Dystopia Rising Live

Howdy! It’s Jonathan here with an important Summer update! We are still hard at work on preparing our next season and will have our team selection announcements soon. But, for now we have a special announcement about the next edition of our game, Dystopia Rising Live!

On Monday, July 1st, at 1:00 PM CST, we will be launching our tickets for the upcoming National DR event hosted by Texas, Downfall 2024! We are super excited to share further details about our event on our brand new homepage, which you can find below. You can find updated information if you will be traveling to our event, a synopsis of the story you can expect, and an introduction to the setting for the event, the Fallow Hope fortress of BASTION.

DR Live beta Rules released!

Additionally, Monday is also the release of the Beta DR Live rules, and you can finally read through the new edition for yourself! This will be the rule set we use for the National event in October, so you have plenty of time to catch up on how it all works. I’ll also have a series of blog posts over the next few months introducing the new system in my classic Rules Ramble style.

The majority of the DR Live Books will be released to the public on July 1st, 2024, with the Blueprint Sample List following soon.

You can download the new books on the Dystopia Rising Live website.

The following books will be available to read, with feedback to follow at a later date:

• Player’s Guide

• Guide’s Guide

• Sample Zombie & Raider Threats & Support Materials

• A Global Plot Kit - "Illusions of Civility"

• A World Kit - The Grave Divers

• A sample from the book in progress "Strained Ancestry" which includes how strain variants work (with the Devoted written as a sample).

We recommend starting with the Player’s Guide, but Michael Pucci has echoed our DR:TX tradition of Radical Transparency by making ALL of the books available to read for EVERYONE, including a sample threat guide. While we sometimes conceal certain elements of the threats until you encounter them in game, you’ll get to see for yourself that dangers that you will be facing in October. This is very cool, and we are so excited for a new edition.

Important Considerations for a new edition

Before you get started with the reading, let’s cover a few of our suggestions for the new edition to set proper expectations.

The is not the official launch of DR Live, just an early look

While we will be running the first ever DR Live event, this won’t be the launch of the new rules across the network. We will still have several events using the 3.0 Rules, starting with our season opener in September, THE FALL OF THE SAN SABA BOARD. While we hope that the official transition to the new edition comes soon, we want to make sure we are ready for the change!

Preparing for Change

A new edition is very exciting, but it can also be a LOT. You don’t have to read this right away, and I’ll be working on a series of DR Live Blog Posts to share some of the changes, dive into some important Rules You Should Know, and help provide some context in the style you’ve come to know and love. But, with change comes some uncertainty too. It’s okay to be unsure of the new rules, or to worried about a new rule set. While the new edition does bring some big changes, I’ve been working on feedback on this edition since early this year and I’m so very excited to share why I think this is the best edition of Dystopia Rising yet!

Read First, and Write Down Your Questions

It’s exciting to read all the new rules, but I encourage you to actually READ the content that has been released as much as possible. Many of your questions may actually be answered in the book, so you may find the answer to your question as you read ahead.

We recommend starting with the Player’s Guide, as this will be where you reference most of the rules for your characters. You’ll find all the details there about Skills, Professions, and how to build a character. There’s a lot of detailed info about item cards, Fractures, and Diseases in the Guide’s Guide, but this is mainly a peek behind the curtain on how to run an event. If you want to keep a few surprises for yourself into the new edition, the Threat Guides and the National Plotkit may have some spoilers if you decided to take a look.

If you encounter something that you don’t understand, jot down a note on a piece of paper or in your Notes app on your phone or tablet, so we can help answer any questions you may have.

Ask Questions!

We already have some Discord channels set up on our DR:TX Discord for discussion on the DR Live rules, so we can already start fielding your questions. We will have some upcoming Discord hangout events as well, giving you a chance to ask your questions directly to us, and we will do our best to answer any concerns you have. Once the National Feedback opens up, you’ll even be able to share your constructive feedback on the National DR Discord in the coming months.

official FEEDBACK HASN’T STARTED YET

Michael and his team are planning on opening up official feedback channels in the near future, but for now we’d like you to really take time to absorb the new material and take notes. We’ve done a few passes of the books at the Director and Owner levels, and while we’ve caught most of the typos and layout issues, there might still be a few mistakes in the books. If you notice something you’d like to suggest changes for, take some notes and prepare for the announcement of when these feedback channels go live. I’ll have a blog post soon about some ways to craft effective feedback, so stay tuned!

Don’t try to rebuild your 3.0 character exactly, but capture the vibes instead!

The new edition has some dramatic changes to how you build your character. Because basically everything about skills has changed, every person will get to rebuild their character from scratch once the new edition arrives, using your entire pool of XP to re-imagine your character in the new world of DR Live. This means you can complete reset your character, including Infection, Resolve, and you can even take some different Professions or psionic skills!

I’d like to share probably my most important advice: Don’t try to simply recreate your character skill-for-skill in the new edition.

This was a learning lesson some folks learned the hard way during the transition from 2.0 to 3.0. Not every skill or profession made it into the new edition, so some stuff you used to be able to do will be different. Additionally, because some of the XP costs have changed, you might find it difficult to have every single skill you had in 3.0.

Instead, try to think of the core identity of your character, and what is most important to you. Are they a frontline soldier and want to invest into Impact Skills? Do you want to try your hand at crafting with the new easier to access Development Skills? Do you want to try a balance of both? There are loads of brand new skills, brand new abilities, and brand new professions. Instead of trying to recreate it exactly, try to capture the essence of what you want to do in the new edition instead.

Try something new!

A new edition is a perfect time for a BIG change for your character. Maybe it’s time to dust off that extra character you’ve been saving for a rainy day, or pick a brand new goal for your current character. Is it time for your character to have a crisis of faith and explore a different religion? Have you suddenly awake psionic potential you never knew you had? Maybe you have a new backstory update in mind for the new edition, or want to consider a new crew? Part of embracing the change of the new edition is going to be embracing that change with your characters as well. Don’t be afraid to try something new!

Five Cool Things to Look For in DR Live

As you get ready to dive into the new edition, here’s a few things I recommend looking for:

Impact Skills are awesome!

You no longer use Mind points to fuel your combat skills like Avoid or Break. Instead, you buy ‘uses’ of the skill that refresh every 20 minutes outside of combat. This means that you’ll be able to do that neat combat trick EVERY single combat. You won’t have to make the hard decision between using an Avoid to stop that big hit or saving the mind for making a crafted item later. This also really mimics the NPC experience as well, so it’ll be a great way to learn the new rules as you play the threats during your NPC shift.

Less Arbitrary Restrictions

The previous edition has some rules like limiting new Professions to one every 6 months, or requiring you to build expensive equipment before your PFA did anything at all. In 3.0, you couldn’t buy a Proficient ability until you had spent a number of XP, but now all of that has changed. The only restriction is how much XP you have - this means that even a brand new player can unlock a Master Developmental skill using only their starting points! And once you’ve purchased the right skills to unlock your chosen Profession, you’ll simply be able to learn it from an in-game teacher. No Action Request needed.

New Profession Skills

There are some crazy new abilities that you can unlock with a Profession. While you will be limited to three total choices of Professions, they now do a LOT more. Each Profession has two core skills tied with it, giving you some BIG abilities that can completely shift a combat in your favor, or unlock brand new ways to use your skills.

More Dangerous Threats

If you thought that DR was a bit too easy, you are in luck. Each of the threats, even Shamblers, have gotten a major glow up, adding brand new abilities and dangerous new attacks. There are even some brand new types of enemies to encounter, including scary Apocalyptic Threats! These new threats really bring the survival horror theme of Dystopia Rising back in style, and now you’ll need to be tactical about how you engage with monsters in the world. Make sure to bring a friend, ‘cause it’s dangerous to go alone!

Necrology!

There are a lot of new ways to interact with the Grave Mind, including brand new Necrology items. This is a whole new branch of crafting that can only be done INSIDE the Grave Mind. You’ll be able to descend into the Mortis Amaranthine to unlock this new level of crafting, as well as creating using new procedures, gizmos, and more. There are even GRAVE DIVES, that can result in encountering the most dangerous types of enemies, the WAHEL class-threats.

The future is so bright, you gotta wear shades!

Wrap Up

That’s it for today, Vados! We can’t wait to hear what you have to say about the new edition, and we are so excited to reveal more about our upcoming National event. I wrote a LOT of stuff for our new Downfall webpage, so check it out — you might even find a few surprises!

Tickets for the National event are on sale now, so don’t miss your chance to try out the new DR Live system in person, right here in Texas! See you soon, Vados!

Recap - The Atrocity

Howdy Vados!

It’s Jonathan here with a final DR:TX Rules Ramble for the season, as we begin our summer break! This was our part one of the FINALE story for Season 5, led by Heather Halstead and Jonathan Loyd. In September, we will wrap up the story with THE FALL OF THE SAN SABA BOARD. This week, we are recapping the major plot points from the weekend and leaving you with a few spoilers to consider over the summer!

• Our Bluebonnet Shores Work Day is on May 31-June 1. You can earn TEN (10) XP for helping our Girl Scout camp get ready for the summer season. Don’t miss out on your chance to give back and earn some tasty XP for your characters!

• If you had a great experience at our last event THE ATROCITY or had some suggestions for how we can improve, we’d love to hear from you!

  • Fill out our Feedback Form!

  • Nominate another player for a Community Achievement!

• Our next quarterly Network Advisory Board meeting happens this Thursday, May 23. You can listen to the meeting once it’s uploaded at the Dystopia Rising Live website.

• Dystopia Rising Texas will be at Anime Fest in Dallas, on July 25-28. We will have a community table near the Dealer Room, so stop by and say “Howdy!”

++ SPOILER WARNING ++

I’m going to detail the big secrets we revealed during this game, so if you’d rather learn about this in game, skip to the end!

Our photos for this post were taken from our May 2023 DR:TX event by the talented Lauren Guzaldo.

The Atrocity - A RECAP

If you didn’t get to attend this event, we had some BIG revelations come from our finale. I’ll try to summarize the major plot points in this recap, but you can read about our teaser blog posts from the last few weeks:

• The Premise

• What Has Happened Before

• The Nightmare Host

• Barogue, the Lost City

• The Prince Undying

The Premise of the Atrocity

Felicity Redfield is dead. 

After months of secret imprisonment on charges of treason, Felicity was found slain in her cell in Essex, a Golden Spike lodged in her chest, her flame red hair extinguished with drying blood. There are no suspects, and there will be no investigation. 

In Bravado, the drums of rebellion have beat a fevered cadence. The Rebellion is poised to strike against Essex, a final blow against the power of the Board. Chastized and rebuked by the town, the Chairman's wrath now burns solely for Bravado, eschewing the rest of the San Saba for vengeance.

The Chairman has brokered a deal, a bargain wrought in blood, crystal, and fell promises. Whispers on the wind speak of ill tidings. The sun darkened to blackness. The rivers of the San Saba rendered still. Farmers clawing at their eyes in their sleep until blind. These dark omens resonate with the Music of the Spheres, a portent of impending and terrible violence. A prophecy of an ATROCITY foretold in ancient Barogian manuscripts, an echo of a crime committed in the past. 

And it is coming to Bravado.

The Obelisk at the crossroads has repelled The Prince Undying once, but it is unclear if it can withstand a second onslaught, or if it was created for something else entirely. With the Obelisk bolstered, any Nightmares that force their way into Bravado are disoriented, relying on sound to hunt their prey. To speak is to invite death, as your very words solidify the imprint of the living. 

But Felicity has not left Bravado to weather this hardship unaided. There is a duty to uphold, and contracts to keep that not even death can hinder.   There is none that rivaled her knowledge of the Lost City and its forgotten history, no architect of lore that matched her research.  Rumors fly that her journal was smuggled out of Essex, and that it holds her most powerful secrets of the past meant for her beloved Bravado. 

Everything that has happened before will happen again. 

But what if didn’t? 

Only if the prophecies can be unwritten, a Prince contained, and The Atrocity averted, can Bravado be poised to claim their destiny…

Let’s get started!

The First Night

Our event opened on Friday night with a MURDER. Our Dusters found themselves escaping from Essex with a blood-covered felon after the murder of Felicity Redfield, the CEO of the Railroad Conglomerate. Early reports suggested that she had been found with a GOLDEN SPIKE stabbed in her chest, a call back to the very first game of 3.0. A few even suggested that her body had simply stood up and walked out of Essex. Regardless of what actually happened, the Dusters had to escape guards in hot pursuit of a killer and had to deal with the shadowy monsters that hunted at the edge of their vision, the Nightmares of the Prince Undying.

Folks all over the San Saba were starting to disappear, drug away in the night by strange shadows or torn to shreds by something no one could see. The nightmares of the Prince Undying invaded the town as the sun set, intent on some grand design few could appreciate. A few loud victims made their way into town, and a few enterprising survivors picked up on a similarity between the folks being chased by nightmares. Every person that had disappeared had some kind of tie to Bravado, via family, past residence, or some loved one that lived downtown.

As the last rebel mail run from Essex made it to town, a few individuals found their way across a journal, lost in the mail and the pages scattered between survivors. These journal pages were written with a familiar scrawl, and a few of the survivors took it upon themselves to collect the pages. Within the journal, the last words of Felicity Redfield were recorded for those lucky enough to find a piece.

• [SPOILER] If you would like to read the Journal and weren’t able to find all the pages in one place, you can find it on our website in its entirety. Heather did a great job on this cool story, and we want to make sure that anyone can read it if they like. However, it does contain story spoilers, so reader beware!

  • The Journal of Felicity Redfield

On the war front, the armies of the Prince Undying were quickly approaching Bravado. After being turned aside at Tremorsands Post and at Castle Falken, the horde of undead reached the walls of Killhouse to the north. As the brave defenders of the Bravado Revolutionary Army stood firm, more of the nightmares poured from the depths of Killhouse BEHIND the line of battle. It would seem the Nightmares could travel between the strange obelisks found across the San Saba, including the Obelisk of Betrayal deep in the XXX Wing at Killhouse. Despite the two-front attack, the armored defenders managed to withstand the overwhelming assault and blunted part of the Prince’s advance towards Bravado and Drywater.

The Return of Sister Mammon

Late into the night, a familar face arrived in Bravado. Clad in the desert robes of the Dune Sea, black and red makeup on their face and a golden spike buried in their chest, Sister Mammon, the Final Knight prophet came to the aid of Bravado in the darkest hour. Shockingly, the face she wore was of someone much more familiar.

Mammon wore the face of Felicity Redfield, late CEO of the Railroad Conglomerate. Her curly red hair was kept back and the eyes that shined in the darkness seemed strangely familiar, but somehow older and ancient. The true reason that Felicity couldn’t remember her past was that she was only a fragmented personality that shared the body of Mammon, the prophet of Barogue. With Felicity’s death, Mammon was awoken once more to claim the body that was rightfully hers.

Sister Mammon laid out a plan, once that had been waiting for years untold to come to fruition. The Prince Undying was set on recreating his great ATROCITY, a single night of terror where the entire people of Barogue were dragged screaming into the Grave Mind to serve as eternal servants of the Prince, his Khibrath Murea, the Nightmares of the Prince Undying. Using the connection and sympathetic bonds each person’s imprint had with their town, the Prince would erase every last person with a tie to Bravado, killing everyone before the sun could rise on Sunday.

This was the reason citizens were disappearing from the outskirts as the Prince drew closer. Anyone and everyone with a connection to Bravado was being targeted by the Nightmares, killed in the name of the Prince’s atrocity. Stopping or preventing the Atrocity would not be easy. Sister Mammon’s enemy, the Prince Undying, was functionally immortal. He was an imprint trapped in the Grave Mind, a sort of Mortis Shard that let him walk among the living, while not really existing in either realm. No weapon or bullet could really stop him, so Mammon had devised a plan to instead use his immortality against him. If he could not be killed, he could be contained.

The obelisk in the center of Bravado was not just a relic of ancient Barogue. It was an elaborate TRAP that was meant to contain the Prince Undying, a final weapon of Salvation, provided they could lure the undead horror into Bravado proper. Crafted without the Prince’s knowledge by Mammon, the Obelisk was connected to the same Network he used to protect himself. The network of Obelisks scattered around the San Saba were the source of the Prince Undying’s power, split across the entire region. The Obelisk of Salvation could contain the Prince, locking him into an eternal prison separated from his army of Nightmares, separated from Barogue, and contained in the final resting place of Mammon — the town of Bravado.

To do so, they would need to sever the connections of the Obelisk network of the San Saba through a foul Final Knight benediction, so that they could prevent the Prince from simply using the Grave Mind to escape. Each ritual would require the survivors to pour their fears and nightmares into the obelisk, to attune it to the strange realm of Nightmares. Using aspects of each of the other obelisks in the San Saba, they would sever the connection they had with Bravado, isolating the town from the greater San Saba and creating the perfect trap for the villain.

Severing the Obelisks

Each time a survivor poured their fears and nightmares into the Obelisk at the crossroads, a spark of prophecy escaped their lips, a strange puzzle of cryptic phrases and predictions that seemed to explain how the rituals would function.

Throughout the night and next morning, the townsfolk of Bravado worked to enact Mammon’s plan through various means. Roaming nightmares made this challenging at times, as they seemed to be drawn by sound and the essence of the living. Striking from the shadows, they would appear suddenly in a frenzy of violence, and if you weren’t silent they would attempt to tear you to pieces.

There were nine different Obelisk rites to complete, and each required an act that echoed the history of Sister Mammon, and her journey through the desert to escape Barogue.

• The Obelisk of Knowledge, one of the artifacts kept in the crashed city of Waking required the Rite of the Sundered Mind. The obelisk that had once helped Felicity translate the Barogian script would be severed by making a mockery of the inspirations and aspirations of a scholar, beating them to near death and gouging out their eyes in a form of horrific torture, echoing the violence committed against Mammon in her escape from Barogue.

• The Obelisk of Entropy, required a Binding of All Day’s End to sever the second obelisk in the heart of Waking that was taken from Aggieland. The rite required them to execute a forsaken martyr that was stripped of their gear and made to fight to the death with only a single dagger. The sacrifice would face the Grave Mind alone, forsaken in their death like Mammon, cut from their faith and civility and trampled under hoof and claw.

• The Obelisk of Endless Sands, a lone monolith in the heart of the Dune Sea required the Rite of the Blind Wanderer to end its connection to Bravado. As part of the ritual, a blinded Nomad would be set to aimlessly wander, stalked by a wandering danger that burned away the path through pyrokinesis and violence, in an echo of Mammon’s lost wandering through the Dune Sea. They had to create a map through the endless sands, recreating her journey to find salvation outside of the desert.

• The Obelisk of Betrayal, deep in the prison of Killhouse, required the Rite of the Black Hearted Betrayal to end its connection. The survivors had to find one that held the role of betrayer among them, binding them and cutting out their heart as they discerned truth from fiction. A game of questions and elimination, it required them to confront difficult truths, as Mammon had when she started the fall of Barogue.

• The Obelisk of the Tentacled Depths, worked into the lighthouse in the Clutch, needed the Rite of the Drowned Shark to sever the bond. Lashing a survivor to the mast of the boat in Anyport, they had to be bled out while under the water, choking on their last breaths in a horror of asphyxiation. Invoking the ancient rites of the sea to forsake the wanderer’s purpose, the rite echoed the brutal exile and separation of Mammon from her people.

• The Obelisk of the Open Path, standing tall in the heart of old Barogue, required the Rite of Unprisoned Time to end its threat. The gate of worlds had to be sealed away with the time of the sacrificed, giving up their ability to refresh Mind, and translating the ancient laws of punishment from high Barogian while under assault by Nightmares. An echo of Mammon’s sentencing, the rite recreated her final punishment before she fled Barogue, severed from the Scion Vossa.

• The Obelisk of Creation, the source of the forests in the heart of Essex, had to be severed by the Rite of Poisoned Earth. By salting and poisoning the farmland of Bravado, working the bleeding bodies of the sacrificed Landsmen into the very earth itself, they could replicate how the Prince had punished Mammon by killing anyone and everyone they had known. Despite being recently restored to function, the Meadows will likely take some time to recover from the rite, sown with death and salted with poison blood.

• The Obelisk of Memory, found in the quiet hamlet of Widow’s Peak, was severed by the Ritual of the Flock. Bonding themselves with bloody feet and hazy minds, they had to alter their very memories, replicating the blood of the covenant that was sworn when Mammon pursued her revenge against the Prince through the years, despite the fog of ages.

The last obelisk

In the afternoon, the defenders of Bravado and Drywater met the forces of the Prince Undying, now on the doorstep of our hometown, intent on committing his Atrocity against any that shared an imprint or connection with the tiny town. Despite nearly overwhelming forces, the defenders stood firm, breaking wave and wave of the undead terrors, and closing the gauntlet behind the Prince. There would be no escape from Bravado, as the Rebellion worked to make sure the Prince was drawn into Mammon’s trap.

Sometime in the afternoon before the final stages of the Prince’s defeat, Mammon presented the town with the last wishes of the host she was using as a body. On Felicity’s corpse was the prize she had protected with her life, her Last Will & Testament. Inside, a signed contract with the Chairman of the Board itself bequeathed the town of Bravado to its residents, a final spiteful act against the Board, bound by the same rules it claimed to uphold. The Will returned the town of Bravado, its surroundings, and the mineral rights to the people of Bravado, and is an iron clad testament to any of the great factions that would oppose the town in the aftermath.

Another group of survivors did the unthinkable and snuck into Essex to steal the prize of the RRC and the Board, the OX itself. Stopping the Board from airlifting the locomotive engine out of the besieged city, they had to defend the train from mercenaries of the Red Ledger intent on stopping the theft of the symbol of the Board’s remaining power. The survivors released the Ox from the wheel locks they immobilized it, fueled it with the black ichor of Oxblood, and defended their engineers as they escaped from the City of Light and Sound. With the Ox secured in Bravado, the forces of the Bravado rebellion could begin their offensive on the last capital controlled by the San Saba Board.

The final Obelisk, the Obelisk of Midnight, would need to be severed from within the grave itself. Erected within the strange Nightmare of the Prince Undying, a realm of strange angles and mind-bending physics, it was the last refuge that the Prince could use to escape Mammon’s trap. The last connection needed to be severed by cutting the right pieces of ephemera and gristle connecting the icon to the real world. By bodily entering the Mortis, they rushed to cut the right connections while evading the horrific Nightmares that pursued them. Inside they found the desiccated husk of General Rampart, his last twisted scream burned into his body by a faulty psi-tech relic, a sacrifice to the Prince Undying to seal the promise made by the Chairman. With the final obelisk separated (and Rampart’s hat in safe hands), they escaped back into Bravado with Nightmares on their heels.

The final confrontation was near, and the town needed but one last step to seal away the Prince Undying for good.

The Final Seal

With the town of Bravado isolated and disconnected from the various towns and strongholds across the San Saba, and the armies of the Prince Undying on their door, it was time to prepare the prison that would contain the undead horror that prowled the darkness in ochre robes. Mammon returned for a final time to outline her grand design, a series of archaic SEALS that would close the doors opened by the Prince Undying when he escaped his prison inside Barogue. Each of three Nightmare doors would need to be sealed, calling upon the true names of the Final Knight demons worshipped by the red-haired cultist. Mammon would teach them the goetic runes they could use to complete the seal, but they would need to defend the crafters while they attempted to seal the doors.

The first seal, the sign of Astaroth, was put into place at the Bravado Morgue. The strongest connection to death, and one of the places the Red Death had emerged from last December, the door was defended by the Prince Undying and his hordes of Nightmares and undead. The purple sickly glow illuminated the strange door that was now visible, and the agitated and disturbed Mortis Amaranthine seemed to growl in defiance to the process.

Each time a seal was finished, the agonizing ritual robbed the psionic potential of any that participated in the rite. The strange Barogian seals were effective, quelling the energy radiating from the strange portal to nowhere. The survivors quickly moved to the site of the next Nightmare door, the Depot. In the middle of the busiest building in Bravado, the town established a perimeter to defend young Dusters selected to place the Seal of Paimon under heavy assault. Each time the Prince appeared, he moved through the crowd with lethal intent, but seemed completely immune to most attacks that would try to stop him. The Vados created a physical wall of bodies to protect the crafters, holding the line of shields against the wave of undead.

When the second door was closed, the townsfolk moved to the last location, the Crossroads door, illuminated by the glow of the obelisk that stood nearby. The Prince returned with a fury, striking down his foes with a touch, and turning others to his command. Each time the Prince would command the loyalty of the defenders, and turn their own defenders against the living, the shield wall stood firm and protected the chosen that placed the Seal of Vassago on the Nightmare door that stood alone in the darkness. Each seal was more intricate than the last, and it took some time to recover each time the line broke under the nightmarish assault. Three doors of nightmare were opened, and three doors were sealed and closed, lest the Prince Undying enact his atrocity.

With a fierce battle cry, the town pushed back the undead horde, moving as one to the final part of Mammon’s trap. With the doors to his Nightmare realm closed, the Prince attempted to escape into the Grave Mind, using his network of obelisks to survive another day. When he did, the trap was sprung and the yellow robed horror was instead drawn inside the Obelisk of Salvation, a final tomb for the unstoppable nightmare. Thirteen psions were gathered, pouring their psionic energy into the Obelisk as they created the final seal, the Seal of the Betrayer, the seal of Mammon herself. It was a cage to contain, awake from the the nightmare, that would fade into the fog of memory as the Prince was sealed away for good.

With a resounding cheer, the Nightmares of the Prince Undying were vanquished, torn asunder like awaking from a bad dream, forced into retreat by the efforts of the brave citizens of Bravado, the final atrocity stopped at the last moment by the rites of Sister Mammon and their last stand at the crossroads.

The Battle of Essex

With the Prince Undying contained, the Rebellion turned its eyes toward Essex, the City of Light and Sound. The last bastion of the Chairman, the home of the Grave Council and the Fountainheart, and the beating heart of the San Saba, the city was the last resistance remaining. As the brave soldiers and mercenaries of the Rebellion approached the city for a final battle, they realized the desperation of the Chairman knew no limit.

The intimidating mercenaries of the Red Ledger had been contracted to the defense of Essex. Skilled killers and veterans, there was almost no greater military force in the San Saba Territories, save for the Bravado Revolutionary Army. Their enemy ranged from hired muscle and brutalists, to guttersnipes and assassins. Punchdrunks, redliners and zealots all signed their name in The Red Ledger, to the purpose of glory, gold or god respectively. Fanatic to the end, the Red Ledger was committed to a unifying truth that safeguards them against terror, trial and (often) common sense - death is an inconvenience, a moment to breathe and recover.

The Rebellion Army met their skilled foe and proved victorious, shattering the counter offensive by Gustav Glasseyes, and pushing towards the grand Spire in the center of the town, where the airship of Arthur Lovelace was docked. Pushing past the mercenary line, the Rebellion faced the final betrayal of the Chairman, when he did the unthinkable.

As the Rebellion forces approached, the Chairman turned the guns of his flagship onto the town itself, a withering cascade of artillery that fired on citizen and soldier alike. Countless people died from the indiscriminate bombardment, buildings and innocents caught in the crossfire of the war. Suffering devastating casualties from the salvoes, the Rebellion fought through the barrage to meet the last defense of the Chairman, his elite Praetorian Guard, led by Lawrence Graves, the right hand of the Chair. Despite the odds, despite the cowardly bombardment, the Rebellion pushed ahead, closing out the War of Antlers with a might victory over the last remnants of the Board’s might.

In the chaos of the final battle, the united forces of the Rebellion proved victorious, though the Chairman somehow escaped justice once more. When General Hargrave’s forces reached the pinnacle of the spire and prevented the escape of the Chair’s airship, the Quiet Folk leader was no where to be found. Despite his escape, the city was taken by early morning light and the capital of Essex was liberated once and for all from the tyrannical rule of the San Saba Board.

The Aftermath

At the end of the weekend, the exhausted survivors of Bravado contemplated the impossible. A bright new dawn, free of the Board’s influence, cheers and rallying cries of victory rising across the town as they celebrated their successes. They had stopped the Atrocity, and contained an undying threat, hopefully for good, and freed Essex. The Rebellion was successful, standing up to everything the Chair could throw at them, and thriving despite the challenge. It was a bright new day, full of possibility, underneath a Lonestar Sky…

There were a few threads of note that were left at the end of the event that are worth mentioning:

• The Chairman escaped the Battle of Essex, but thankfully, he’ll simply comply with the rule of law and stop his vendetta against Bravado, right? If making a deal with the Prince Undying to wipe out Bravado wasn’t successful, there’s surely nothing left for him to try, especially as we contemplate the FALL OF THE SAN SABA BOARD…

• The San Saba Territories are splintering, torn between various factions holding onto power in their respective strongholds, and the sudden loss of formal power across the region. Civilization is the veneer for man’s brutality, and the social contract that once bound the wastes of the Lone Star seems to be defunct. Each of the major factions are scrambling to adjust to this new paradigm, and the aftermath of this defeat is going to be felt long after the summer is over. How will the major factions change and adapt over the summer?

• The binding of the Prince Undying and the strange rites performed by the town to sever their connection to the greater wastes appears to have worked as intended. However, Sister Mammon and the body of Felicity seem to have disappeared as well, and no one has seen her since the completion of the Seal of the Betrayer. Time will tell if there are any unintended consequences of isolating the town by psionic ritual and trapping a malevolent Grave Mind entity into a psi-tech prison in the center of town…

• As the death tolls are counted, and the dust clears of battle, a suddenly victorious army presents an interesting dilemma — what purpose does the most powerful military force in the Lone Star serve in a post-Board society? Every power in the region has watched in rapt attention as the rightful government of the area was disposed by force, and many wonder if they are next. How do soldiers return to a humbler life free of the stress of the battlefield? Without a constant stream of war supplies and payment, who will stay loyal to Bravado, who will be disbanded and returned home, and who will decide to leverage their strength for their own personal profit?

• A soldier clad in the colors of the Mustang Loyalists delivered a message to Bravado from the one and only GENERAL MUSTANG early on Sunday morning. The Loyalists have broken from the former Oxkiller Alliance, and ordered the Bravado Rebellion Army to respect their boundaries in the wake of the Battle of Essex. The inhabitants of the fortified wreck at the edge of town in the Exclusion Zone have declared their own independence, and renamed the radioactive city to the BASTION OF NEW DAWN, or more simply, Bastion. They have offered Bravado a truce, and chance at a new asset they call the Liberum Radicalis. Who are the Wells Society and the Servants of the Undying, and what might this mean for the future? I’m sure we will find out in October…

The future is bright and promising, but our story isn’t done yet. We hope you will join us in September as we start our next season, as we conclude our finale story with THE FALL OF THE SAN SABA BOARD, but we had a special announcement for October that might be a bit important too…

Downfall 2024

On Sunday of our last event, we revealed a project we’ve been working on for a few months now during our closing announcements. The next National event will be hosted by DR:TX!

We will be hosting the first ever Dystopia Rising Live full-weekend playtest, using the brand new rules of the 4th edition of our game system. While this won’t be the launch of the new edition of the rules across the network, this will be your first chance to experience the world of Dystopia Rising with the DR Live rules in person. This will be a FOUR-DAY National Event, featuring the new rule set, and we will be inviting the entire network to attend. You’ll be able to buy up to 10 XP for your characters, access new and exciting resources from the new edition, and help us stress test the new rules with new threats, new blueprints, new skills, and more.

Tickets will go on sale this summer, and we hope that you are excited for this BRAND-NEW experience!

We have SO much more information to come, so make sure you stay tuned through our social media channels on Facebook, Instagram, and Discord, and you can check out https://www.idratherbeinbravo.com/downfall to keep in touch with our mailing list.

The Summer Break and You!

As I wrap up this last blog post of the season, I want to say a final thank you to our team of Storytellers, Guides, Admins, and volunteers. Each summer, we lovingly fire our entire staff to give folks the permission to step away from the stress of helping us operate our game. It would be impossible to produce Dystopia Rising Texas without the assistance of our wonderful volunteers, and we are thankful that they were willing to give their time and energy to help make this something special.

It’s a lot of work to produce our content for DR:TX, and we take a SUMMER BREAK from the treadmill of content creation and blog posts to relax, recharge, and come back ready for new stories, new thrills, and a brand new season. I’m not going to be writing weekly blog posts over the summer, but I might occasionally pop back up with some cool content for our upcoming season. Please be patient with emails and such as we recharge, and we’ll be back before you know it.

We will have the staff applications up for our new Season 6 team on May 23rd, so pay attention to our Discord, Facebook, and social media pages for more information. Once we’ve had a few weeks to rest, we will start sifting through our applications to build the best damn team we can for Season 6, and you should hear more from us in June.

SEE YOU SOON VADOS! HAve a great summer!

Here’s a few photos I took behind the scenes from this last game as a treat!

Sister Mammon, aka Felicity Redfield, portrayed by the very talented Heather Halstead

Battle Shots with the Road Royals and Oxkillers!

The Nightmare Door at the Morgue, shortly before the final fight began.

The Seal of the Betrayer. Players had to replicate this design with painter’s tape while being attacked by Nightmares. Yikes!

The Prince Undying, portrayed by me!

Nightmare buddies!

Inside the Obelisk! We cut a hidden door into the Obelisk so the Prince Undying could be literally trapped inside… it was VERY warm inside, especially while wearing the many layers of the Prince Undying.

Rules You Should Know - May

Howdy Vados!

It’s Jonathan here with another signature DR:TX Rules Ramble, leading up to our May live event THE ATROCITY! This is our FINALE for Season 5, led by Heather Halstead and Jonathan Loyd. Each week, I’ll discuss in detail an aspect of the upcoming event, compiling the rules and lore into one easy place to read! This week, we are covering some of the Rules You Should Know for the weekend, and a few last-minute logistics reminders.

• TICKETS FOR OUR MAY EVENT ARE STILL ON SALE AT THE DOOR! MAKE SURE YOU DON’T MISS OUT ON CHANCE TO SURVIVE THE ATROCITY!

• Our dates for Season 6 are posted on the website! If you need to ask over time in advance for your work, check it out!

• There are several new Local Blueprints available if you missed them in April! You’ll be able to use the Redfield Exchange, CAPS, or SES Credits to obtain these prints from the Post Office, or find other players with these custom items in play!

  • The Gospel Truth

  • Mr. Napalm’s Spicy Surprise

  • Amaranthite Vein

• CLEAN UP IS CHANGING! We will be continuing to experiment with a new process for Clean Up at the end of the event during our May games. Immediately after closing announcements, we will start with our Camp Cleanup first, and then complete our Personal Cleanup last! We had great success with this change during our April event, and we look to continue to improve!

• Our Post Office times will be changing! Starting in May, we will return to opening up the Post Office at 8:00 AM on Saturday! Crafters and Econ Junkies rejoice!

Our photos for this post were taken from previous DR:TX events by Max Pohlmeier.

Camp Bluebonnet Shores Clean Up Event!

We have a special opportunity available for our players at the end of May!

We always strive to leave our campsite cleaner than we found it, and our relationship with the Girl Scouts of Central Texas has been crucial to our long-term success. Finding a site isn’t easy, so we want to do everything in our power to be good partners and give back when we can. The Girl Scouts do some amazing work and we want to support them! Rafiki and the Camp Bluebonnet team have asked for some help around our campsite, so we are going to have a special charity event:

• When: Friday, May 31st - Saturday, June 1st

• Where: Camp Bluebonnet Shores

• What: Clean Up Day! During these events we pitch in with a bit of manual labor to help get the Girl Scout camp ready for the upcoming summer season.

• Friday Night: You can arrive on site after 6 PM. We will have access to the campsite to come out and sleep in a cabin to be ready the night before. I’ll bring some board games and Magic cards, and we will plan some potluck food events and just hang out with folks outside of a normal DR event. You don’t have to come out on Friday night, but it can definitely help with the drive the next day.

• Saturday: We will plan on starting about 9 AM, so we can try to beat the Texas heat. We will help paint benches, clear debris from trails and do general trail maintenance, clean up some dutch ovens, and help make some new signs for camp. We will have plenty of water and snacks available. Last year, we were done early afternoon. Plan to bring something for breakfast and lunch plans on Saturday.

• Clean Up: After we are done with the camp tasks, we need to clean up our Cabin, pack our gear, and get off site. We will try to get some food with everyone after if folks are still interested.

• What to Bring: Bring comfortable clothes for working in, gloves, and any snacks or such you might want. It may be muddy, so consider good shoes for the terrain. Bring your bedding for sleeping in a cot, food for Saturday and any potluck on Friday, plus your normal meds, spare socks, etc.

Now, this is just a great feel-good event to be involved with in general, but we have an EXTRA BONUS for folks that show up to help —

You can earn TEN (10) Experience Points for your character! FREE XP!

That’s a pretty sweet reward, plus, if you have an Advanced Membership, you’ll get the bonus XP on EVERY character you have on the database. There is no cost on this XP for you or us, so this is one of the easiest ways to prepare for a travel game over the summer, or just bank some XP for the next season, while giving back to the Girl Scouts.

Let’s cover some qualifiers for this bonus:

• You got to help with the Clean Up tasks. Generally, we will give 2 XP per hour of work if you cannot stay for the entire event or just come for a portion of the day.

• You can only benefit from ONE of these Charity Events. You are welcome to attend other nearby chapter’s similar charity events, but you can only benefit from the Bonus XP ONCE. This is functionally a new phantom National Event, so you can only be checked in once.

• If you don’t have an Advanced Membership, you’ll need to tell us which character gets the XP. We will have a list with us at site to keep track!

We hope you will join us for this special charity event!

rules You should know - MAY

Let’s cover a few of the common basic mechanics that might be relevant this weekend.

AGONY

Countered by Basic Mental Endurance if delivered by an AOE or Sound of Voice call, or by Avoid if delivered by a Strike or Ranged Attack. 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.

Pretty hard to stay quiet when you are screaming in AGONY. Probably won’t be that dangerous, unless you had things hunting by sound… oh wait.

Some important details to remember:

Agony is a versatile skill used by several different entities in Dystopia Rising. While affected by this ability, you may not use Skills (including weapon skills!) or items, but can move slowly and act defensively. This means no brews, no gizmos, no armor, no weapons, nothing!

• This attack interrupts all Skills being used, including Crafting. Remember, if you start using a new Skill while working on that expensive Artisan project, you will also be Interrupted. If you use Mental Endurance to resist the effect, you will Interrupt yourself. Best be careful about crafting while [REDACTED] are about.

• Agony is often a precursor to more dangerous attacks like Break and Mangle, so remember you can’t Avoid while under the effects of Agony. 10 seconds is a LONG time in the heat of combat!

• The Candlepin Survival Pack can protect you from this attack, but remember this is a Supply Bag item and cannot be stacked with a Freeiron Dry Pack. You can use either or, but not both!

• The Battle Hymn is probably the best single defense against Agony, as it gives you an Upsurge protect and simply makes you immune. This is the only way to avoid interruption from Agony, as the effect simply doesn’t happen. Remember, an Upsurge only lasts one hour, so make it worth it!

Be careful not to attract the attention of things in the night that use this skill. You may not like what happens after you start screaming in agony...

TERROR

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 at least 30 seconds (default; some uses may specify a different duration in the call) 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.

This skill often gets confused with Fear, but the simple instruction for Terror is to RUN AWAY! If you don’t counter this with Mental Endurance or an item, you simply need to move away from the creature for at least 30 seconds. Pick and direction and move!

• Terror is a separate ability than Fear. Many items that protect from Fear do not often the same protection from Terror, and often the two defenses are mutually exclusive.

• Like Agony, the Battle Hymn is an excellent defense against this ability, and if the right Upsurge is chosen it protects from both Fear AND Terror.

• One of the items purchased from the Master Sailing buy list can be used to defend against this ability, the Crew’s Cabin Flag.

• The item Scales of Ezra makes the wearer immune to Fear and Terror, provided you can use a Faithful Anomaly skill and two baptized members of your faith are in line of sight.

Sounds terrifying! Definitely not something a Prince of Nightmares might use against you…

FEAR

Fear is a mechanical effect that prevents a Target from attacking the source of the Fear. Fear is broken if the Target is attacked by a foe, affected by other non-Fear mechanics with the aim of harming the Target, or forced to attack by another effect that comes after the use of Fear. Fear does not make you leave the battlefield, but it does prevent you from crossing the line from verbal and secondary support to engaging combatant. While under the effects of Fear, you can still attack others on the battlefield who were not the source of the Fear.

Fear is an insidious ability, as it can be used by intelligent threats to lock you out of a combat and there are not many ways to prevent it from affecting you. Be careful while walking in a pair, because if the predator is particularly cunning, you might have to just watch your friend die while you are stricken in fear and unable to help them.

• Unlike Terror, you cannot use Mental Endurance against Fear. The only thing that really breaks Fear is that creature attacking you by mistake.

• Remember, being an ‘engaging combatant’ is a bit vague, but if you try to use a Skill on a friend or otherwise involve yourself in the battle against that creature you may not be able to intervene. This means you can’t really use skills like Interfere or and you can’t make an attack on an enemy to prevent a Killing Blow. It doesn’t stop secondary support like healing through Biogenetics, but it does stop most active skills that could stop the enemy.

• Like Agony, the Battle Hymn is an excellent defense against this ability, and if the right Upsurge is chosen it protects from both Fear AND Terror.

• Sometimes, a big fucking gun can give you the courage to fight back against paralyzing fear, particularly if you have a Rebel’s Ridiculous Receiver. A solid shield like the Freeiron Guard can be handy in a pinch, and can be used on others. You can also rely on chemical stimulation with a Glitter Gulch Dartgun, if you have the right PFA. For everyone else, you can always use a Trophy Room too to resist fear, if you can get a bedtime story from an Avontuur.

• A new blueprint from up north that’s handy against Nemesis works in a pinch versus fear, the Cullingwood Blade, if you are Bad Ass enough..

• There are many items purchased from every level of the Sailing buy list can be used to defend against this ability, such as Grog, Crew’s Raiding Flag, Crew’s Cabin Flag, and Keg O’ Grog. This is one of the cheapest and easiest ways to get immunity to Fear.

Can you master your fear in face of living Nightmares?

FROZEN IN FEAR (Nightmare Threat Skill)

One last mechanical effect to watch out for this weekend is one you’ll hear a bunch as the Nightmares hunt your survivors by sound through the weekend. After you hear the “Nightmare Manifest” skill call, you’ll likely hear this next call:

“PSIONIC: Area of Effect, STUN!”

At its heart, it’s just an AOE STUN effect, but let’s make sure everyone is on the same page.

Area of Effect

The Area of Effect is a 10-foot radius for the mechanics for a skill or effect, centered on the user of the skill. No area of effect outside of plot mechanic zones reach more than 10 feet. Areas of Effect do not pass through structural walls, but they do bypass partial cover and non-permanent structures.

Stun

A character who is stunned cannot use any equipment (save for armor they are currently weaing or equipment that activates when the wearer is Stunned), cannot use any skills, crumples to the ground (or drop to a knee for safety needs), and is unable to move of their own volition for 5 seconds. Equipment may not be stripped off of a Stunned Target, but items in the hands of a Stunned Target may be removed.

Let’s cover some important notes to consider if you get targeted by this skill:

• While STUNNED, you can’t use Skills, you can’t attack or defend, and you need to take a knee for 5 seconds. While you are Stunned, you can be disarmed by intelligent opponents and you are vulnerable to other powerful attacks like Mangle or Break, as you can’t use Avoid. This is often a precursor to more dangerous attacks, and it renders you unable to prevent the next big swing. In practice this renders you vulnerable for a bit longer than 5 seconds, as you’ll still need to stand up and that can leave you exposed.

• AOE attacks bypass light cover and stuff like trees, obelisks, bushes, etc. You’ll need to be fully inside a building with a shut door to avoid the effect based on obstacles. If you are defending an open door, the effect will carry past your shield wall inside.

• As this attack is a PSIONIC effect, the skill Mental Endurance can resist the AOE Stun effect. This also means rare brews like the Murky Black Byproduct and Gleaming Red Byproduct can be super useful.

• AOE attacks cannot be stopped by the Avoid skill, but CAN be stopped with the Balance skill, as this is an AOE effect that would cause you to be Stunned.

• The most common item defense to Stun effects is actually through the power of a good meal. With the Deep Cholesterol Fry procedure, a cook can add “Immune to the next Stun” effect until the next 12s after you eat the meal. Remember to say “No effect, Meal!” when you use this buff.

• Like Agony, the Battle Hymn is an excellent defense against this ability, and if the right Upsurge is chosen it protects from the next Stun effect. However, given that the Stun protection is a one-use ability, and the protection from Agony, Fear or Terror can last up to an hour, this isn’t a mode chosen often for this benediction.

• Certain rare effects, like the Phalanx Doyen PFA ability with the OOPH Barrier Shield can prevent the effect, provided you can stay in the shield wall formation. This renders you immune to area of effect calls, but not single target Stun effects.

• Speaking of powerful shield abilities, the Wasteland Mentor effect of the Freeiron Guard can make your allies immune to Stun for 1 minute, and even break a Stun effect on someone else without needing a PFA skill.

Now you are armed to master your fear, and not be frozen in place when the Nightmares attack!

QUICK EVENTS

One last complication to the fighting will be experienced in the form of Quick Reaction Events, a returning concept for DR:TX that we used during our SIEGE event last year. These were inspired by some clever skill uses in DR: Oklahoma (Fore!!), and by our very own Reaction Events during the Submarine mods written by Ed Sampson. If you attended our VOX POPULI event, you had to react to these in person!

WHAT IS A QUICK EVENT?

During the final fights of THE ATROICITY, you will occasionally hear a Guide start a Quick Event:

• The Guide will describe the effect with a exclamation - “Shockwave!” This is largely flavor and is meant to help you understand in-game what effect is happening. We don’t have a Hollywood budget, so sound effects will have to do.

• The Guide will call the keyword, then start a slow 3-count. - “Hit the Deck, 3, 2, 1!” When you hear this countdown, it will be a clear sign to do something!

• You will have only a brief time to REACT to the event. If you perform an obvious behavior to protect yourself, you will avoid the damage or negative effect. This might be something like taking cover, cover your ears, looking away from a blinding light, or falling to the ground.

• If you do not react in time, the Guide will call a “Failed Reaction”. This call will be alongside a temporarily inconvenience, like Blinding, Agony, or Stun. This is an unavoidable effect, and no use of Avoid, Balance, Mental Endurance, or even a Phalanx will stop this.

• A few of the events cannot be avoided at all. There is one effect that cannot be avoided by reacting to the event and will simply be a thing you need to deal with.

In practice, these attacks will be pretty intuitive. After you’ve seen it in action a few times, you’ll understand what you need to do to protect yourself, and you can simply listen for the Guide to call or point to you for the effects. The first time you experience these Quick Events, you’ll even have a longer count to help you realize what is about to happen.

WHAT IF YOU ARE A LITTLE LESS MOBILE?

Don’t worry! The goal of these events is not to punish people that may have a lack of mobility or be a bit slower. I know I’m not the fastest person out there, but what we are looking for is EFFORT.

IF YOU DO SOMETHING THAT A REASONABLE PERSON COULD INTERPRET AS REACTING TO THE EVENT, THE EFFECT WON’T HURT YOU.

This is largely a self-applied attack, so if you feel you avoided the attack our Guides will believe you! We want to have a fun, kinetic event to break up the monotony of a fight and to add a bit of tension to the boss fight, and this is not meant to force a strenuous physical activity.

WHAT KINDS OF QUICK EVENTS SHOULD I EXPECT?

In our DR:TX tradition of Radical Trust, here’s the list of the effects you can expect to see during the fight. This will also be posted in the Depot and the Post Office and we will have several NPCs to help telegraph these behaviors when they happen.

Pay attention, and you’ll survive the Atrocity!

• All Will Tremble! HIT THE DECK!

  A Guide will call “Hit the Deck, 3, 2, 1!”.  If you do not obviously react and take cover, sit down, and/or fall to the ground (if able), you suffer an unavoidable “Failed Reaction: Stun, 10 seconds!” as you are disoriented by the collision of a shock wave.

• The Grave Mind Hungers! GRASPING TENDRILS!

  A Guide will call “Grasping Tendrils, 3, 2, 1!”.  If you do not obviously dive for cover, move from your current position, or take obvious attempts to dodge the tendrils reaching from the Mortis, you suffer an unavoidable “Failed Reaction: 5 Body, Nail, 1 Minute!”. You may not move from your place for 1 minute following this damage, as you are pinned by grasping tendrils of the Grave Mind.

• Wave of Darkness! LIGHTS OUT!

  A Guide will call “Lights Out, 3, 2, 1!”.  The lights of the Depot or other buildings will be extinguished, and LCs AND Threats may use Stealth effects indoors for the next 5 minutes.  You may use Awareness to counter Stealth effects as normal. You can’t react to avoid this event.

• The Undead Wail! PSIONIC RUPTURE!

  A Guide will call “Psionic Rupture, 3, 2, 1!”.  If you do not obviously cover your ears, muffle your sense of hearing, or make some effort to meditate or mentally protect yourself, you suffer an unavoidable “Failed Reaction: Agony, 10 seconds!” as the haunting screams of the Mortis Amaranthine overcome your senses.

• The Crown Shines Bright! BLINDING LIGHT!

  A Guide will call “Blinding Light, 3, 2, 1!”.  If you do not obviously cover your eyes, avert your vision from the Prince Undying, or make some effort to protect your eyes with goggles, masks, or scarves, you suffer an unavoidable “Failed Reaction: Blinding, 10 seconds!” as the blinding flash of the Prince Undying’s psionic crown overwhelms you.

• None Shall Approach! KNOCKBACK!

  A Guide will call “Knockback, 3, 2, 1!”.  If you do not obviously react and brace yourself, take a knee, sit down, or make some obvious attempt to hold your ground, you suffer an unavoidable “Failed Reaction: Knockback, 20 Steps” from the telekinetic rage and force of the Prince Undying.

That’s it for the Quick Events. I think these will offer some fun ways to interact with the fight that isn’t swinging a boffer and it will be something that anyone can do during the siege. Remember, it’s all about the effort, so just try your best!

WRAP UP

That’s it for today, Vados! We covered a lot in this blog post, and we will cover the main highlights once more during our Opening Announcements at game next week. While the Mortis Nightmares can be deadly enemies, there will still be other events throughout the weekend as we wrap up our season, so don’t worry. You’ll still face zombies, raiders, and other survivors as we contemplate THE ATROCITY of the Prince Undying.

TICKETS ARE STILL BE ABLE TO PURCHASEd AT THE DOOR FOR OUR LAST EVENT OF THE SEASON.

Don’t miss out on your chance to experience the first part of our season finale! See you this weekend, Vados!

The Nightmare Host

Howdy Vados!

It’s Jonathan here with another signature DR:TX Rules Ramble, leading up to our May live event THE ATROCITY! This is our FINALE for Season 5, led by Heather Halstead and Jonathan Loyd. Each week, I’ll discuss in detail an aspect of the upcoming event, compiling the rules and lore into one easy place to read! This week, we are covering the unique threat you’ll face this weekend, the Mortis Nightmares, the truth behind the Nightmare Host keyword, as well as an update on the San Saba Rebellion!

• TICKETS FOR OUR MAY EVENT ARE ON SALE UNTIL FRIDAY! WILL YOU SURVIVE THE NIGHTMARE HOSTS OF THE PRINCE UNDYING?

• Bluebonnet Shores (formerly Camp Kachina) has updated their map and the names of locations around the site. Some of your favorite cabins have some new names, as part of an ongoing effort by the Girl Scouts to refresh our site. You can see some cool pictures of their 5-year plan for the campsite on our Facebook page, as well as pics from the recent ribbon-cutting ceremony and opening celebrations.

• CLEAN UP IS CHANGING! We will be continuing to experiment with a new process for Clean Up at the end of the event during our May games. Immediately after closing announcements, we will start with our Camp Cleanup first, and then complete our Personal Cleanup last! We had great success with this change during our April event, and we look to continue to improve!

• Our Post Office times will be changing! Starting in May, we will return to opening up the Post Office at 8:00 AM on Saturday! Crafters and Econ Junkies rejoice!

Our photos for this post were taken from our April 2023 DR:TX event by the talented Jason Dumas.

An Update from the Front

We are nearing the end of the War of Antlers and the San Saba Rebellion. With the forces of the San Saba Board is disarray, their only remaining stronghold is the city of Essex, a short train ride to the south of Bravado. The last days of the war are coming soon, so let’s cover what that means for the folks that have invested into this mini-game.

Last month, the brave soldiers of the Bravado Rebellion Army continued the fight against the Chairman’s forces abroad, winning several important victories as part of the battles of the weekend.

• In Widow’s Peak, the BRA defeated the last vestiges of Reckoner-Commander McClellan’s occupation force, freeing the civilians of the Lovelace Family and allowing several members of the Widows of the Lone Star to return to Bravado. Despite the threat of the terror troops deployed by the Reckoners that targeted medics and civilians alike, the Bravado forces easily defeated the opposition and allowed the Widows to relocate to Bravado proper for the seasons ahead.

• In the Clutch, the beleaguered Junkerpunks needed help escaping the overwhelming forces of Carina Astora and the Clearwater Accord. Desperate to deny the pirate lord any advantage, the Junkerpunks scuttled ships and took everything not nailed down as they retreated inland towards Drywater. With their main admirals located inland, the Junkerpunks will be based out of the nearby port of Drywater in the season to come.

• At a personal request of General Hargrave, the Rebellion laid siege to the former headquarters of the Militia, Prudence Penitentiary, aka Killhouse. Thanks to their knowledge of the fortifications, the Rebellion evaded withering artillery fire and managed to capture Tabitha St. Mercy and claim the fortress-prison once more. The Warden’s fate will be decided soon, and the Rebellion will need to decide how to use the fortress moving forward, as a prison without prisoners isn’t much good to anyone. Perhaps the Justices of Sin or the Grave Council have an idea on how you can repurpose Killhouse?

• Lastly, the brave Ramguard soldiers stood firm at Falken Castle, facing down the nightmarish undead legions of the Prince Undying. Despite a risk of no escape from the malevolent nightmares led by the Consort of Betrayal, the Rebellion mustered a successful defense of the castle at the last minute, pouring every last resource into turning the tide. With the successive victories against the undying Nightmare Host at Tremorsands and Falken Castle, their remaining strength is now turned towards our home in Bravado.

What is next, you ask? In the month ahead, the Rebellion will face the toughest month of battles yet, but your primary foe is an ancient enemy from the deserts of the Dune Sea, the Nightmare Host of the Prince Undying. During the next event, the BRA will need to defend five (5) different battles over the weekend each with their own challenges to overcome, with fights at Drywater, Prudence Penitentiary, and defending Bravado itself.

However, the final fight of the mini-game against the San Saba Board is here. As this portion of the war is winding down, you’ll have an opportunity to commit some of your units to a FINAL BATTLE, where failure will result in the destruction of your units entirely. You’ll have several opportunities to commit everything you have to the final battles of the war, and your sacrifices of War Supplies and Combat Units will make the difference at the end.

The last battle fought during the weekend will be the Battle of Essex. This will be a multi-part battle against the remaining soldiers loyal to the Chairman, and you will need to win BOTH battles in order to defeat the Chairman on the battlefields of the San Saba. If the BRA can successfully conquer Essex, they can demand a surrender from the remaining members of the San Saba Board and return the city to where it belongs under the leadership of the San Saba Republic.

Any remaining Combat Units will still have a last function you can use them for in September, but this month will mark the end of our year-long arc involving our custom war mechanics. Luckily, the Chairman will simply accept your terms of surrender if you defeat him during the Battle of Essex, and he definitely won’t be driven to a fit of madness in an all out attack on Bravado itself in September… right?

With the War Update out of the way, let’s cover the ancient enemy you’ll face during the upcoming event, THE ATROCITY…

+ + + SPOILERS AHEAD! + + +

THE Nightmare HOSTs of bravado

We’ve been coy about some of the specifics of these threats over the past year, but for our last event of the season we are going to pull back the curtain a bit and reveal some information you might not have been part of during this ongoing season. For months now, the Prince Undying has been influencing Bravado, but not just through the obvious MONOLITH at the crossroads, but through the friends and allies in your midst.

Back in our online event that started Season 5, THE UNDYING PRINCE, we first introduced the threat we call the Mortis Nightmares. During that event, players encountered the strangely liminal space of the Nightmare of the Prince Undying and fought the shadowy creatures that lurked within Barogue. These things were significant threats during the last beats of the weekend’s plot, culminating in an escape from Barogue and return to the sunny desert with no signs of the foe they had just faced.

However, a few people dug a bit deeper into the lore of Barogue during the online event, and made some interesting connections…

During this finale of this event, folks had to awaken their senses to the Nightmares of the Prince Undying by implanting shards of red psionic crystals into their bodies. Without this perception, the nightmares were functionally “out of phase” with the survivors, and couldn’t been seen or touched. As they dove deeper into the madness of the Nightmare, this connection to Barogue enabled them to interact with the deadly nightmares, and escape the Lost City.

A few of our intrepid adventurers decided that they would not give up that connection to the Nightmare after the event was over, and during the first few events of the season they had a strange new Keyword. A few folks even found a unique crystal shard, a Trapozohedron of dark crystal, with strangely acute angles that seemed to shine with an inner fire, and they brought it home to Bravado. You might have even seen hints to this item in various hype pieces and social media teasers throughout the season, and it was even a big part of the ritual at the crossroads during our December event, THE RED DEATH.

Over the next few months, an unlucky few even found strange Nightmare Altars erected around the site during the live events. Each month, the Altar shifted to a different location on camp, and if you explored the site enough you might have found the purple glow in the woods. If one took the time to attune themselves to the strange Altar, they gained new and more dangerous connections to the Nightmare and could perceive the strange enemies that were lurking in the darkness of Bravado. Each month, the depravity of these folks continued, resulting in strange sacrifices on the Nightmare Altars and endless hours of research.

During THE RED DEATH in December, this keyword connection to the Prince Undying changed. As Nightmares attacked the town, more and more people became attuned to the strange creatures that hid in the darkness. However, without the touch of the Nightmare keyword, a character couldn’t interact with the nightmares and could only watch helplessly as friends were torn limb from limb by invisible entities in the darkness. As folks were dragged to hell by the nightmares, a few of those that died were offered a CHOICE — Serve, or die.

Some of those that died came back with a secret.

While in the Mortis, some chose to make a deal with the Prince Undying for something more, but the details were a bit secretive. We’d love to say that no one took this deal with the devil. We’d love to say that no one was foolish enough to purposefully connect themselves to a virtual Sword of Damocles by accepting a deal with the last ruler of Barogue.

But I think you know what really happened, don’t you?

A few of these folks gained a new keyword, NIGHTMARE HOST. In exchange for loyalty and sometimes heretical acts of service, some of them were granted boons or even unlocked abilities that some might consider… unnatural. There’s a few more of these folks lurking in the town than you might think, and a some interesting choices have been made over the season.

During this next event, these few traitorous individuals will have an opportunity to settle the books, and use their connection with the Prince Undying for something more. During this next event, instead of folks with the Nightmare keyword being able to interact with the Mortis Nightmares, only those folks with the Nightmare Host keyword will be able to be seen (and hunted) by the dangerous creatures in the night. If they can stay quiet, they may be able to evade the Nightmares finding them and realizing that they can be seen even when cloaked in darkness.

This means that these folks that have chased this year-long story of connection with the Nightmare of the Prince Undying will be uniquely useful to the plot of the weekend. In addition, anyone with the usual Nightmare keywords will have an opportunity to permanently remove this keyword from their sheet and have a chance to atone for any sins they may have committed over the year.

We hope you are ready to survive THE ATROCITY!

mortis Nightmares

The titular foe of this weekend is one you’ve face before. These lurking shadows have been encountered throughout the season, and particularly during our Premiere event in December. But they’ve been testing the defenses of the town, and have been mostly held at bay by the strange Monolith that has been erected at the center of town.

The Mortis Nightmares are undead remnants of the Prince Undying’s nightmares within the Mortis Amaranthine, imprints made manifest during his slumber in Barogue.  Eternal denizens of this Mortis space known as the Nightmare of the Prince Undying, these creatures lurk within the shadows and tombs of the dead memories waiting for imprints to bleed through from the Mortis around them.  While they lack the true Undead keyword, they are still functionally creatures of the Mortis Amaranthine.

They are ethereal and incorporeal beings while within the Nightmare, wisps of black and green smoke and vapor moving idly through the air on some unseen current.  When they manifest in the our world, hiding within the inky darkness appears to be eyes watching with lidless gaze with a hunger of a predator.  Teeth and claws of shadow can manifest in a breath, slashing into survivors with a sudden physicality that seems impossible except as a biting wind.  Known as the Khibrath Murea in the language of Barogue, these foes are impossibly quick when they need to be, moving unseen in the darkness while in search of prey, but are at once impossibly slow, as if drifting through a dream of molasses.  They seem to exist within two states of motion and apathy, and can only be comprehended by those that have been properly attuned to the Mortis.

The Nightmares that escape from the dreams of the Prince Undying have no true ability to affect survivors until the MANIFEST into a physical form.  While these undead monsters technically are always there, their specific trick of hiding means that survivors simply pass them by, oblivious to their presence as if they were some common Hunter or Nightmare Lurker. When the Nightmares take a more permanent physical form, they have normally possessed a dead body or undead corpse to relay messages or attack the foes of the Prince Undying, and they can manifest their nightmarish abilities into the real world through their host. 

However, with the recent protections of the Obelisk of Salvation, Bravado has been mostly safe from the Mortis Nightmares that serve the Prince Undying. They cannot easily exist within the town, and they can no longer use their tricks of inhabiting a zombie as a temporary shell. While weakened, they still can be a threat, and during THE ATROCITY you’ll encounter a few more of these enemies that you’ve seen so far during the season.

During this next event, these deadly foes will hunt by SOUND, drawn to the presence of life itself. When a survivor speaks, their Imprint is made reality for a moment, and the Mortis Nightmares are drawn to this spark like a moth to flame. They need to destroy the living, and snuff out the sound that drives them mad in their eternal nightmare. Their hate will be made MANIFEST, and when they appear nearby you’ll need to keep the silence of the grave to survive until they disappear into shadow once more.

Let’s talk about how this will work from a mechanical perspective.

The Unique Skills of the Khibrath Murea

The deadly Mortis Nightmares have a few particular unique Threat Skills you’ll need to be prepared for this weekend. In our tradition of Radical Transparency, let’s cover each of these abilities below. I’ll also post these Skills on our Local Rules & Skills page, if you need to reference them before the event.

The Importance of Silence

In our first blog post, we mentioned the movie, THE QUIET PLACE, as an inspiration for this event. Similar to the strange creatures in this movie, you’ll need to be guard against making too much noise while the Mortis Nightmares are about. You can even join us on Sunday night, May 5th, for our traditional Discord movie night as we watch this film to get in the mood for the upcoming event.

The Mortis Nightmares will be hunting during this event by tracking down noise and sound made by survivors. The Nightmares will generally be forgiving for accidental noises and such, but any obvious, purposeful, or overt sounds or movement should quickly get their attention. This means that any sounds, including crafting, talking above a quiet whisper, banging on your shield, running away, or other loud skill uses like “By My Voice” or other verbal Faithful skills could risk attracting the deadly foes. 

Sense of Sound

Nightmares can only perceive the living when they make obvious, overt noises or movement.  If a player is not making noise and staying still, you should ignore them and pretend as if they do not exist. The Nightmares are effectively BLIND if players stay quiet.

Our standing instruction to our NPCs and STs is going to be to look for the behaviors around being quiet themselves. If you are making a good faith attempt at being quiet, our Mortis Nightmares will not punish you and should ignore you. They might still get close, sniff around, looking for things that recently made a noise, but if you stay quiet and still you might survive another day. But, if you can’t stay silent, you should expect a fight!

incorporeal (Mortis NIghtmare SKill)

The next ability is a function of the Nightmare’s unique ability of stealth, using the UNSEEN mechanic we first introduced with purple headbands last season.

Incorporeal

Mortis Nightmares cannot be seen, interact or be interacted with until the Nightmare Manifest skill is used.  While in this incorporeal state, they are immune to all damage, effects, and other abilities, but cannot affect other survivors with physical attacks. Only survivors with the “Nightmare Host” keyword can interact with the Nightmares while in this state. Declare “No Effect, Incorporeal”, or say “Clarify: Unseen!” if necessary. The NPC will use the STEALTH symbol to represent this ability.

This Skill means the Mortis Nightmares are mostly invulnerable when they are lurking around the town. Since only folks with the Nightmare Host keyword can interact with them, this means the Nightmares can open doors, bypass shield walls, and enter buildings without restriction while Incorporeal. Better hope you stay quiet!

• Remember, if you see a Purple Headband or a Purple Glow Stick, your character cannot perceive the Nightmares, unless you have the Nightmare Host keyword. You need to pretend as if they don’t exist, similar to the use of the skill Stealth. You can chalk up the strange behaviors to the wind or other superstitions, but you can’t actually “see” them until they strike.

• Folks with the Nightmare Host keyword need to be careful not to draw their attention. While in this state they can still attack, kill, and devour you, while your friends can do nothing to aid you against the Unseen enemy until they use the Nightmare Manifest skill.

Nightmare Manifest (Mortis NIghtmare SKill)

This ability is the primary way that you will be able to interact with the Mortis Nightmares throughout the weekend.

Nightmare Manifest

Call “Nightmare Manifest!” and hide your purple glow stick.  The Nightmare loses the Incorporeal ability above until at least 30 seconds of silence has occurred. This attack should only occur when the Nightmare has responded to a source of sound, shortly before they descend on their prey.  This will allow the Nightmare to attack and be attacked until enemies have stopped making noise nearby.

When you hear this call, you can expect a sudden surge of violence from the Nightmares as they become physically manifest into Bravado. During this short window, you’ll be able to attack the Nightmare with your boffers and blasters like normal, impact it with your various Combat Skills, or simply run away in fear. The effect won’t last long, so you’ll need to be quick and purposeful, and most importantly QUIET.

• This is the primary way you’ll be able to deal with the Nightmare threat. They will manifest, you will have a short time to fight them, and then they will fade back to shadows if they are not defeated.

• As long as SOUND is in the area, the Nightmares will stay on target and be a dangerous foe to deal with. If you can stay quiet and still for 30 seconds, you can FORCE the Nightmare back into its INCORPOREAL state, and this might mean the difference between life and death if you are not skilled at Combat.

• Nightmares can be dangerous enemies against individual targets, but they CAN be defeated while they are manifested. The sudden Nightmare attack will likely mean at least one person enters Bleed Out, but they can still be outnumbered. But, the Nightmares have a few other attacks and defenses at their disposal, so be ready for a fight!

• You can only interact with the Nightmares that have used the Nightmare Manifest skill recently, so you’ll need to be on guard for sneak attacks from behind and focus your fire quickly if you want to respond.

That’s the primary things you need to know to be prepared for THE ATROCITY! We hope that you are ready to stay quiet, and try to hide from the minions of the Prince Undying during our finale event!

wrap up

That’s it for today, Vados! We covered a lot in this blog post, and we will cover the main highlights once more during our Opening Announcements at game next week. While the Mortis Nightmares can be deadly enemies, there will still be other events throughout the weekend as we wrap up our season, so don’t worry. You’ll still face zombies, raiders, and other survivors as we contemplate THE ATROCITY of the Prince Undying.

Tickets are on sale until this weekend, but you’ll still be able to purchase your ticket at the door for our last event of the season.

Don’t miss out on your chance to experience the first part of our season finale! Next time, we will cover a few of the Rules You Should Know, and cover our last logistics announcements before the event.

See you next week, Vados!

What Has Happened Before...

Howdy Vados!

It’s Jonathan here with another signature DR:TX Rules Ramble, leading up to our May live event THE ATROCITY! This is our FINALE for Season 5, led by Heather Halstead and Jonathan Loyd. Each week, I’ll discuss in detail an aspect of the upcoming event, compiling the rules and lore into one easy place to read! This week, we are covering the lore of a few characters you should know about during the finale, and what kind of danger the Prince Undying still represents..

• TICKETS FOR OUR MAY EVENT ARE ON SALE NOW! Will you survive the atrocity?

• If you had a great experience at our last event WHISPERS FROM THE DEEP or had some suggestions for how we can improve, we’d love to hear from you! Did you encounter the EVE-volved or EVE herself? Did you fight glowing green zombies by moonlight? Did you help the Rebellion continue to push back against the San Saba Board? Let us know!

  • Fill out our Feedback Form!

  • Nominate another player for a Community Achievement!

• CLEAN UP IS CHANGING! We will be continuing to experiment with a new process for Clean Up at the end of the event during our May games. Immediately after closing announcements, we will start with our Camp Cleanup first, and then complete our Personal Cleanup last! We had great success with this change during our April event, and we look to continue to improve!

• Our Post Office times will be changing! Starting in May, we will return to opening up the Post Office at 8:00 AM on Saturday! Crafters and Econ Junkies rejoice!

Our photos for this post were taken from our April 2023 DR:TX event by the talented Lauren Guzaldo.

The lore of “The atrocity”

Last week, we revealed the teaser for our event and we covered some important information that you might have missed or perhaps not had context for. If you haven’t read it yet, go back and read it! I’ll try to sum up the important bits so you can catch right up to the story of our finale.

The story of this finale will be focusing on wrapping up a few loose ends from our stories over the past few years, and really serves as a two-part story that prepares for a new chapter of our story of Bravado. This event will deal with the Obelisk, the Prince Undying, and the sins of the town of Bravado made manifest. In our September event, we will conclude the story with The Fall of the San Saba Board, with a chance to win the Rebellion once and for all in person. In a sense, if you consider the 1.0 and 2.0 story of Bravo by Ryan & Sara our “Book 1”, then the story of Bravado started by Aesa & Shan is effectively “Book 2”, with these two stories as our climax. We hope that our stories of DR Live and beyond will form a new chapter, a kind of “Book 3”, with Heather & I telling new stories more focused on Bravado proper.

With that in mind, here’s a few key points of interest in the teaser for THE ATROCITY that immediately come to mind:

• Felicity Redfield is dead, slain by a Golden Spike.

• The Chairman has brokered a deal, bargained in crystal

• An Atrocity happened before, and omens suggest it will happen again.

• The Obelisk is important to your defense, or is it?

• Everything that has happened, has happened before

Let’s start at the beginning, and explore each of these major concepts in a bit more detail. Like with all of our Lore posts, there may be some SPOILERS within, so you can always choose to learn more about these topics from other characters in game. While I feel this information is interesting and that’s why I’m writing more about it, it’s not entirely necessary to be able to enjoy the story of THE ATROCITY. There’ll still be plenty of battles, plenty of zombies, and plenty of other events happening during the event, even if you don’t read further.

+ + SPOILER WARNING + +

Felicity Redfield, CEO Of the RAILROAD CONGLOMERATE

Felicity Redfield is dead. 

After months of secret imprisonment on charges of treason, Felicity was found slain in her cell in Essex, a Golden Spike lodged in her chest, her flame red hair extinguished with drying blood. There are no suspects, and there will be no investigation. 

First, this event will see the end and final stories of Felicity Redfield, one of the first characters introduced back at the start of the Bravado live events of 3.0. Felicity was written and portrayed by Shan Lind, and you can read our first character summary of her for Season 5 on our Characters of Note page, if you want to catch up some information that is a bit outdated. While she may have died “off screen”, Felicity’s death will loom large on this event. Whether you liked this character or hated her, the only real truth that remains might be found in her journal, thought to have been sent to Bravado before she died.

Felicity was the original CEO of the Railroad Conglomerate, though she was not always a fan of the Chairman or the machinations of the San Saba Board. She was the founding father of the new Bravado settlement, following a trail of delvers seeking answers about the strange facility uncovered near the town after the bombing of Old Bravo. She was here at the beginning, seeking to understand the strange obelisk in the lake that would eventually cause it to boil. She held the deed, the mineral rights, and the undisputed claim to the land of the town, and graciously leased it to the residents of the town in return for service in exploring the dangerous tunnels below. While the fortunes of the RRC have waxed and waned with the success of the Oxline and the Board, Felicity’s interest was always on the town of Bravado.

Felicity was often a liar, hiding secrets time and again from the town and even her allies. She lied about her Strain, as she was a Remnant pretending to the airs of a noble Pureblood family. Only after the use of the Imprint machine designed by Dr. Esgrove back during our event, IMPRINT BY DESIGN, did Felicity choose to embrace her origins and claim her Remnant strain by choice. She hid the location of Barogue until she could be the one to lead the first explorers to the site and hid the research she had done into the Lost City from even her closest peers. She often lied about her authority over the town, which often brought her into conflict with her peers on the San Saba Board, with assassins that tried to end her life on multiple occasions, and even with other folks in the town. She was also complicit in a number of dangerous rulings by the San Saba Board, as were many of the Board Members, intent on the power the position offered to advance her own plans.

Felicity often brought danger to Bravado, though it was often unintentional. She oversaw the “Breach”, when Blood Ghasts poured from the tunnels below Bravado, and she helped lead a team to seal the holes before they could swarm the town. Felicity was at the heart of the Fountainhead Incident, leading to the near destruction of Essex. She crashed her personal airship and nearly killed dozens of people on the test flight after it was hijacked mid-air. She hosted the Emerald Gala, inviting the wrath of the Archons down onto Bravado, hoping to use prototype weapons of the Emerald Arsenal to drive them off once and for all. While the weapons were successful, their creation sparked an ethical concern about what the technological advances could inspire in the future, and it was their creation that led to the strange devices General Rampart used to lead zombies against the town during our February event, THE BREAKER OF CROWNS. Despite best intentions, Felicity often created lasting problems for the town.

Felicity was an explorer, focused on legends from the past. She was fascinated by the discoveries under the town of Bravado, within the flying City of Waking, and she was focused on expanding the reach of the RRC further across the San Saba. Felicity even offered a spectacular prize for the Dead Man’s Hand Tournament in Essex (our Online National Event, Dead Man’s Hand), which ended up being a piece of a map that led to the fabled city of Barogue, the Lost City. Felicity and the Map Holders were the first people to step foot on Barogue and she personally led the expedition to reclaim the city. She was one of the architects of discovering a cipher that could translate ancient Barogian script, using the Obelisk carvings on Waking to aid her search for the Roving City. One could easily blame Felicity for being the one that woke the Prince Undying, as it was her quest to find that Lost City that eventually stirred the undead terrors within.

Felicity was ALWAYS focused on Bravado, for unclear reasons. Despite her capitalistic motivations, Felicity always had a special interest in the town that went beyond mere profit. While she held the mineral rights to the town and even explored into the Facility below the town against the RRC’s orders, it was always unclear to exactly why she was so focused or what she was searching for. She made sure the town was the center of attention for the San Saba and empowered the townsfolk to have a greater impact on the affairs of the Board than would normally be allowed by most CEOs or landlords. The town of Bravado was important to Felicity in a way than simple economic gain or a thrill of adventure could explain, and it seems that secret of what she was looking for went to the grave, sealed with a Golden Spike.

Felicity was an outcast and had lost most of her wealth and power at the end. With the fall of Waking, the loss of the floating city was blamed on Felicity. After all, she had encouraged her town to make a decision to help the city or not. She failed to stop the town from helping the Rook fire a cannon that damaged the ship’s engines, and she was blamed for ruining the fortunes of the RRC as the radioactive fires of Waking Prime burned a hole into the land nearby Bravado. Despite hosting Liquidation Runs to delve and trying to find ways to fix what had gone wrong, a final assassination attempt drove Felicity into hiding, though it was assumed that the Waking Prime families had something to do with the attempt. It was always assumed she fled to the north, to Luxury and beyond, but she had been missing for months.

It was as if before the War of Antlers started, someone wanted to make sure she was no longer a threat to their plans…

The Golden Spike

The Golden Spike is a bit of a more obscure bit of lore. It is mentioned in the teaser as a bit of a Easter Egg for our eagle-eyed readers that have played since the start of our Bravado “Season 1”. If you attended that first game at the start of 3.0, you might remember that the title of the episode was called THE GOLDEN SPIKE. Back then, I wasn’t responsible for writing the blog posts and we didn’t really publicly write a bunch down for what was going to happen back then. As we end our Season 5 and get ready for a new beginning, we wanted to end with a bit of a callback to the first beginning of Bravado.

During “The Golden Spike”, Felicity Redfield invited the first run ever of the OX, the majestic locomotive designed by the RRC, to arrive in Bravado, heralding a “gold rush” of sorts for delvers and explorers seeking fame and fortune. The ceremony planting the last railroad spike joining the North line and South line, a spike made of solid gold, would honor the designer of the Ox, Dr. Sung and start up the official return of rail service to the San Saba. However, the morning of the ceremony, Dr. Sung was walked into town as a zombie, the titular Golden Spike plunged into his chest as a fatal message. While there was some investigation at the time, no one really understood who had killed the inventor, but it was his death and loss of the mind behind the Ox that eventually created the faction we know today as the Railroad Conglomerate. If Dr. Sung hadn’t been killed, the formation of the San Saba Board itself may not have even occurred.

While the murder weapon, the Golden Spike itself, was thought stolen by criminals and ruffians, it was the first mark of violence that really christened in the story of Bravado in the new world of 3.0. The Golden Spike’s return is a capstone to that story, returning once again to the unexplained murder and mystery that first started our new setting. Whoever had the Golden Spike was likely involved in the murder of Felicity Redfield, but with so many enemies, it’s hard to narrow it down to just one party that wanted her dead. It could even be a replica, meant as a calling card to suggest that the death should be left unresolved and unpunished, just like the death of Dr. Sung so many years ago…

The Deal & A Crystal

The Chairman has brokered a deal, a bargain wrought in blood, crystal, and fell promises.

Last month, the Chairman made a phone call to the town of Bravado. After the last battles of the Rebellion were fought, the General took a call from the Chair on a mysterious red phone that appeared in the Depot. The Chairman offered to accept the town’s surrender, confident in his cause despite overwhelming victory by the Bravado Rebellion. Of course, his offer was rejected but his promise of vengeance was clear. While the Chair may not have the military power to stand much longer against the Rebellion, he has always been a planner and a man with unexpected allies.

You might have noticed during a few teaser posts over the last few games a particular crystal that keeps coming up, again and again. First found in the return to Barogue, during our event THE UNDYING PRINCE, the stone known as the Shining Trapozohedron made its way back to Bravado. This was originally a unique item offered to the player (or players) that gathered the most “Barogue Bucks”, the online currency of the game to buy a plot item that may or may not be useful. It was a leap of faith, and one that was eagerly taken by some of our local players.

The Trapozohedron was a dull rock that boasted unusual and strange angles, and caused peculiar nightmares in all that possessed it. Some said they could hear whispers in the dark, if you listened closely enough, though the language was strange and ancient. It was capable of enhancing the psionic ability of anyone that wielded it, though it was thought to have some terrible price to pay for it’s use. The Trapozohedron was eventually crucial to a ritual during THE RED DEATH, seated into the base of the Obelisk at the cross roads of Bravado, used to drive the Prince Undying from Bravado and cleansing the Obelisk for a time.

The stone was thought to have some powerful connection to the Prince Undying, allowing those that held it to communicate with the last leader of Barogue. The stone was last known to be in the possession of a General Rampart, following his death in February. How it ended up in the General’s possession is unknown, but the Bravado papers reported that the General gave the Chairman a gift of a powerful psionic crystal liberated from Bravado. Rampart was also burdened with strange blackened veins during his Gauntlet in March, but the source of the corruption was unknown. Could this have been the work of the Trapozohedron? Are there others under its foul influence, perhaps even the Chairman? Who would have given the General this powerful relic, and what deal could the Chairman have struck with the Prince Undying?

The Atrocity

Whispers on the wind speak of ill tidings. The sun darkened to blackness. The rivers of the San Saba rendered still. Farmers clawing at their eyes in their sleep until blind. These dark omens resonate with the Music of the Spheres, a portent of impending and terrible violence. A prophecy of an ATROCITY foretold in ancient Barogian manuscripts, an echo of a crime committed in the past. 

When the first explorers to Barogue found the Lost City several years ago, they discovered a city untouched by time. The massive ruin was strangely intact, as if the residents of the city has just walked away, dinner left on tables undisturbed, beds left unmade, and no sign of the inhabitants of the city anywhere to be found. The city was a ghost town, buried empty and alone under the sands of the Dune Sea. As the Grave Mind was awakened by the presence of new imprint and survivors, the city seemed to decay in a moment, catching up from that timeless state and awakening the countless Resonant Raiders within the bowels of the city. It was only months later that the RRC would attempt to enter the city once more, to loot the treasures and material wealth within.

But the question of what happened to the people of Barogue was never really uncovered, despite a number of myths and legends to where they had gone. While the Resonant were clearly the byproducts of the foul psi-tech that powered the ancient city, the inhabitants of the city were never really found. When new and unknown Unborn began to emerge from the Grave Mind of the Lost City, they were considered to be Barogian Nobility, the last heirs to the city dead and buried by sand and time. While many of their kind settled into Oasis, a few even made their way to Bravado.

During the last expedition to Barogue over the summer, during the UNDYING PRINCE event, a strange music seemed to draw explorers once more to the dead city. This “music of the spheres” seemed tied to strange Obelisks that were found across the San Saba, and the source was somewhere within the city itself. When the Prince Undying was awoke, he expressed a desire to find his lost people, the missing inhabitants of ancient Barogue. Seemingly disoriented, even the Prince Undying could not answer what had happened to the people of Barogue.

As the survivors of the UNDYING PRINCE escaped the city and the strange Nightmare that seemed to engulf it, many reported strange nightmarish creatures within the haunted dreamscape of the Prince Undying, and some described strange monoliths, ancient cities, and temples trapped within the strange shared dream. The recent arrival of the Prince Undying has brought legions of the strange nightmares pouring from Barogue, intent on destroying the living and attempting to wash over the San Saba like a shadowy tendril of death.

According the mad ramblings of Sister Mammon in a series of religious writings known as the Canticles, it was suggested that the Prince Undying was responsible for a great upheaval before Mammon fled the city, as he sought continued power from the Scion Vossa, an psi-tech device of note that was destroyed in her escape from the city. Without the power of the crystal, it is said the Prince Undying turned to other ways to empower the lost city, eventually turning some of its people into the monstrous Resonant Raiders or worse.

Some that survived the escape from the second journey to Barogue reported that the Prince was responsible for killing the entire city of Barogue, in a single moment of psionic impulse from a strange RED CROWN that wiped out every resident in the city at once. Taken from dinner tables, beds, the streets and buildings of the city, every living being in the city was devoured by the Nightmare of the Prince Undying, drawn screaming into the nothingness of his dream, lost forever to the void of the Grave Mind. The Prince disappeared shortly after waking in Barogue, and has been sighted at virtually every Obelisk spread across the San Saba.

If the Prince Undying was once capable of extinguishing the life from every person in a city he ruled and theoretically loved, what could he do to a place that defied his attempts to control again and again, and erected a defense against his intrusion into the world? Could this be the Atrocity that dreams and omens fortell is coming be the same as this ancient crime? How could you even stop something of this magnitude, and how could you even avert the Prince Undying’s ability to snuff out life in a moment? Is the ancient doom of Barogue coming for Bravado next?

The Obelisk of Salvation

The Obelisk at the crossroads has repelled The Prince Undying once, but it is unclear if it can withstand a second onslaught, or if it was created for something else entirely. With the Obelisk bolstered, any Nightmares that force their way into Bravado are disoriented, relying on sound to hunt their prey. To speak is to invite death, as your very words solidify the imprint of the living. 

The Nightmare hosts of the Prince Undying have been weakened by the strange Obelisk at the center of the crossroads. Though it now glows a comforting blue, it has periodically bled with the blood-red corruption of the Prince Undying. Since it’s appearance during THE RED DEATH, the monolith has wavered between drawing the attention of the Prince Undying and repelling him. This balance of power has waxed and waned, but has bought safety for a time. As the light has turned crimson, attacks by the dangerous Nightmares have been prevalent. When it has glowed blue, they have been weakened.

At times, a strange phrase can even be read in the script of ancient Barogue. It is thought to be the name of the device, the high Barogian words that refer to an “Obelisk of Salvation”.

Tekhenu Masalat’ha khailass nodensala

However, as the legions of shadowy Nightmares bear down on Bravado led by the Prince’s dangerous Consorts, forced towards the town by their defeats at Castle Falken and Tremorsands Post, it is certain that a new confrontation with the Prince Undying is coming quickly. Even weakened by the monolith, the Nightmare legions may still be capable of overrunning the defenders of Bravado. While the renewed strength of the Bravado Rebellion Army is turned towards defense and the conquest of Essex, it may not be enough to turn the tide.

During the Red Death, many reported seeing a psionic manifestation of an Imprint tied to the Obelisk, the red-haired Sister Mammon, who brought with her a way to turn the massive crystal into a defense of the town. The memory of Mammon was potent, but seemed grounded in someway to the town of Bravado. With her help, the town drove back the Prince Undying, but it was only because of the Obelisk that they found SALVATION.

Some have suggested that the Obelisk in the center of the town was not constructed by the Prince Undying, unlike the other Obelisks found across the San Saba. Though similar in appearance and marked with Barogian glyphs, something is different about this structure. If it’s true Architect was the ancient Sister Mammon, the Final Knight priestess that scorned the Prince Undying so many years ago, what was the true purpose behind it’s construction? What purpose would need a different Obelisk constructed in opposition to the network of monoliths thought to be the work of the Prince Undying and ancient Barogue?

While the crystal has proven useful so far, the uncertain protection it has offered leads one to consider if this is even it’s intended purpose. What could Sister Mammon have built the Obelisk of Salvation for? Why is it in Bravado, and what is it protecting? Does the strange monolith have another purpose, and could it be the secret to stopping the Prince Undying once and for all?

The Cycle of Bravado

As I wrap up this rather long lore post, we will end on the strange cycles of Bravado, and Old Bravo before it. One of the first sayings to really take root and spoken time and again by Ryan and the old STs of 2.0, this was a story that has been at the heart of our setting since Day 1.

All of this has happened before, and all of this will happen again.  The sins of the past are always revisited for judgment. The sins of Bravado and its residents will be uncovered, and the town will reap every sin and betrayal it has ever sown. 

Bravado has a strange fascination with repeating history.

From the first days of the town in its struggle between Hiway Robb and General Mustang, that culiminated in the deadly Hiway War and the destruction of Aggieland, the town has seem intent on destroying itself again and again. The town has been the site of multiple massive bombs, from the weapons that leveled the old Washbourne plantation during the first UPRISE, to the final bomb that stopped Hiway Robb and destroyed Old Bravo at the end of 2.0, hoping to erase the memory of the town from the Grave Mind, and end the war for good.

Heroes have risen, villains have emerged, and yet the threat to the town continues. But only some parts of the radioactive wastelands of the San Saba are truly an ancient as the fall of Man, thanks to this repeated desire to find an answer through destruction.

In the aftermath that followed the Hiway War, new powerful figures emerged, a new dawn of civility in the form of the San Saba Board, the railroads of the RRC, and the burgeoning power of the Chairman. But once again came calamity, from threatening the end of the world at the hands of Archons, to crashing the city of Waking Prime on their own heads, to declaring revolution against the forces of the Chairman, and finally the revelation that the Chairman was in fact Arthur Lovelace, a survivor of the Hiway War that betrayed his family for wealth and power. Now, a new war has erupted, a Rebellion against the Board, an echo of that war and the sins of the past once again tearing apart the San Saba.

In an eerie reminder of the Stampedes that ended the last war, now a new dangerous enemy descends down on the town, with unceasing hordes of nightmarish creatures threatening to kill the living. Despite the radioactive reminders of bomb after bomb, the future seems intent on repeating the sins of the past and continuing the same journey to a familiar story once again. Surely, the only way to stop the Nightmare legions is another powerful weapon of some sort, once that will likely cause untold devastation once more.

But, what if it didn’t?

If the Board can be defeated, and the Prince Undying stopped without destroying Bravado, there is a chance to break the cycle and start fresh. A brave new world awaits at the end of this conflict, and the story of Bravado is not yet done. As we prepare for a new chapter of our story of Bravado, there is a chance to end these threats and pave the path towards something different. So much of what has happened over these past five years has been trapped and controlled by history, and figures from the past. What if the town could focus on rebuilding, without needing to pick up the pieces yet again? What can happen when the town decides to craft a new future for itself, separate from its own explosive past, and something focused inwards on their own successes rather than being beholden to powerful figures from afar?

Let’s find out together, as we face THE ATROCITY.

Wrap Up

That’s it for today Vados!

We hope that you will come join us for our next event, our part one of the finale of the Season 5 story. We still have some fun surprises in store for you during this game, and we hope that you are ready to try and prevent the ATROCITY from happening. Will you be able to help to finally contain the danger of the Prince Undying? How will you protect those you love from the vengeance of a petty tyrant? Can you stay quiet while deadly Nightmares prowl around you?

Next week we will cover some updates from the last event, and a few major mechanics you can expect to see during our finale event! See you soon, Vados!

Tickets are on sale for our MAY event now! Don’t miss out!