the morning, new bodies began to appear. The infected bodies of those killed under the effects of Necrophage were used as viral weapons, deadly traps left behind to infect others. From over the tree lines could be heard the loud thumps of cannon fire from the direction of the lake. With sickening splats, the makeshift payloads of artillery delivered dead corpses into the town, each wrapped in blood-soaked rags. Perhaps they were the victims of the recent Killhouse attack brought with them, or the former residents of Drywater that had been caught by their wide-reaching attacks across the San Saba.

Regardless of WHO they were, the corpses presented a new challenge. Each was filled to the brim with the Necrophage, and even simply moving or investigating the bodies without proper protection was enough to infect someone with the disease. The cannon fire continued throughout the morning and afternoon, spreading the disease ridden bodies throughout the town. Fire proved somewhat useful to burn the bodies, but the smoke created by the burning threatened to spread the disease further. The protection of a Helscape suit was sometimes enough, but only if the doctor was careful not to make direct contact with the bodily fluids of the corpse.

Each person that died of the Necrophage would continue to spread the plague. Spread across a more densely packed population like Essex, these makeshift viral bombs would be deadly. Clearly, Nichols was deploying the corpses of purpose, to continue the assault on the town that he hated.Even worse, the local zed and wildlife began encountering the corpses if they were not caught by the residents of Bravado first.

Once the dangerous Murder Goat Deer, Armordillos, and even the Leviathans within the lake consumed the poisonous bags of flesh and blood, the disease mutated further to begin infecting new creatures and enemies. Soon, scouts in the forests reported an encounter with a massive Necrophage-crazed critter, equally invulnerable as it tore apart several hunters. Several Leviathan whelps exhibited the strange cannibalistic tendencies of the Necrophage, feeding on a sailor that had been caught off guard. There were even isolated reports of plant growths near the lake, with spreading purple-black veins of fungus growing across them.

In the wake of the bombardment, a particularly brave Tellingvisionary named Doc Thomas managed to catch attention of Grandfather Nichols. Appealing to his vanity and faith, Thomas challenged the madman to explain his plan through a monologue, as the old scriptures foretold.

And Nichols obliged.

VILLAINS LOVE A GOOD MONOLOGUE

Lured into talking by Doc Thomas, Grandfather Nichols laid out a chilling certainty to a group of survivors that gathered to hear his plan. As an acolyte of the Late-Late Show, the Nemesis was honor bound to explain his plan to those that politely asked. Nichols explained that during his capture of Killhouse, they had employed a unique side effect of the Necrophage. While he had managed to turn a number of guards and Lifers in the prison, there wasn’t nearly enough time to infect each single resident with the inject-able versions of the plague. However, an experiment in the Brownstone Islands had revealed that when exposed to the toxic fumes of the Necrophage Canisters for a long enough period, ANYONE could be infected by the disease.

With enough of his chemical, he could simply blanket the town in the miasma and fog of the Necrophage and even those that had manifested a resistance to the disease would be turned into loyal soldiers. During the fall of Killhouse, they had simply pumped the chemical into the ancient air circulation systems and spread the black clouds of gas through out the entire prison. While he had been enjoying the random murders of the morning, he was simply biding his time.

His son and the other Lifer Primes were working to bring in a vast quantity of the Necrophage compound to Bravado by the lake, using ships they captured in the Junkerpunk port of Drywater. The canisters used a similar reaction as sodium chloride, and when exposed to water it created an immediate reaction that converted the concentrated chemical into the gaseous form they had been using throughout the morning. Once the compound was in place, they would simply use the LAKE itself to create enough of the Necrophage to infect the entire town of Bravado.

Nichol’s master plan was to END the cycle of life itself. As he explained to Thomas, once the “story” of this world was brought to an end, the god of the Tellingvisionaries known as the SIGNAL would be able to finally begin again. All good stories must end, he claimed. If he could not get the revenge he sought on the Lovelace family this time, he would simply end the lives of every single person in this world. Once the last breath was a distant memory, his plan would be complete. Even his death would be a meager price to pay to enact the will of the Signal to begin again.

When challenged, Nichols was unconcerned about their threats to stop his plan. Nothing they did to stop the Necrophage would rob him of his triumph, as his plan had layers they did not understand. Thomas pressed further, picking at the threads of the disease to understand more about Nichol’s plan. He asked Nichols to explain the various components of the disease, digging into the connection between the disease and something beyond.

With a cruel smile, Nichols explained his “Plan B”. Each time someone died of the Necrophage, there was a strange thing that happened. In the moments before their death, the energies of the Necrophage connected to something, or somewhere, else. The surge of energy that exploded from the infected in their final throes was powered by something darker, something connected to a place beyond death, to the Abyss itself. Each death fueled a new ABYSSAL RIFT. These tears in reality had become more commonplace since the Archon incursion at the Greenhouse, but there had never been as many concentrated in one place before. This connection to a place beyond would attract a hunger from beyond our world to consume everything. All Dr. Nichols had to do was infect enough targets with the Necrophage, and the scales would be tipped towards chaos. If he could not kill everyone with the Necrophage, the beings from beyond, the OUTSIDERS, would finish the job for him.

Maybe he was just mad. Maybe not.

But the Vados couldn’t risk finding out. They needed a plan to stop him. And thanks to the boasts of Nichols, they now knew he planned on enacting his plan at midnight, so the clock was ticking.

The Clock Starts Ticking

Still reeling from the constant assault on the town, a few of the residents of Bravado began trying to evacuate a few of the wounded and helpless citizens out of the town. With the trap quickly closing on the town, anyone that could not easily defend themselves would become a liability if left to succumb to Nichol’s plague. Gathering a number of farmers, they made for the Ox, left curiously abandoned at the Terminal Station Depot after the arrival of Nichols and his army the night before.

They soon found out why the Ox had been left alone.

Inside the rail cars were once was secured a vast number of barrels, leaking the noxious black liquid of the Necrophage was a final gift left behind by Grandfather Nichols. Connected to one of the cargo cars was a massive series of bombs, secured by the mad doctor’s agents the night before, all tied into a massive corpse of some strange beast. The burden of the beast, a contagious corpse was rigged to explode, would be more than capable of activating the chemicals in the train and removing a route of escape from the town. Once Nichol’s final plan was put into motion, they would be trapped in the town unless they could disarm the pyroclastic bomb.

A group of Vados set to removing wires, draining canisters, and dismantling the corpse. The process was as dangerous as it was delicate. Complicating things further, a crowd of onlookers had gathered to see the spectacle of the trap on the Ox. If they failed to disarm the bomb, there would be a new wave of Necro-soldiers recruited to Doc Nichol’s cause.

A shout rose from within the crowd, as a Law Dog confronted a citizen within the throng. There was a flash of metal as the Law Dog went down in a bloody spray, the concealed Lifer Prime attacking from his hidden position. With a battle cry, he charged at the technicians working to try to disarm the deadly bomb. Thanks to the quick thinking of one of the Vados, who used their shield to knock the Lifer off his feet, the attempt to disrupt the disarming was delayed, and they closed ranks to protect from any other hidden agents in the crowd.

The Law Dogs spread out, questioning the populace. One by one, the agents of chaos were identified and drove out of the Depot. Despite their Necrophage-infused strength, the collective might of the resistance was enough to drive them back. Their friends frantically cut wires and severed tendons of the corpse to shut off the bomb before any fail safe was activated. The minutes drug on under the assault on the Ox, but a final cheer arose from the defenders as the bomb was finally defeated and deactivated. The few remaining Necrophage soldiers escaped, frustrated by the defense of the Oxline, but they were clearly headed back to Nichols.

While the bomb had been defused, the Oxline was once again operational, but it would take time to evacuate the town. Time they didn’t have unless they found a way to counteract the Necrophage.

Bring out the Big Guns

The constant thump of mortars from near the lake presented the next target for the Vados to fight back against the invading army of Necro-soldiers. Gathering some of their best fighters, they would assault a fortified position near the lake and attempt to silence Nichol’s weapons. While one group attacked on the land, another would take a small boat to infiltrate the captured Junkerpunk ship that was preparing to dump vast quantities of the Necrophage into the lake.

The land team quietly moved into a position to attack the Necro-soldiers that were busy unloading a new shipment of the Necrophage compound near Punkerport. The Lifers had cannibalized a new RRC mass irrigation system to use to spread the Necrophage. The system was designed to evaporate water from the lake for improving farming yields, but it was being adapted to catalyze the Necrophage into the aerosol gases that Nichols would use to blanket Bravado with the infectious compounds.

At their lead of the mercenaries was one of the Lifer Primes, the Necrophage-infested shock troopers already progressed into the disease. At their side were several of the Butchered, the Necro-mutants that Juliet Butcher had released after the fall of the Manufactorum the month prior. The Vados attacked with a ferocity borne of desperation and anger, eager to strike back at the foes that had run roughshod over the town throughout the evening and morning.

The Lifer Primes were dangerous enemies, capable of withstanding a massive amount of trauma and damage. However, they were still people and still mostly in charge of their own faculties, unlike the more common Necro-soldier. They responded to taunts, and their confidence in their new abilities could be used against them. They were tough, but they could only be in one place at a time. By diverting their attention, a group of the quicker Vados could sneak past the main fighting to get to the mortars.

Nichols’ soldiers were using large bore mortars, most likely stolen from Drywater or RRC stores and had been modified to propel the infectious remains of a pyroclastic necro-soldier. The soldiers operating the cannons were surrounded and cut down before they could use the strange black syringes to advance their own disease. In the chaos of the attack, the Lifer Primes had not yet realized the Vados had achieved their goal.

As the Prime reached a transition, with the Necrophage rewriting his body into a personal morgue and making immune to any wound for a short time, the Vados moved into position to protect those escaping with the mortars. While the Lifer Prime was caught in the frenzy of blood lust from the disease, they pressed the attack. Blow and blow rained down on the Lifer, forcing him once more into the personal morgue. It was an arduous process, but the Lifer did not have the same dangerous skills as Grandfather Nichols. With clever tactics and shields to deflect their attacks, they could prevent the Lifer from begin able to focus their attacks on any one Vado, thus robbing them of the wounded to feed the furnace burning them from the inside out.

The purple veins on the Lifer grew more prominent each time the Necrophage devoured his very Infection to fuel its unholy processes. There was a chill in the air not quite the result of the breeze across the lake, but it culminated in a terrible revelation. The Lifer’s eyes grew black, as he entered the personal morgue a final time. The Necrophage bled through his eyes, his ears, as his tongue swelled in his mouth. A crackle of psionic energy was building, and the Lifer realized pitifully the cost he was about to pay. With a crack of thunder, the abyssal energies poured from the Lifer in a massive explosion, leveling the remaining Necro-soldiers and Vado alike.

In the eerie silence and vacuum after the deadly explosion, the Vados administered injectable brews to quickly recover from the blast and began dispatching the remaining soldiers before they could recover themselves. The battle was won, but the cost of defeating even one Lifer was massive. If they had to deal with a dozen of these monstrosities at once, no one would survive the massacre.

A vision of the future

While the Lifer Prime was engaged on the ground, a second team had committed to an assault on a captured vessel across the lake. Some sailors had spotted Necrophage soldiers and Mercenaries transporting odd equipment and supplies all around the lake. The bulk of Nichol’s mind-controlled army was using the port at Drywater to enable their assault. While the Junkerpunks were still fighting against the Necrosoldiers, they had lost several vessels to the sudden attack and the port was in the hands of the Lifers. Each Necrosoldier was a serious threat and there were far too many to deal with at once. The attack on Drywater also served as a way to prevent escape from Bravado by the water, as they could easily assault any fleeing vessels trying to escape Nichol’s revenge.

One of the captured transport ships had moved from the more protected landing at Drywater and was moving towards Bravado. This was the target of the small band of Bluejackets and privateers, eager to strike back at those that attacked their friends at Drywater. The ominous vessel moved closer, and it was clear that it was loaded with the ichorous black plague of Necrophage. Like the decrepit vessel that Nichol’s had landed at Brownstone Island, the ship was sparsely manned, but the dangerous necro-soldiers were no easy target.

The waters of Lake Bravado are treacherous in the best of conditions. From oil-slick sinuous Leviathan whelps, to the teeming masses of the undead, simply navigating across the lake was task that challenged the most skilled sailor. The pollution in the lake had even led to some monstrous mutations of the Leviathan spawn left behind after the death of the Grave Leviathan last year. The captain of the vessel barked orders to the crew, as they evaded boarding zed and sandbars that would slow their vessel down long enough for the Leviathans to sink them.

Trusting to the skill of the Bluejackets, each time the ship was assaulted, they moved as one to balance the ship and repel the grasping hands of the undead. If they encountered a sand bar, they quickly pushed back against the obstruction, freeing their vessel before the tentacles of the Leviathan could catch them. Once they had drawn close enough to the commandeered Junkerpunk hauler, they grabbed mooring lines to clamber up the side of the ship.

The ambush on the ship was over quickly, thanks to the skill of the sailors involved. The soldiers on the ship had not yet gained the complete protection of the Necrophage, as they had been chosen to haul the infectious cargo because of their limited exposure to the compound. Lining up a few of the surviving mercenary crew that were incapacitated by their surprise attack, the Bluejackets questioned them about what they knew about Nichol’s plot to poison the lake. The mercenaries were addled by the strange compulsions of the Nemesis doctor, but they confirmed the worst fears of the Vados. Once enough of the compound was in place, they would dump the poisonous chemical into the waters of Lake Bravado at midnight, creating a massive cloud of the infectious black Necrophage smoke that would blanket the town and convert anyone for miles into the unwilling thralls of the Nemesis.

The team also implemented the first test of a potential cure for Necrophage. The canisters of the plague were concentrated bits of the compound, but the scientists and doctors in town had discovered a curious reaction of the Necrophage solutions to the mysterious ore known as Amaranthite. The purplish ore was thought to be some kind of precipitate of the Grave Mind, created by the radiation of morgues, particularly those close to Bravado. The crystalline ore had been collected by miners under the morgue, but the theory was that since the Necrophage removed the victims from the Infectious Cycle, something so inherently tied to the Grave Mind and the Cycle like Amaranthite would be able to counteract the poison.

The ore was placed into the vats of the toxin, and the reaction was immediate. The foul smoke they expected from the Necrophage was non-existent as the mysterious ore seemed to absorb and neutralize the chemical. Placing handfuls of the Amaranthite into the dangerous cargo, they were able to remove the threat of the chemicals on board, but as they peered across the lake they could see countless more ships being loaded with the plague at Drywater. The small amount of the ore was sufficient for the task at hand, but if they were to neutralize the threat of Necrophage they would need considerably more.

One of the Vados applying the Amaranthite to the Necrophage canisters suddenly went still and began mumbling to themselves as if talking to a ghost or some specter that the others could not see. The Amaranthite in their hands seemed to glow of its own accord, and they awoke from their trance with a sudden gasp. They spoke of a young man named Eight who had appeared to them, a shadow of the Grave Mind shard that made up the Eightfold Mother. The vision spoke of a dire future, a PYROCLASM of destruction that was building because of Nichol’s plan. If they couldn’t stop the mad doctor, the Eightfold Mother foretold a future where town after town vanished in a pillar of black smoke, the endless churning forces of Nichols building into an unstoppable wave across the wastes.

But the Amaranthite was the key. It had worked. It was the weapon they needed.

The Tide Turns

The success of their first attack at the lake had not only secured new weapons to use against Nichols and his Lifers but had also revealed the power of the mysterious ore known as Amaranthite. With some effort (and safety first, of course) the mortars they captured could be repurposed for a mode of personal locomotion and possible projectile battering ram. The newfangled Morgue metal might make major munitions modifications possible too.

The Techno Savants and artisans of the town set to work trying to devise weaponry to use against Nichols. While Amaranthite was in short supply, the first issue was trying to find some way to shape the mysterious ore into something more usable. The Mortis crystals were harder than most metal alloys and equally challenging to work at a forge. They would need some heat source greater than they had access to metal the precipitate into something that could coat weapons and artillery shells.

While the town was focused on the threat of the Necro-soldiers, there were still many other dangerous things in the wastes, including spider raiders, zed, and other monsters. One of the Sweetwater scouts of the San Saba Republic had reported a crashed Stormchaser Raider ship on the outskirts of Bravado that might be the solution they needed. The airborne Raider clan were pests that threatened the flying city of Waking Prime and other airship traffic near Essex, and they utilized strange storm engines that propelled their ramshackle vessels towards their targets. Part oldcestor technology scavenged from Waking and part raider engineering that somehow managed to function, the storm engines produced a vast output of heat and electrical energy, so much that no intelligent crew would never risk the radiation and burns from the engines to use themselves. But a crashed ship would do just fine as a makeshift forge to heat up the Amaranthite.

When a team of Vados went after the storm engines, the scent of ozone, hot metal, and the odd scent of burning spoiled meat permeated the air at the crash site. An engine from a Stormchaser Raider rudimentary airship was sparking at random intervals and spewing large clouds of smoke that could be seen for miles. A sizeable number of the strange Raiders was gathered, caught in some ecstatic worship of the “storm forge”, or perhaps they were simply protecting the fallen ship until their clan could arrive. Eager for a fight with an enemy not so resistant to their assault, the Vados fell on the Stormchasers and routed the Raiders with overwhelming force. They fought back against the scraptionist-minded raiders and secured the crash site after a short fight. With the heat of the storm engine, they could smelt and weld the Amaranthite into coatings for weapons and bullets alike. Given the effect the ore had on the Necrophage itself, it would be a valuable asset for the upcoming confrontation with Nichols.

A few of the doctors in town had also successfully tested using Amaranthite in poultices and healing brews to treat Necrophage affected patients. The mysterious ore could be crushed into fragments and had some curative properties that halted the spread of the disease in a victim. While it could not cure it due to some resistance of the plague, it was a step in the right direction. Based on their research, it was probable that the disease was tied to both Grandfather Nichols and his Lifer Primes. When he had previously spread the disease known as Gutscourge in Bravado, the disease was perpetuated by some peculiar trait of his blood and the sonic vibrations of the Gravebells he had used. It was likely that any cure for Necrophage would be ineffective until they could stop Nichols once and for all.

One of the last new weapons in the fight against Nichols came from a madcap idea to protect the users of the Mortars they had stolen. By using the Amaranthite to harden an artillery shell, they could effectively “launch” a living survivor in the air instead of a Necrophage corpse. The Original Sweetwater Hurt-less Amaranthite Hard Hat could enable them to bombard the Lifers with deadly Amaranthite shells and deliver their own people into the fray. The human projectile would likely survive the impact (hopefully) but there was no shortage of Vados willing to risk the process for the thrill of discovery and the rush of a new experience.

First Blood

The ingenuity of the survivors in Bravado was beginning to offer a glimmer of hope in the face of the continual assaults of Lifers and Doc Nichols. However, in order to stop the plan to release the Necrophage at midnight, they would need a LOT more of the mysterious ore to fuel their resistance. A telegram to Felicity Redfield offered a potential balm for the problem. The San Saba Board had also been collecting the Amaranthite ore from other sites throughout the region, and they were going to send back a large amount of the priceless ore when the Ox returned for the next load of evacuees.

However, it was certain that Nichols would try to intercept the Oxline once it got near Bravado. He was still intent on preventing escape from the Necrophage at midnight, and it would be important for him to attempt to control the Oxline to cut off their evacuation attempts. When the ore arrived, they would need to ready for an attack by Nichols himself and his Lifer Primes. If they could beat Nichols to the ore, they would have enough to neutralize any Necrophage the Lifers brought via the lake as well as equip their stolen Mortars with Amaranthite-infused ammunition.

Gathering the few Amaranthine weapons they had created, they decided to set a trap for Nichols at the Depot. When he arrived, they would find the Vados armed with a surprise of their own. Once the team had been assembled, they gathered their brews, their augments, doctors and priests alike, and laid in wait. After several minutes passed, long after when the train should have arrived, they realized something was wrong. A lonesome wail of the Oxline siren rang through the air, but instead of the familiar welcoming sound pulling into the station, it was some distance away up the rail-line towards Essex. The train had been intercepted just outside of Bravado.

Nichols had beaten them to their prize!

Racing to the station on the outskirts of town, the Vados found the villainous Nemesis and his cadre of Lifer Primes in wait, busy unloading the shipment of Amaranthite from Essex. The Lifers had secured the cargo first, and there was no sign of the RRC employees they were supposed to meet, likely slain during the makeshift train robbery. Cackling, Dr. Nichols turned his attention to the Vados who were scattered and winded by the race to the station. He ordered his Lifers to guard the shipment while he dealt with the interlopers personally.

Counting on the doctor taking things into his own hands, the Vados intercepted him at the train platform while a group of stealthier survivors blended into the shadows and moved towards the crates of ore stacked on near the tracks. Nichols and his Lifers charged into the line of Vados, cutting down anyone in his path. They stayed just out of the reach of the Nemesis, luring him away from the precious ore while trying to keep his attention. One by one, the Lifers guarding the ore started to notice that a box of mysterious ore was missing. When they turned to face a flanker that rushed the line, one of the hidden townsfolk darted forward and claimed another crate of the Amaranthite.

A few of the Vados with Amaranthine weapons focused on the Lifer Prime with Nichols, their newly empowered swords cutting through the abyssal armor offered by the disease. Even in the midst of the personal morgue, the Necro-soldiers were vulnerable to the peculiar Mortis metal. Each strike cut into them and hastened the process towards the eventual pyroclastic explosion as the last of his infection was consumed by the Necrophage. There was a crack of explosion, but the Vados fell back before any of their number were felled by the blast, leaving a furious and shocked Nichols behind.

One of the Vados named Ash was caught as the townsfolk fell back, fleeing back towards Bravado. Nichols was furious, and drug her into town to demand answers. It wasn’t “good TV” to simply execute her in the darkness of the train station. Someone had to see her die. As he carried her to the Sin Sa Bar, Ash could tell that Nichol’s mind was racing. He was panicked. Perhaps even scared. For once during the invasion, Nichols had been caught off guard by their resistance. The Amaranthite weapons were capable of harming him and stopping his Necro-soldiers. Once at the bar, Nichols wasted no time in slitting Ash’s throat, sending the few Vados there in a panicked run back to town to find a Lifebinder.

The Nemesis fled into the night, now more determined than ever to finish what he had started before the town was able to stop him.

The march to lake bravado

The hour was drawing close and despite the win at the train station, the town was still bracing for the final assault of the Lifers and Grandfather Nichols. Scouts had reported his remaining Lifers and Necro-soldiers were massing on the shores of Lake Bravado. They would need to stop them from spreading their plague into the waters of the lake, but they would also need to deal with the Lifer Primes. Even if their weapons managed to pierce the amaranthine armor of the disease, the pyroclastic explosions would decimate both sides. Those protected by the curious advantages of the disease might survive the blast, but that would leave many of their friends vulnerable to a quick end at the hands of the Nemesis doctor.

More so, while Nichols has been harmed by the Amaranthine weapons they deployed at the train station, he was still protected by his disease. While he noticed the attacks, he healed as fast as he was injured. Something was regenerating him and keeping from fearing a true death. Research provided by the Butcher suggested that the key to defeating the disease was dealing with both Nichols AND his followers. As long as a Lifer Prime remained, they would be unable to seriously injure Nichols. Thus, the doctors of Bravado developed a new tool in their arsenal.

It would be battlefield medicine at its worst, but with a slapdash application of Amaranthite and the right finesse a single person sized triage area could be set up to force a Lifer to be healed of the Necrophage. It wouldn’t be pretty, or clean, but it would provide them room to work even in the midst of the assault at the lake, provided they could incapacitate one of the Lifer Primes. However, they would need to deal with the pyroclastic brain tumor in their head. Previous attempts to heal someone of the Necrophage had resulted in the tumor exploding prematurely with violent psionic energy. They could mute the detonation by focusing biokinetic energy into the triage area, but it would be challenging to complete the procedure in the middle of the upcoming fight.

They would also need to deal with the strange contraptions they had once again brought to the shores of Lake Bravado. While the sophisticated machines were capable of turning the Necrophage catalyst into the infectious black clouds of smoke, they were delicate devices. And what are ‘Vados better at than breaking stuff? According to the the brave few that scouted ahead of the Bravado mob, the machines had a bunch of spindly bits, whirring bits, and tube-y bits that would be prime targets to be busted the fuck up.

They had also crafted a dozen of the Amaranthite OSHA suits to propel someone into the fight, and dozens of the Amaranthite-infused blades and cudgels. With careful targeting, the blast would be capable of stunning one of the Lifers. The shells would let them capture the Lifers and secure them for the battlefield triage. If they could keep Nichols busy, they could eliminate the Lifers one by one until they could deal with the Nemesis himself.

The Vados would also weaponize the disease itself against Nichols. While the Necrophage hastened the demise of the victims, it would also provide that same invulnerability to those that rode the edge of oblivion. As long as they dealt with Nichols and made a cure possible, those infected could exploit the abilities of the disease to their own advantaged, provided they didn’t burn through their own Infection too quickly. Several of the townsfolk purposefully advanced their disease, turning themselves into a powerful counter to the Lifer Primes.

With artillery support of their own, the largest shield wall the town had seen since the fall of Old Bravo, the citizens of Bravado and the greater wastes marched down the long path to Lake Bravado.

With research, new weapons, dedication, and a significant amount of overconfidence, it was time to live the plan of “Fuck Around and Find Out” to the fullest. One way or another, it would be a massacre.

the Midnight Massacre

As the citizens of Bravado marched to down the long lake path towards Lake Bravado, they were surprised to find that Grandfather Nichols had set the stage for the final confrontation.

Literally.

Whether it was through some trick of faith or something else entirely, the field of battle was as brightly lit as if it was some oldcestor television production. Somehow lights backlit the makeshift “stage” of the open field a Punkerport as the town descended the slope to the lake. Spotlights shone on a lone figure standing at the waterline, his bowler hat casting a large shadow towards the approaching force of Vados. The stage was set, and the villain was ready for his monologue.

“Ladies and gentlemen of the studio audience, boys and girls, it’s time for the finale, the main event! Our story tonight is how the tiny town of Bravado tried its best to fight fate…”

Even in the dark, you could see the gleam behind the mad Nemesis’ eyes. His mirrored spectacles somehow shone in the dark, the white of his crisply pressed shirt gleaming in the moonlight.

“… and failed. Come one, come all to witness the doom of Bravado, the last gasps of a people that just. will. not. die.”

Nichols gave a shout, and from the shadows at the edge of the lake emerged his perfect army of Necrophage-ridden soldiers. The last of the inhabitants of Killhouse drafted into his service to commit a holy massacre in the name of the Nemesis’ perverted faith. They had completely abandoned their foothold in Drywater to commit to one last attack. Within the horde of Lifers shone the sickly glow of his Lifer Primes, six of his most ruthless killers gathered to lead the forces into battle. They were gleaming in the darkness with the pallid energy of the Necrophage, the purple veins crawling along their body like a living thing.

At his side was also one of their own. Tenacity Lovelace, one of the few surviving members of the Lovelace Family in town was growling and pacing at the side of the Nemesis. Green and purple veins crawled up her neck, the evidence of the Necrophage robbing her of her free will and driving her to aid the slayer of her family. She was compelled to fight alongside Nichols, though her sobs could not be contained. She was an unwilling pawn, but just as deadly as any of the Lifer Primes, because many of the Vados could not bring themselves to attack her for fear of killing her.

As the Lifers charged across the field, the boom of the artillery sounded the opening salvo of the attack. Propelled by the makeshift cannons, a few foolhardy Vados launched themselves into the battle as the shield wall of Bravado advanced grimly forward. Sword clashed against shield as the two opposing forces met in the field, blood soaking the grass as the first of the Necro-soldiers reached the line of Vados.

Grandfather Nichols was a holy terror, propelled forward by his faith. Every swing dropped an enemy, his wide arcing piercing strikes cutting through armor and flesh alike. Bullets ricocheted off of him as if hitting steel, and blows glanced off him like he was covered in the finest armor known to the wastes. He was an unstoppable juggernaut, carving into his hated foes with a scalpel like precision. He stalked menacingly through the fray, cutting down anyone in his way, friend or foe. A group of the Necrophage infected Vados met him, turning his own disease into a potent weapon to distract him while the rest of the town went to work on the plan. Nichols was desperate, but it was the desperation of a caged tiger, eager to feed.

The Amaranthite weapons worked as intended, the Mortis ore cutting through the defenses of the Lifer Primes and the Necro-soldier alike. While the weapons seemed to harm Nichols at first, any time someone fell in the fight, he was there like a vulture, hacking into their flesh, the primordial siphon consuming their very imprint. With each consumption, his wounds were healed, his vigor restored, and he was as refreshed as if the battle has just begun.

The medics set up the temporary triage bays along the sloping road, using the wall of shields in front of them to offer some protection from the ravaging hordes. The artillery shots sniped out one Lifer Prime at a time, as a team of Vados circled the wounded foe with Amaranthite cleavers and took them down. Once they were helpless, they drug the captured Lifer back to the doctors to be forcibly healed of the Necrophage running through their veins. The captured Lifers cried out to Nichols for help, and as he realized what the Vados were doing, the Nemesis strode through the shield wall like it was not there and into the back line of medics. It was brutal, as Nichols carved into the defenders, murdering the wounded and medics alike.

They needed a distraction.

A shaky but committed voice rose out of the brutal combat, a challenge to Nichols to turn and fight by Mikhail, the Red Star. The Red Star had led to his capture during his last crusade against Bravado, but this time he would not be so lucky, each strike from Nichols cutting through his armor and shield like butter. As the Nemesis was drawn away by the rival, the medics set back to work, frantically trying to finish their work before he could return for another murderous pass. One by one, the pallid glow of the Lifer Primes were snuffed out. Nichols was unstoppable, but he was caught in a rage and easily distractable. As long as the townsfolk could stay out of the reach of his long arms and piercing blade, they could draw him back and forth across the field while their peers focused on his lieutenants. A cry went up from near the waterline as the stealthiest of the Vados finished their work disabling the machines that Nichols had planned to use to disperse the chemicals into the lake. Brute force against the delicate machinery worked exactly as they hoped.

As the Lifer Primes were sedated and killed by the process of the Amaranthine cure, the tide of the battle seemed to shift. With each death of a Lifer, it seemed like Nichols was slowing. Even the death of Tenacity, gently held down as the cure took her last breath and sent her to the Grave Mind, was like a hammer to the Nemesis. When the last of the Lifer Primes was dispatched, Nichols began more targeted strikes on his attackers. He aimed for weak points, for the wounded, drawing from their deaths to fuel his massacre. The mortar fire began dialing in on the Nemesis’s position, raining shells against him as he stood firm against the assault. But then his eyes grew wide as he took in the state of the battle. All around him lay the slain Necro-soldiers, the torn apart corpses of the Butchered mutants, and many more angry Vados than the remaining Lifers. And he was bleeding.

The blades of the Vados focused on Nichols. As he finally began to reach a state of the personal morgue, the disease ravaging his body turning inwards at last to feast on his Infection. Each time his body re-knit it self, he exploded with an abyssal force, each lost Infection striking with the force of a small bomb in the area around him. Each time he ruptured, the Necrophage-protected Vados screamed in defiance, driving him back. He began shouting “NO! THIS CANNOT BE HAPPENING!” as the enormity of his failure began to set in on the Nemesis.

He fell to one knee, then rose once more with the reciprocal force of the disease temporarily driving back the Vados. He struck blindly, trying to take someone down so he could feed on their imprint, but he was surrounded by shields and the Vados’ own Necro-soldiers. He fell once more, the blows of the townsfolk raining down on him, tearing into his flesh, cutting through the diamond-hard protection of the Necrophage. His eyes went wide as the the purple veins of the Necrophage began creeping up his neck, choking him of oxygen, devouring the biomass, and reaching for his brain. Nichols screamed in frustration, in bitter rage, before he suddenly threw his head back in a wordless, dying scream of agony.

The world went white as Dr. Hannibal Nichols-Lovelace exploded one last time in a titanic abyssal pulse.

With a Whimper, not a Bang

The silence of the lake was deafening.

The Nemesis was down for good. A smoking ruin of a corpse was all that remained, his grey beard all that was recognizable amid the swollen and desiccated body. His corpse lay trapped in a final scream, a scar on the ground left by the tear in reality as he died. The massive pulse of abyssal energies had laid low the entire battlefield, and brought a resolute finish to the fighting.

With the defeat of Doc Nichols, the remaining Lifers that could walk either fled in terror or were hunted down as they bled to death. Whatever will they had to fight faded after seeing their leader die, the unnatural compulsion ending upon Nichols drawing his last breath. The strange power of Nichol’s Tellingvisionary faith that kept the stage lit for the finale faded to nothing, and the night was dark once more. The threatened black clouds of his revenge had not manifested, as the contaminating agents of the plague had been neutralized before they could be spread into the water of Lake Bravado.

Some of the survivors took the quiet moment to heal their wounds and take stock of the dead. Dozens had died in the combat, cut down by Nichols and his Lifer Primes but they had managed to kill and stop each of the Lifers that were assisting the Nemesis with his plan. Others still took advantage of an Daline Osteotome to draw out a few last questions from the corpse of Hannibal Nichols, hoping that there was enough spark left in his brain to answer the graverobber’s questions.

Doc Thomas and the others asked three questions of the dead Nemesis, prodding into the quickly decaying brain for answers. They asked about his remaining family, his employers, and who had helped him with his plot. The corpse rasped out cryptic answers to their requests, but after the procedure was done the body seemed to suddenly move. Like his previous encounter with death in Bravado, Nichols had one last trick up his sleeve - a Nemesis Surprise. Like the horror movie icons he worshiped, Nichols drew one last breath long enough to reach out and slay one last victim with his dying act, even when he appeared dead and gone. The screams of surprise as the supposedly dead Nemesis mimicked the last vestiges of life echoed in the darkness, but it was as over as quickly as it started. Luckily, the twisted protection of the Necrophage stopped Wicker, a Natural One from the Sequoia Wastes, from meeting an untimely end. It was an ironic escape, as the stoic natural one sat stunned by the force of his final strike. His defense of using the doctor’s own disease to stop his final, spiteful attack was the only thing that saved him.

With a rasping last breath the doctor was well and truly dead. One last phrase escaped his rotting lips as his corpse rapidly began to fall apart into purplish fungus and rotting tissues. It was a chilling prophecy, perhaps speaking of what he saw before he died a final death. His eyes glazed over for a final time, as the words he spoke brought contemplative and terrifying silence to the masses gathered over his corpse.

“THEY ARE COMING…”

The crowd returned to town, somewhat uncertain in their victory. A few brave souls claimed trophies of Doc Nichols, with his hat, his weapons, and the contents of his pockets quickly being hidden into pockets and supply bags.

Questions still remained, though.

Had the doctor’s death attracted the attention of beings beyond death? Who was his last words referring to? Who exactly on the San Saba Board had funded the research into the plague of the Necrophage, and secured the Nemesis’ release from the prisons of Brownstone Island? Did they destroy all of the Necrophage catalyst, or did Nichols secret away some stockpile for later? What did his last words mean? The Pyroclasm foretold by the Grave Mind had been averted for now, but was the threat truly over?

The body of Doctor Hannibal Nichols-Lovelace was left rotting at the lake, the disease managed, his revenge once again stopped, and the final scene of his masterpiece concluded. They would return in the morning to burn the corpse, but for the moment, they could look up and enjoy a moment of peace under the stars of the Lonestar Skies…

Other Threads of Notes - The Pyroclasm

• The Queen Emerges - Even with the Necrophage on everyone’s mind, other threats still stalk the dark corners of Bravado. Dangerous Recluse Nest Raiders, spider-loving raiders that coated their weapons in poison and built nests of webbing in the trees, had been harassing Bravado since the end of the Burning Season. The Raiders were hunting for people to bring back to their nest and they even managed to capture a few of the errant Necro-soldiers during the invasion. With the necrotic bodies of the soldiers threatening to infect anyone they caught, they posed a menace that had to be burned out. There were even scattered reports of a mutated Raider with the features of a spider, her claws coated in poison and a stinger that could fell even the toughest combatant. While the nests were destroyed, it is not known what exactly happened to this strange Raider Queen.

• Pages of Pallid Glory - Despite the threat of Nichols, a local RRC archeologist arrived into town with a strange artifact they planned to dedicate to the library in town. After being accosted by Headhunter raiders as they arrived, the Archeologist escaped with their life but not their ancient Barogian artifacts. The strange stone tablet had the script of the Prince Undying, the last survivor of old Barogue, carved into the surface and it radiated a haunting power to those that were faithful. One must wonder who else might be interested in obtaining these relics and artifacts of the lost city of Barogue.

• The Prophet of Cutthroat Alley - In the aftermath of the Necrophage massacre, the Prophet of Cutthroat Alley; a mutated psion named Caleb Lovelace, visited Bravado on a mission of mercy. Caleb was known for a prominent psionic crystal growth on his face and body and being the son of the late Pfilomena Lovelace, the former leader of a Grave Mind cult in Essex He brought a number of supplies from Essex to help the town recover and heal the wounded, along with two of the strange cultists that had worshiped the Grave Mind during the Fountainhead Incident. These attendants spoke of a great resurrection, when the former leader of the Cult of the Tiny God would return once more to save the San Saba. Their faith was unquestionable, though they spoke of another cultist named Sister Greywand as the source of the prophecy.

• The Butcher & New Employment - After the fall of Killhouse, the Lifers were either drafted into Nichol’s army of Necro-soldiers or killed in the resistance. With Adam Moriarty, the Warden of Killhouse, thought dead or missing, it was curious to see that Juliet Butcher was unconcerned about her future employment. The mad scientist clearly already had new employers, though no one would speak of the exact details of her arrangement outside of a few hushed warnings to not inquire further.

• The Betrayal of Eyeless Jack - The son of Grandfather Nichols had made a friend in town, the postwalker named Abe Callaghan. After meeting him on the deserted road in the middle of the night, Jack murdered the poor young man after an argument, leaving him to die in the road before his friends could reach him. The unstable Nemesis was clearly torn by the murder of the Baywalker and left town shortly after. Jack was not seen at the massacre at the lake that next night and when asked about his absence, Nichols has described that his son was a traitor that had abandoned his family. The spawn of Nichols is still at large, as he escaped the fate of the other Lifers that were killed in the finale.

Wrap Up

That’s it for today Vados! Thank you for reading my narrative about our National Event. It was truly a blessing to have some many amazing players attend our event, and I hope you enjoyed the show. Remember, we will be returning with our regular content in January!