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!
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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!