Dead Man’s Hand

Dystopia Rising National Event: April 2021 (Virtual)

The letter

You received a letter. No matter what urban industrial hellscape, criminal underground complex, western boomtown or literal LAKE you live in- you received a letter. Born by postman, locomotive or psionic link; you read it. And that letter told you, perhaps in so many words and perhaps not,  that you are noticed and that you are invited to the Grandest Tournament of our Time, and to the celebration that accompanies it. The letter tells you to come to Essex, the city of Light and Sound and Rare Beauty, and it speaks of riches and knowledge as the lowliest prizes offered by the sponsors of such an event. 

The paper smells like perfume and trail dust. You’ve heard of the overgrown city of Essex and the old machines beneath it. You’ve heard whispers of the monster and the mayhem that nearly leveled it more than half a year ago. You wonder what truths you might learn, or what blood you might earn - and you feel the stir of adventure in your gut before you fold the letter carefully and tuck it away; consideration in the furrow of your brow.

Welcome to the Brass Rose

Within the Thicket, the mass of plant life that has overtaken the streets and causeways of Essex, the newest saloon has become the breathing, beating heart of culture, music, and wealth in the city.  The business is a joint venture between the former proprietor of The Elbow Room; a bar that is now a hole in the ground, and a wealthy Vegasian from New Bravado. The saloon famously sells the Amberdraught beer that earned this town it's fortune, but no one knows quite how they obtained the recipe from the late Governor’s wife before she was assassinated. A shiny, brassy affair with three stories, The Brass Rose is normally operated by an ancient Iron enby named Rose whose arms, as strong and sure as anything, bear the scars of a lifetime of hard work. Rose runs their bar with, as the saying goes, an iron fist.

It Knows What You Want

Here, along sumptuous corridors and behind pollen-coated windows, mingle those survivors for whom surviving is insufficient. Clad yourself in the rough velveteen of our time and inhale the narcotic smoke of excess. The Brass Rose, just three months ago, was a rough foundation of too-white cement at the geodesic center of the Thicket. The building - and it’s staff, appeared as if from thin air in record time. Since it’s soft-opening several weeks back, the common folk of the city have returned from the opulent estate with incredible stories that verge on the impossible. Wild nights, barely recollected but filled with a reckless glee that affects them for days after.

So, Ante Up, Partner.

The mingled scent of blood and booze are a nostalgic cocktail to you. Every settlement has its penthouse, it’s whorehouse- or it’s bar. The Brass Rose is all three of these things; and more - in glut. Its gambling floors, dives, private showrooms and seediest corners are low-lit in the glow of psion crystals; pulled directly from the skulls of uncooperative debtors and run through with electric bulbs. 

Enjoy Your Libations.

And keep to the gambling floors.

The Festival of Light and Sound

Yearly, the city of Essex celebrates its history, its culture and its number-one export (booze) across a week-long extravaganza of excess. 

A year ago, the Festival of Light and Sound was accompanied by the Fountainhead Incident - a series of months that would rock the city to its core and then remake it entirely. The people of Essex did not celebrate - but rather survived. 

But the culture of Essex is the culture of the Lonestar; and it is not the dirt that makes a place, but its people. And so beneath the misty bows of The Thicket and in the cool-but-splendid copses that make up the city - the population of Essex prepares with an uncompromising intensity for this year’s Festival of Light and Sound. 

In treehouses that a year ago were ground-houses, distillers prepare strange liquors from the bizarre fruits borne by the strange flora that makes up the Thicket.

Children string lanterns that resemble zed-heads from the bioluminescent branches of the softy-glowing foliage. Entire groups build roughshod stages where musicians, performers and freaks will stand under hot spotlights for crowds of onlookers who have traveled across wastes of all variety to see them. The smell of cooked food hovers over the city like a welcome miasma and it is almost as if the Fountainhead Incident never happened - and Essex has always been this way. 

At the edges of the city however, the light and sound does not quite reach. The Cult of the Tiny God, led by a new and shadowy figurehead, is an understood feature of the Essex landscape; nearly a year following their inception. There are whispers, however, of a play in the works, of a coup or a culling or a convention. As the festival grows closer more and more shorn-headed monks of the Tiny God arrive in Essex, their foreheads stamped with a charcoal thumb-mark to indicate their faith. 

And so the city stands on the penultimate edge of a festival two years in coming, the leering eyes of the smallest gods peer out from the trees, the hungry hearts of survivors seek knowledge, absolution, violence or hard cash.

When the opening salvo of chaos and fear sounds across the forest-city of Essex, the crescendo thereafter will not be long in coming. 

The Dead Man’s Hand tournament

For the grand opening of the Brass Rose, the proprietors are holding a Tournament unlike any the wastes has ever seen.  While gambling with mundane games of chance like cards or dice is the surface level entertainment, those armed with a particular invitation are interested in another most dangerous game entirely.

The unfortunate souls that lose everything in the Brass Rose can go one step further. In debt to the bankers of the Grave Council, gamblers and guffers can let it all ride on the Infection for a chance at riches and glory.  Those that lose to the House are bound by contract to trade away their lifeforce to the Pallor Mortis ritual.  This means that there is always a ready source of Infection for those who can pay the price.

During the Festival of Light and Sound, a marketplace for this stolen Infection will attract High Rollers, the elite and monstrous alike, all looking to extend their lifespan a bit further.  Villains and famous malefactors from across the wastes are compelled to the Festival, in the hopes of extending their time with which to run roughshod over the wastes..  Given that the San Saba Territories have been lawless for the better part of four years, it is easy for even the infamous villains of the Wastes to sneak their way into Essex proper.

However, the mercenaries of the Red Ledger, a force hired to keep some measure of peace during the goings on of the Dead Man’s Hand and the Festival of Light and Sound, will determine that this macabre market of Infection is a legitimate threat to the good-time-of-all and must be dealt with accordingly; and with meticulous violence.  The Strikers of the Red Ledger hope to put a proverbial finger on the scale by identifying High Rollers, maximum priority targets and well-known fuckups, whom they are looking to eliminate wholesale.  While they are not interested in provoking a fight with the Grave Council directly, Red Ledger has no qualms about sniping their clientele and in order to ensure the Infectious Cycle continues or the threat is locked safely away in Killhouse Prison.

In exchange for assistance, the coffers of the Red Ledger can offer worthy prizes for the Hunt, such as

• Board tech developed for the better part of a year,

• Technical documents outlining clever new gizmos,

• and even poorly understood psi-tech pieces recovered from the nearby Dune Sea.

For those unscrupulous few that don’t care about the Red Ledger’s ethics, or the High Roller’s lack thereof, that most elusive prize can be obtained for the right amount of Chips - another chance at life armed with the Infection of unlucky bettors.

Dead Man’s Hand ARRIVAL Text Adventure Here

Dead Man’s Hand Epilogue Text Adventure Here