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!