Rules Ramble

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The Chairman of the Board

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Howdy Vados!

It’s Jonathan here with another signature DR:TX Rules Ramble, leading up to our September live event THE FALL OF THE SAN SABA BOARD! This is our second part of our Season 5 finale, 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 a bit of the background of the villain of the hour, Arthur Lovelace, the Chairman of the San Saba Board.

  • wE WILL REVEAL THE NEW dYSTOPIA rISING lIVE BLUEPRINTS ON tHURSDAY, 8/29! CHECK OUT OUR DISCORD FOR MORE INFO!

Our photos for this post were taken from previous DR:TX events by our talented Photo Team, including Max Pohlmeier, Lauren Guzaldo, Sidney Betzina, Maddeax Cole, and Jason Dumas, and with artwork by Beau Lee.

IN THE BEGINNING…

When Bravado rebelled against the Board last season, it started a chain of events that undermined everything the Chairman had been working for over the past three years. In a moment, his dream of a united San Saba shattered, and that future disappeared. The death of that future has driven him to the rage he’s now directing towards our town, but it’s important to reflect on all that has gone wrong over the past few seasons.

In the beginning of our 3.0 story, the San Saba was mostly a collection of various factions and personalities like Felicity Redfield, Mr. K, Tabitha St. Mercy, Sinkerswim, and others. While the factions have stayed mostly the same over the years, the idea of the San Saba Board was envisioned by one man in the shadows — Arthur Lovelace, the future Chairman of the Board. This story was first envisioned by Sam Mars, Shan, and Aesa, and debuted during our online Season 2, kicking off with the event THE SHINING CITY. This game saw several world changing events occur in the midst of the Waste’s Faire and an attack on Waking Prime by the Oxkillers.

  • The faction we recognize today as the Railroad Conglomerate first emerged during this event. Formed of two opposing factions, the Conglomerate and the Railroad Commission, they agreed to work together to forge a new future for the San Saba.

  • During this event set in Waking Prime, the various factions agreed to sign a larger contract between them they would call the San Saba Charter. The architect of this plan was of course chosen to lead the new organization, and the San Saba Board was born.

  • One of our other factions, the Junkerpunks, was purposefully excluded from the San Saba Board. The Junkerpunks were slighted and the Chairman cast the deciding vote to exclude them from the new government, despite a good faith attempt to attend the Waste’s Faire. From the very beginning, the Chairman was not interested in folks that focused on freedom over order.

  • The Oxkillers led by Lord Hush made an attempt to kill the Chairman and the new Board with a surgical strike on Eureka Tower during the chaos of a raider attack. While the attack was foiled, this breach ended up leading to the events of QUEENSGRACE, when the Oxkillers broke from the San Saba Republic and killed Queen Jasper.

The original San Saba Board was composed of the following powerful figures:

  • The Chairman, Arthur Lovelace (RRC)

  • Felicity Redfield (RRC)

  • Dr. Stewart, aka “the Scientist” (RRC)

  • Tabitha St. Mercy (Prudence Penitentiary)

  • Holy Mother Queen Jasper (Tribes Disparate, now known as the San Saba Republic)

  • Takheeta Firstborn (Grave Council)

This became the leadership of the San Saba for the next few seasons, with a few changes as members were killed, removed from power, or cast into obscurity. Several others joined the Board or represented their faction over the years, including:

  • Mr. K (Grave Council)

  • Adam Moriarty (Prudence Penitentiary)

  • General Rampart, replacing the slain Takheeta Firstborn (Grave Council)

  • Admiral Sinkerswim (Junkerpunks)

  • Queen Lucy “Boss” Debs (San Saba Republic)

  • While the Law Dog Union was contracted to the Chairman directly, Boss Wyatt never actually held a seat on the council of the elite.

We’ve never had the privilege of Arthur Lovelace actually appearing in person for an event until this upcoming game. He made an appearance during the online event HEARTHBOUND, for a few select folks, but most have never interacted with Arthur directly. You might have heard their voice over a certain red telephone in May, but this event will be the first appearance in the live space for this villain.

Our story of the San Saba Board has always been one of the consequences of the wealthy and powerful becoming more and more severe as the San Saba slipped further into authoritarianism and fascism. The lies and compromises to keep the elite in control have led to more and more people getting caught up in the web of capitalism and power at the heart of the Board. As the Chairman’s iron grip tightened, the rise of the Bravado Rebellion was only a matter of time. But just because he’s showing up for the first time in September doesn’t mean his presence hasn’t been felt up until now…

“Oh cold, cold, rigid, dreadful Death, set up thine altar here, and dress it with such terrors as thou hast at thy command: for this is thy dominion! Leave that which you would kill here with me, and I shall see it done.” —- a Lovelace prayer for vengeance

The first Board meeting, from a comic by Beau Lee.

The Machinations of the Chairman

It’s important to first understand that not much is actually known about the Chairman.

From his first appearance, he’s been a bit of a shadowy figure and it’s all part of his plan. His true name wasn’t actually mentioned in any blog posts, modules, or stories. He was only referred to as the “The Chairman”, and we purposefully kept any other references vague. We’ve always used a surrogate to stand in for the Chairman, in the form of his assistant Lawrence Graves. The few bits of information shared in game were always simply signed with a mysterious “A.L.”, but it wasn’t until the fall of Waking during VOX POPULI that this information became publicly known. While a few fortunate survivors experienced a psionic vision guided by the Curators during our HEARTHBOUND event about his past, the exact details of exactly what happened in Widow’s Peak are mostly lost to history.

Arthur Lovelace was long thought dead during the Hiway War, fallen in battle against the undead hordes of Hiway Robb. Some even say he died a final time and was resurrected by the mysterious events after the Hiway War when the Grave Mind returned the long dead once more to life. It is even whispered by a few of the less loyal Lovelace contractors that he broke a promise to his family to help outsiders instead. While the story varies from telling to telling, they all generally mention that he defied the Lovelace Family to go help the folks in Bravo fight back when the Quiet Folk community voted against interfering in the war. He had always stood for order and rules since he was a young man in his community, and thought it was more important to help neighbors outside of Widow’s Peak rather than his bonds of family.

When he “died”, Clauthia Lovelace, his former wife and the head of the Widows of the Lone Star, swore to prevent the type of events that led to the war by any means necessary. Little did she know that Arthur had come to the same conclusion. In his mind, the main way to prevent the destruction that Hiway Robb inflicted on the Lone Star was to unite the various people under one banner, and to bring law and order to a lawless wasteland. If one voice could unite the people together, they could strike down any opposition with discipline and structure. But before a future could be created, his past had to die. That’s where the Railroad Conglomerate came in.

The RRC was the means for Arthur to enact his vision for a prosperous future. If people could travel safely, then towns could become communities, and communities could become a civilization. With steel, sweat, and brass, he funded the first scientists that developed the OX, a marvel of technology that would enable them to connect the San Saba in a way thought lost. He poured resources into legitimizing the other factions, helping them weather disease, famine, and the threats of the wasteland. He empowered Felicity Redfield to pursue her goals in Bravado as the new CEO, and helped negotiate the alliance between the Conglomerate to help her access the floating city of Waking. As long as the money kept flowing, no one in the RRC leadership really needed to know who was signing the orders. The Chairman was hard at work preparing for his magnum opus, the San Saba Charter, and for a time his need for secrecy was respected by the factions.

Contracts have long been the law of the land in the San Saba, the sum and whole of the law at times. What Arthur envisioned was a new contract, a walking contract shared by any that simply stepped foot in the wasteland of the Lone Star, and agreed upon by the people that really mattered — the powerful factions that arose after the Hiway War. With a shared contract enforced by the will and wealth of the elite, a new era could begin for the Lone Star, an era of control and prosperity.

The San Saba Charter would create a new social contract for the Lone Star, and established laws, government, and rights for the powerful factions. Because each supported the others in their own sphere of influence, each of the factions had a vested interest in propping up their peers. In return, they got to have a seat at the table, in the room where it all happened, helping to organize the new San Saba Board. While the actual planning took years of work, the people joined together into a new community and for a moment Arthur’s dream was nearly reality.

The fall of Waking Prime

The conspiracy of the Board

Arthur Lovelace knew that the real problem with uniting the wasteland was simply logistics. There simply aren’t enough survivors left, and the wasteland is a dangerous place to just exist. Between zed, raiders, and other survivors, getting anyone to agree to the dangerous work of building a better tomorrow was going to need help. The conspiracy at the heart of the San Saba Board was simple — Generate new manpower to fuel the endless churn of a better future. While some details have emerged about these machinations, there are still big pieces unknown about the final plans of the Chairman.

Imagine a world where a body persists after death, and where that body could be propelled by psionic means to heroic feats.  To climb mountaintops beyond us, to plunge ocean depths that would kill a living Lineage - to dive into the bowels of the earth where the air is so hot and so humid it drowns us.

A halcyon world lies behind us, behind iron walls and thousands of years of progress gated by our own fragile bodies.  I dream of undying workers, eternal engineers, running cables through an ocean trench to supply power to a distant island.  A world built more quickly, a recovery and a revolution.

We are going to save the world. —- AL

(Excerpt from a heavily redacted letter, thought to have been penned by the Chairman)

The primary face of the Chairman has been his villainous accomplice, Lawrence Graves. For the past few seasons, Graves has been the “man from the railroad”, administering a calm and collected word in the right ears, and a knife in the back for others. Always prim and proper in his grey suit, Lawrence has been the terror behind the Waking Intelligence Service attacks, but it’s always been at the orders of the Chairman. When the town rebelled during THE SUMMIT, Lawrence was there to murder the Vados that stood in his path, and threatened the good works of the Chairman.

The Chairman was behind the plague known as the Necrophage, and the near destruction of the Lovelace Family. Tabitha St. Mercy was the first conspirator to be outed, fueling the research into a “super soldier” project with a plentiful supply of criminals locked away in Killhouse. With the help of her associates Juliet Butcher and Grandfather Nichols, they developed the NECROPHAGE, a dangerous concoction that threatened to end life across the wastes. The release of the disease devastated the Lovelace Family during emptied the halls of Killhouse and nearly killed everyone in Bravado. While Nichols was eventually stopped, dozens of vials of the Necrophage compound went missing before his death and are assumed to be in the possession of the Chairman even now.

The Chairman was behind the weapons of the Emerald Arsenal. Dr. Stewart and General Rampart were responsible for many of the advances of the Emerald Arsenal, debuted during the EMERALD GALA, at the direction of the Chairman. These weapons, first designed to combat the emerging threat of the Archon menace were quickly turned to more nefarious purposes in the service of control and “security”. Once the proverbial “Pandora’s Box” was opened, it was impossible to unlearn the knowledge that was created in pursuit of this goal. After Stewart’s death at the claws of the outsider threat, the Chairman used the missing seat on the Board to further his agenda. With the duty to break ties on the Board as Chairman, losing a seat on the Board increased Arthur’s influence over the day-to-day affairs of the San Saba.

The Chairman kept Queen Jasper alive long past her prime, through blackmail. While some of Dr. Nichol’s and Dr. Stewart’s research into the Necrophage was meant to save an ailing Queen of the San Saba Republic, this reliance on any means to stay in power began the fall of the Queen. The life-saving compound came with a catch, meaning the Queen Jasper was reliant on the next dose to stay alive, and was forced to sign off on many of the plans of the Board in exchange for simple survival. When she finally had enough, the Queen’s health quickly plummeted, but she managed to gather one last Summit of the Tribes during QUEENSGRACE to help secure her legacy. After her death at the hand of Nichols, (a former Lovelace associate of the Chair), the Chairman took advantage to leverage new more restrictive contracts against the new Queen, Boss Debs, as he continued his plan for domination.

The Chairman attempted to recreate the Resonant Choir and made contact with the Prince Undying. In the bowels of Barogue during THE LOST CITY, the RRC discovered the Resonant, psionically imbued Raiders with crystals implanted in their skulls. Based on the psi-tech they found in the ruins, Arthur believed they could create a new Resonant Choir, an eternal source of psionic energy that could fuel the next wave of expansion for the San Saba Territories. He dreamed of a more stable way to create his super soldier, by implanting Shards of the Red Crown into abducted citizens and creating the perfect worker for his new empire. This research likely led to the strange zed-controlling crystals used by the Reckoner Legions in their siege on Bravado.

One of the Chairman's conspirators, Malorous Mab

The Chairman used the Oxkiller Alliance threat to create an army for himself. The Oxkiller attack on Waking Prime had long been used to justify increased violence and brutal oppression by the Board, justifying the need for rules and laws by using the assassination attempt to gather sympathy from other powerful leaders. When the Oxkiller Alliance struck, Arthur forced a vote during the Stakeholder’s Meeting to form a new army for the San Saba through a declaration of war. While Vados narrowly stopped the leadership from being placed in the hands of Rampart or Tabitha, the Board instead funneled funds into forming a new private army for the Chairman known as the Praetorian Guard. For months, the Militia was forced to survive on their own while the lion’s share of the war supplies instead was diverted to his personal army.

The Chairman directed the attack by the Reckoners on Bravado during the peace talks. During the most recent Summit of the Tribes, General Rampart was discovered to be using the Emerald Gala weaponry to control massive hordes of undead in the service of the Reckoner Legions. He used the undead hordes to attempt to disrupt the peace talks with the Oxkiller Alliance, and attempted to assassinate the leaders with the psi-tech that whipped the zombies into a deadly frenzy. When General Rampart was eventually stopped, it was only after proving that no tactic was outside the depths of depravity the Chairman would pursue to hurt his enemies.

The Chairman provided the Prince Undying a chance to attack Bravado. While the exact details are unknown, it’s clear that some contact was made with the Prince Undying, likely through a strange black crystal known as the Trapozohedron. Last seen in the possession of General Rampart, the device was presented as a gift to the Chairman, and soon after the armies of undead marched once more on Bravado. Though General Rampart was found dead, consumed from within inside the strange Nightmare of the Prince Undying, some deal was struck. The undead hordes ignored Essex and Waking and swarmed past the seat of his power to attack Bravado instead.

The Chairman directed the bombardment of Essex in the final days of the rebellion. When the armies of General Hargrave marched into Essex to finish the Board during THE ATROCITY, the Chairman did the unthinkable — he turned the cannons of his flagship on his own city, causing massive destruction to the City of Light and Sound. Countless civilians and innocent lives were lost, in a scorched earth attack on the advancing armies. When the Rebellion routed the last forces of the Board in Essex, the Chairman had used the devastation to cover his escape. The city will be rebuilding for years to come and is a fragment of its former glory.

The true mastermind is Arthur Lovelace, the Chairman of the Board. While the entire Board was complicit in some fashion in the machinations of Arthur Lovelace, most of them did so only to further their own misguided interests. With the threat of invasion on their doorstep, the Chairman was able to rubber stamp almost any request from the Board in the name of security and safety. Behind every shady decision, every vote, and every order, the Chairman was working towards his insane plan of order in the wasteland by any means necessary. He manipulated each of the faction leaders, using their power to leverage hidden moves in the shadows, forcing votes during the annual Stakeholder’s Meetings, and pushing into a violent confrontation with the new Oxkiller Alliance.

When the Bravado Rebellion emerged as the unlikely end to his dream, it’s no wonder his anger has been turned towards our home. Despite the Chairman’s best attempts at establishing an authoritarian control over the San Saba, the residents of Bravado have been a repeated thorn in his side. In his final acts as Chairman of the Board, he has diverted every last resource in his possession into destroying the town of Bravado. Arthur has deployed mortars, airships, and countless soldier into the task of revenge, eschewing any chance of hiding and licking his wounds in favor of personally leading the fight home.

As Arthur Lovelace comes to Bravado for a final time, this time it’s not to bring aid against Hiway Robb in defiance of family, in the pursuit of a once-noble goal of uniting the wastelands. Instead, he brings anger, vengeance, and bitterness from a future denied to him, and he is intent on making Bravado pay.

The Gauntlet of Tabitha St. Mercy

The war comes home

That’s it for today, Vados!

Despite the volume of lore today, there’s still a few secrets left to learn about the Chairman during THE FALL OF THE SAN SABA BOARD. Will you be able to weather the rage of the Chairman as his last armies descend on your home? Will you be able to truly stop a tyrant in his tracks? Will you survive the assault of Lawrence Graves and the Praetorian Guard?

Tickets are on sale now for the FALL OF THE SAN SABA BOARD! Don’t miss your shot at defeating the Chairman once and for all!

Next time, I’ll dig into some of the mechanics of the weekend, from our “Capture the Flag” events to control the town, the weapons of war deployed against Bravado, and ways to use your Combat Units and War Supplies in the defense of your home.

See you soon, Vados!

The Fall of the San Saba Board

Howdy Vados!

It’s Jonathan here with another signature DR:TX Rules Ramble, leading up to our September live event THE FALL OF THE SAN SABA BOARD! This is our second part of our Season 5 finale, 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 premise of our event, some content warnings, and some teasers about our upcoming event!

Our photos for this post were taken from previous DR:TX events by our talented Photo Team, including Max Pohlmeier, Lauren Guzaldo, Sidney Betzina, Maddeax Cole, and Jason Dumas.

The Premise

Revenge.

It’s been the only thought on Arthur Lovelace’s mind.  Brought low by the Bravado Rebellion, the Chairman has spent the Burning Season meticulously planning his last attack against the insolent town. There will be no offers of surrender. No place of succor.  

No stone can survive, no workstation intact, no land viable, and not a soul left alive.  He seeks to scorch the earth on which Bravado stands, so that the town cannot survive the new future they have created

In the last days of the War of Antlers, Arthur Lovelace turned his own firepower on the town of Essex, punishing them for daring to defy his iron-clad rule of the San Saba.   He rained shell after shell onto a helpless population, collateral damage be damned.  You know that he is capable of worse, especially for an enemy that denied him so long.  His revenge is long coming and has finally arrived on your doorstep.

Bravado is staring down the barrel of an all-out attack from the powerful Praetorian Guard, lead by Lawrence Graves, and joined by the mercenaries of the Red Ledger. Utilities, supply stores, helpless civilians, infrastructure - it’s all a target. The town will need to rely on its allies, the Bravado Militia, to hold the line against a brutal enemy.  Many of these soldiers will not return from this battle. But war demands sacrifice.

The ace card in your hand is Arthur’s white-hot rage.  He’s too focused on hurting the town, too focused on salting the earth, too focused on revenge to see what is right in front of him.  A town eager to break the back of the last remnants of the San Saba Board once and for all.  You can use his anger, and his memories, to your advantage, if you can survive the wrath of the Chairman.  He will be here in person to see this ending, and that’s your chance.

You get one shot to stop Arthur.  Make it count.

Inspiration & Tropes

This season in Bravado we have focused on bringing some new elements of Survival Horror to the forefront of the story. In our tradition of Radical Trust, we want to share some of the inspirational bits of media and movie magic that we feel help capture the themes and feelings of our upcoming event. If you are looking for a movie to inspire your role play for this event, here’s a list of our favorites to get ready for THE FALL OF THE SAN SABA BOARD:

  • Assault on Precinct 13

  • The Raid

  • Seven Samurai

One big theme of the weekend in September is “revenge”. For the Chairman of the Board, Arthur Lovelace, everything he had dreamed of has been taken away. His dream of a future is gone, and there’s only one person to blame in his mind - the town of Bravado. This attack on the town isn’t about ego or victory, but simple and petty revenge. Arthur doesn’t want Bravado to succeed, even if it costs him everything to ensure that it happens. His mission of scorched earth is something that must be achieved no matter the cost.

Many of the stories this weekend will involve our characters being outnumbered, outgunned, and attacked by a vicious enemy that has cast aside any forms of fairness, ethics, or rules in the name of simply hurting Bravado. He’s here to hurt the infrastructure of the town, kill his enemies, and find some way to sooth the burning rage he feels toward the town. All that stands between him and his goal of revenge is the plucky townsfolk that stand in his path.

Like many of the movies above, this story will focus on the fights of the weekend. Several events will occur throughout the game, forcing you defend key locations in town and prevent serious damage to the things that make life easier in the wasteland. If you can hold on long enough, it may be possible to stop the Chairman for good.

Concluding Stories & Finale Events

In our tradition of Radical Transparency, we want to be clear about some of the content of this next event as the architects of this overarc story. When Heather and I were faced with the idea of wrapping up the major loose threads and events from Season 5 and telling our BIG story, we reached that the conclusion to that the story was simply too big to try to cram into one event. With villains like the Prince Undying and the Chairman, Arthur Lovelace, we can’t really do them justice if we try to make them share the limelight. We’d have to cram way too much content into one event, and it wouldn’t really be the satisfying conclusion we want to see.

So, we won’t make them share the story, or the conclusion.

While the May event was PART 1 of the conclusion of these stories, and we told the story of the Prince Undying, Sister Mammon, and Felicity Redfield we started with the revelation of Barogue three years ago. In September, we will use PART 2 to tell the story of the War that finally reaches Bravado, and you’ll be able to personally see to the final end of Arthur Lovelace, the San Saba Board, and the final end to the Rebellion story. Instead of rolling dice and pinning item cards to a bulletin board, you’ll need to fight actual skirmishes against enemy troops, defeat dangerous commanders on the field, and challenge the power of the Board itself in a final conflict. You’ll need to fight against some intelligent foes that use tactics against you and defend points around the camp from dangerous attacks. We are very excited to let you face the Chairman in a way that feels worthy of this foe, and we want to allow it to be the entire focus of the story.

With the natural ‘break’ created by our National Event in October, our focus for September is to wrap up the stories we told last season and create a new beginning for the stories that happen after Downfall. Our new edition is coming soon enough, and these next few games are the last step of our transition of the story into the new world of Dystopia Rising Live.

CONTENT WARNINGS

The themes of Dystopia Rising often touch close to our real world in ways we cannot always avoid. The DR:TX team believes that we can still tell these stories about challenging topics, but we also believe we need to be transparent about our intentions and set proper expectations for our content. In our tradition of radical trust, we want to also trust in each player that attends our game to know their own limits and be able to choose to avoid topics and situations that make them uncomfortable.

It’s important to watch for descriptions, situations, or events that you might want to avoid. You may find new limits that are unknown to you because the matter never came up. We encourage you to take the necessary steps for your own emotional safety. We want you to be comfortable with the types of horror in our events so you can enjoy the thrill of the zombie apocalypse and the nightmare creatures we introduce into the game space.

It’s one reason we take our OK Check-In system so seriously! We understand that these may not be stories you want to participate in, and that’s okay! Remember, you can always use the OK Check-In System to choose to leave a scene, even CVC!

You can always find a list of our Content Warnings on our website, but let’s talk about some of the specific things you might want to be prepared for during this May event.

Overall, this next event focuses heavily on the themes of SUDDEN VIOLENCE, PHYSICALLY DEMANDING ACTIVITY, and WAR TIME STORIES. These can be some serious themes, so let’s talk about some content warnings of note for THE FALL OF THE SAN SABA BOARD:

SUDDEN VIOLENCE, JUMP SCARES, DEADLY SURPRISES

  • The Board threats this weekend don’t intend on fighting fair. They will use ambushes, artillery, snipers, and more to prosecute the Chairman’s final revenge on Bravado. The rules of war are kind of thrown out for this event, so the enemies aren’t interested in taking captives or prisoners of war, and are here to cause some damage.

  • These will be intelligent enemies, capable of opening doors, picking locks, and finding other ways to surprise our residents of Bravado. They might plan nighttime attacks, even on sleeping characters, and sudden bursts of violence should be expected as the attack continues.

  • While you’ll be able to mitigate some attacks through clever uses of Combat Units, War Supplies, SES Credits, and more, not every attack will be preventable. Some of these fights will be brutal and have a few surprises you’ll have to experience in game.

Physically demanding activity (running, simulated fighting, etc.)

  • The goal of this weekend is to bring the War of Antlers home to Bravado. That means instead of using dice-rolls or the War mini-games we used last season, we intend to instead have several large set-piece fights over the weekend. This is primarily a combat overarc, and will involve your characters surviving deadly threats over the weekend.

  • These battles will require a certain amount of coordination, planning, and adaptation to shifting tactics, and might stretch for longer than a normal combat encounter. Some of these fights will require kinetic events to be completed during the fight, providing some options for non-combat interaction, but these may be physically demanding activities.

War and War-time stories, particularly involving off-screen conflict against enemy forces.

  • When the Chairman attacks Bravado, he is intent on salting the earth and ruining the town for generations. This war has finally come home to Bravado, and the major threats of the weekend will be the soldiers and mercenaries still loyal to the San Saba Board. These will be stories of brutal conflict and heroic sacrifice, and there will be elements of the horrors of war.

  • The consequences of the battles this event could carry over into future events if unchecked and being you might find your characters actively involved in sending soldiers to their deaths, risking other settlements prosperity, or investing your valuable resources in the war effort. For many of the Combat Units, this will be a last chance for them to shine before they ride off into the sunset, so we want to provide opportunities to make big decisions over the weekend.

the last hurrah

One last part of the FALL OF THE SAN SABA BOARD will be the sunsetting of several in-game mechanics we’ve used over the past few seasons, as I discussed last week.

With a big shift for the new edition coming, our big focus this season will be on reducing the mechanical complexity in our games. Over the years, we’ve introduced a lot of custom mechanics, custom threats, custom blueprints, and more, and it’s time we get back to the basics. One big part of the new edition change is that we will not be able to introduce new custom mechanics for about the first year of play as part of our new license. This change means we’d rather start to wean our players off these custom mechanics early, rather than adding to the culture shock of the new edition.

The following custom mechanics will be sunsetted during our upcoming season. As of the end of September 2024, the following mechanics will be removed:

We are planning one last hurrah for these custom mechanics during our September event, THE FALL OF THE SAN SABA BOARD, including new ways to spend your remaining SES credits, use and purchase Faction Items, and use your other cool custom items. Here’s how this will work:

  • SES Credits will be able to be used to either trade in for items, currency, or powerful buffs over the weekend as part of a new temporary SES Buy List. If you want to instead change the outcome of the story and the final fights, there will be an opportunity to use your remaining SES Credits to pay off the mercenaries of the Red Ledger and convince them to abandon the cause of the Chairman. Without their help, the final fights could be much easier, provided you can coordinate with the other Strikers to pitch in and change the tide of the fight.

  • Player Faction ZOMs will be posted for FREE for this last event. You will be able to enjoy these unique buffs for the entire weekend without paying the usual 50 Currency to activate the ZOM. Bring the full power of your crew to fight Arthur Lovelace without breaking the bank!

  • Faction Buy Lists items will be available for purchase for anyone with Society Membership, regardless of the level. You’ll be able to buy a Basic, Proficient, and Master item from a faction of your choice for FREE, and you can even buy additional items for your other factions for Brass as normal (1 for Basic, 5 for Proficient, 10 for Master). These items are no longer limited to one purchase per event, but keep in mind these items will expire at the end of the year.

  • War Supplies and Combat Units will have unique uses during this event, and there will be ways to even ‘cash out’ your excess War Supplies from last season for Scrap or Currency. Your Combat Units will provide powerful Upsurge effects and allow you to hold the line against the Board’s invasion of Bravado. Any War Supplies or Combat Units not used during this event will simply be collectibles for the future, and have no further uses over the season.

Any existing local item cards or local blueprints obtained in September will still be usable through the end of the 2024 year, ending with our game in December. Since all Local Mechanic Cards normally have an expiration date of 3 months, this will mean that you can still use the items for all three remaining 3.0 games we have planned for 2024 (since our October National DR Live event won’t use 3.0 item cards). At the end of the year, these items will be fully removed from our game.

Our Work Orders and Research mechanics will continue through the end of the year, but you can expect a few updates to the Work Orders in the absence of the San Saba Board. We expect Work Orders to continue into DR Live, but the Research mechanics will be replaced with the rules in the Player’s Guide once the new edition launches. For now, you can still research your hearts out!

wrap up

That’s it for today, Vados!

We hope that you will come join us for our next event, our second part of the finale of the Season 5 story. We have some fun surprises in store for you during this game, and we hope that you are ready to try and ensure the FALL OF THE SAN SABA BOARD. Will you be able to help to finally serve justice to Arthur Lovelace? How will you protect those you love from the vengeance of a petty tyrant? Can you save your town from the imminent destruction?

Next week we will recap some of the important events from our last game and catch up to speed on all the story continuity you’ll need as we face the Chairman! See you soon, Vados!

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

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Changes in Season 6

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Howdy Vados!

It’s Jonathan here with another signature DR:TX Rules Ramble, leading up to the start of our new sixth Season and the first DR Live National Event! This week, I’ll be discussing some of the big changes you can expect in our game and story for Season 6!

Our photos for this post were taken from previous DR:TX events by our talented Photo Team, including Max Pohlmeier, Lauren Guzaldo, Sidney Betzina, and Jason Dumas.

The story for season six

Another deadly war has shook the foundations of Bravado, and the San Saba has settled into an uneasy and chaotic peace after the collapse of the San Saba Board.  Travel and communication across the area has grown more difficult, and towns turn their focus inward, towards their own fraught survival.  

It happened more quickly than many expected.  The outer rail lines that once reached as far as the Broken Coast and across the Dune Sea have been abandoned in favor of closer, safer routes between the immediate towns near Bravado and Essex.  Telegraph lines stripped for salvage and murdered postal runners mean that all but the most persistent communication between settlements has stopped, and the points of light at the edge of the map have dimmed.  Soldiers and mercenaries recruited for the war, now without a common cause, consider new allegiances, brutal banditry, or violent reckonings on rival settlements ill prepared for trained and well armed survivors at their gates.

In this new world, the implacable equilibrium of the wasteland churns onwards, reclaiming abandoned settlements in overgrowth, and damning once vibrant towns to destruction, returning the land once more to a lawless waste ruled only by what a survivor can claim for themselves.  Strange and dangerous raiders have overtaken the north, their war path marked by blood and the sounds of drum beats.  The dead have risen in even greater numbers, the Grave Mind turning the countless deaths of the War of Antlers into new and more deadly variants, bent on feasting on living flesh.

The factions of the San Saba have been broken and worn by the war, but each has consolidated what remains of their fortunes closer to the new heart of the San Saba, Bravado.  While it should be a new shining beacon on a hill, a pervasive sense of insignificance has rendered the town forgettable and alone, a ghost town tucked into a forgotten corner of the region.  A fog of memories, casting a shroud of forgetfulness and absence has settled over Bravado, perhaps a last dying gasp of an ancient terror trapped within or perhaps just the unfortunate reality of a world that has moved on after the fall of the Board.  As the town wanes in importance, new rivals flourish nearby, threatening to complete the fall into obscurity for our humble home.

Forgotten and left to decide their own future, our survivors face the harsh and horrific realities of survival in the wasteland.  Now, once easily secured resources like power, clean water, food, fuel, and scrap are in question, and the lean and hungry eyes of your fellow survivors seem not quite as friendly as before.  The future promised by the San Saba Board may be dead, but perhaps a new future can be forged from the ashes for the survivors that call Bravado home…

Changes, Changes, Changes..

Every season, we get together with our incoming Storyteller team to craft the overall story for the next year. We assign some of STs to be the “Overarch ST” for certain games, while others are led by Heather, myself, and the rest of the Admin team. As we build the narrative for the new season, we also try to include some updates to our setting, our rules, and our plans for the next games.

In our tradition of Radical Transparency, one big upcoming change we need to account for is the new license structure that we moved to at the start of the year. Our stories over Season 6 will need to adjust to a new scope of story, as we have less ability to impact the larger setting outside of our hometown in the new licenses. I first talked about this in a blog post from last season, so it shouldn’t be that big of a surprise if you’ve kept up with the blogs.

This means we need to collapse our story area down to adjust to the new scope, but luckily for us we started this back during Season 5. With the end of the War of Antlers, we’ve created the perfect story for these changes and a reason to explain some of our new focus. Many of the changes I’ll discuss below are ultimately in service of either meeting this new scope of license or preparing for the launch of the new edition, and I’m excited about getting to refocus our stories back to Bravado.

Over the next few weeks, you’ll see a lot of these changes reflected across the website, so keep checking back as we get closer to the first game of the season. I’m slowly updating all the pages on the website, but it’s a work in progress.

Here’s the main topics of change for this blog:

  • Wasteland Changes

  • Sunsetting Custom Mechanics

  • Updates to the Bravado Setting

  • The fog of memories

  • Faction Updates & Changes

Let’s get started!

Wasteland Changes

The new edition of DR Live updates the CVC Rules considerably, and we want to pave the way for this new world of character vs character conflict in advance of the transition. One of the changes you can expect to see this season is an expansion of the “Wasteland” area of Bravado. While this change will bring our CVC systems a bit closer to the ones used in the new edition, it will also help reinforce the major societal changes that have occurred in our story as we collapse our story back to our hometown.

With the absence of the San Saba Board, there’s a lot of questions in Bravado and the nearby towns about what law and order actually means. While Bravado signed a new charter with the Law Dogs and the Justices of Sin, not every town agreed to a need for laws. General anarchy and lawlessness in the areas beyond settled towns has led to a rise in bandits, raiders, and other threats outside of civilization. As this wasteland grows, so too does the wasteland in our town.

  • Effective starting in September, the Wasteland will cover the entire Camp Bluebonnet Site. This means that you will only need a Guide for CVC actions that involve Infection changes. We still recommend a Guide for general theft, but that cool in-character confrontation can result in a rowdy brawl without breaking character to grab a Guide.

  • The Civilized areas of the camp will include bathrooms, the Kitchen inside the Depot, and Oak Cabin, our medical sleep area. These areas should not include CVC for any reason without explicit consent, per the CVC rules in the core book.

In practice, this doesn’t change much for our game. We’ve had well over half of the campsite as Wasteland for a few years now, so this only adds a few more buildings to the mix. We have a great CVC culture established in Bravado, and this change will help us smooth out the rough spots in advance of our transition to DR Live. If you have any questions or concerns about this, feel free to give us a shout at info@dystopiarisingtx.com.

Sunsetting Custom Mechanics in DR:TX

With a big shift for the new edition coming, our big focus this season will be on reducing the mechanical complexity in our games. Over the years, we’ve introduced a lot of custom mechanics, custom threats, custom blueprints, and more, and it’s time we get back to the basics. One big part of the new edition change is that we will not be able to introduce new custom mechanics for about the first year of play as part of our new license. This change means we’d rather start to wean our players off these custom mechanics early, rather than adding to the culture shock of the new edition.

The following custom mechanics will be sunsetted during our upcoming season. As of the end of September 2024, the following mechanics will be removed:

We are planning one last hurrah for these custom mechanics during our September event, THE FALL OF THE SAN SABA BOARD, including new ways to spend your remaining SES credits, use and purchase Faction Items, and use your other cool custom items. Stay tuned as we start the lead up to our September event to learn more!

Any existing local item cards or blueprints obtained in September will still be usable through the end of the 2024 year, ending with our game in December. Since all Local Mechanic Cards normally have an expiration date of 3 months, this will mean that you can still use the items for all three remaining 3.0 games we have planned for 2024 (since our October National DR Live event won’t use 3.0 item cards). At the end of the year, these items will be fully removed from our game.

Our Work Orders and Research mechanics will continue through the end of the year, but you can expect a few updates to the Work Orders in the absence of the San Saba Board. We expect Work Orders to continue into DR Live, but the Research mechanics will be replaced with the rules in the Player’s Guide once the new edition launches. For now, you can still research your hearts out!

the scope of the Bravado Setting

Last season, we saw some tumultuous events take over the San Saba with the rebellion against the San Saba Board and the War of Antlers. Cities were attacked, settlements were scattered, rail lines were destroyed, major NPCs were killed, and big enemies faced down our plucky survivors. This general chaos will be the story element behind our changes to the scope of story for Bravado, and there’s been a few updates of note for our setting.

As a general rule, our scope of story only stretches to about 10-ish miles from our town of Bravado. We are making a few changes to the area around Bravado in a bit of a ‘timey wimey wibbly wobbly’ fashion, so some of the distances between certain places are… shifting a bit. Don’t worry, it’s always been that way, or so the Grave Mind told me. All those maps were just a bit off in the scale, that’s all…

This is real world map of the area near our fictional town of Bravado. The circle is a 10-mile radius and represents the new scope of the area our stories can include.

This means that far away areas like Barogue, Widow’s Peak, the Clutch, Star City, Fort Worthless, the Dune Sea, and even Essex will need to take a step back from our story as we continue. These places won’t necessarily stop existing in our story, but they will fade in priority as we shift our focus closer to Bravado. It also means some of our player story areas like Lucky Town and Falken Castle will likely remain in the background going forward. I’ll have a shiny new in-character map of the nearby areas to share with you soon, but for now let’s cover the major landmarks nearby our town in the updated setting.

  • Bravado

    • The home of our story and the center of our setting. Our season 6 story will detail the challenges of survival in the wastes, and the calamities that face our humble home. The Railroad Conglomerate keeps their primary maintenance yard for the Ox at the Bravado station and remains a powerful influence on the town while harvesting scrap and resources from the facility below the town.

  • Tremorsands Post

    • The last outpost before the Dune Sea is still a source of most of the Oxblood for the RRC’s remaining Oxlines. While the rail across the Dune Sea has been abandoned in favor of more reliable and defensible lines closer to Bravado, Tremorsands is a welcome oasis for travelers that brave the journey westward. The RRC outpost allows for an early warning against the dangerous raider tribes moving in from the north.

  • Morgan’s Folly

    • East of Bravado are the ruins of the area formerly considered Temple and Belton which is now a dangerous no-man’s land between the major settlements near our hometown. Home to bandits, critters, and the occasional raider war party, the area is mostly lawless and ignored. Stories of criminal gatherings and masked cultists are probably nothing more than rumors.

  • Essex, the City of Light & Sound

    • We’ve put a lot of stories over the years into Essex and didn’t want to leave this town to be forgotten, but it was a bit outside of 10-mile range. It’s always been a short train ride from Bravado in our story, so now it’s simply a bit closer to our hometown. During the last days of the war, Arthur Lovelace turned his artillery onto the town itself, so much of the city is in ruins and many of the former residents have been scattered. Boss Debs and the remaining members of the San Saba Republic have promised to rebuild the city, but it’s going to be several years before Essex recovers. Boss Wyatt has taken an office in the city, and dispatches members of the Law Dog Union to enforce the various town charters across the area.

  • Drywater

    • The nearby port and home to the remaining Junkerpunk fleets is a staunch ally of Bravado. However, the residents of Drywater have resisted the influence of the Grave Council and the Law Dog Union and has decided to forge their own path without the need for laws or oversight, or morgue maintenance. After years of trying to fit in with the other factions, the Junkerpunks have returned to their rebellious roots.

  • Bastion

    • A resurgent force and rival to Bravado, the nearby fortress is a looming presence on the entire San Saba countryside. The Mustang Loyalists have established a new stronghold atop the remains of the crashed airship formerly known as Waking and are hard at work establishing the Wells Society Initiative, a plan to deal with the radioactive exclusion zone that surrounds the city.

  • Killhouse

    • The headquarters of the new Bravado Militia, the prison turned fortress weathered the storm of the war thanks to the leadership of General Hargrave Moss-Iverspiit. The remaining soldiers loyal to the Militia have established a base of operations inside the fortress and have partnered with Reckoner-General Solomon and the Grave Council in establishing a new home for the Grave Bureau inside the former prison’s depths.

While our October National Event will take place inside the town of Bastion, most of these nearby settlements will remain off-camera for our season. You’ll probably interact with NPCs, faction leaders, away mods, and other threats that involve these locations, but the main focus of our story is on Bravado proper. While our story of survival is focused on Bravado, there’s still some allies and enemies of note nearby.

The Fog of Memories

One new story beat we’d like to introduce for Season 6 is the concept of the “Fog of Memories”. For our season of survival, we have added a new story effect to explain why the outside world no longer cares as much about Bravado as it did in seasons past.  This has no actual mechanical effect beyond what the players decide, but it is simply a cool narrative way to address continuity going forward.

Some suggest that the effects of capturing the Prince Undying within the Bravado Mortis appears to have created a strange phenomenon that is now impacting the residents of Bravado.  Others simply point out that without an organizing government like the San Saba Board, most folks tend to mind their own business. With travel being tougher across the San Saba, it’s easy for people not to want to risk a dangerous journey after all.

Regardless of the cause, it started small and sometime shortly after the Burning Season began. People began to forget Bravado unless they were actively living there or had some sympathetic tie to the town.  As it continues to worsen, people literally forget about the town unless they have a reason to remember it.  People with a strong connection or tie to the town like your characters are more resistant to the effect, but the effect increases the further you travel from Bravado. Every month, some new traveler arrives in town, surprised to find the town and even more surprised to find folks living there.

Much like something that is out of sight, or out of mind, it’s a subtle effect for most, and leads to small mistakes and forgetfulness that interrupts regular trade and commerce.  Repairmen forget to make the trip to check the rail lines leading into Bravado, and merchants accidentally miss the stop as they daydream about something else.  Important faction leaders focus on other settlements nearby, and don’t make it a priority to visit Bravado. For those that don’t live actively in the town, it’s as easy to forget as some small random town in another state could be in real life.  If someone brings it up, folks might have a spark of memory, but it quickly fades into obscurity when it fades from their attention.

  • There are no real mechanics for the Fog of Memories. This is simply a story element for how the town is being forgotten by the outside world. Think of elements like relationship decay, or nostalgia as a means to a story.  The themes here are not catastrophic, but just the distance that grows between ideas as time passes.

  • This is an optional story that your character can choose to have impact them, or simply choose to ignore it. If you don’t want it to affect your character, it doesn’t.  You get to decide if and how the Fog of Memories has affected your character. It’s entirely up to you, but this could be a great reason to update a back story, or wrap up some unfinished stories as you prepare for the new stories of DR Live. Maybe the amnesia you suffer can provoke some new character connections or let you start fresh as if you just arrived in town.

  • In general, this is not a problem that can be fixed. It’s simply a new part of life in Bravado, and it can have as much or as little impact as you want it to have on your character. It’s not something that research or a zone of mechanics will change.

  • You might encounter strange fog in Bravado from time to time, as we plan to use fog machines more in S6 as setting ephemera. The fog could have strange effects via certain zone of mechanics, but most of this effect is simply a background story.

I hope you are ready for some spooky stories in Season 6!

FACTION UPDATES & CHANGES

The War of Antlers had some big impacts on our story, and virtually every faction was impacted by the conflict in a pretty significant way. Our stories of season 6 will determine the fate of some of the factions, and even introduce some new characters to the story. In the same way this will be a bit of a season of transitions as we get ready for the launch of DR Live, this year’s story will continue with the aftermath of the war that nearly ended the town of Bravado.

We will be updating our Faction pages over the next few weeks, so here’s the major changes to expect:

  • The Factions of the San Saba have lost much of their influence in the region, and many of these groups have new NPC leadership, new headquarters, and new objectives. Money is tighter, and many have had to spend vast resources relocating or rebuilding after the events of the War of Antlers. This is one story reason the Faction Buy Lists will be sunsetted, but overall the ability of a faction to influence a wide area of the San Saba has been severely reduced following the war as part of our new license structure.

  • Two factions will be exiting our story, the Widows of the Lone Star and Prudence Penitentiary. These Society Memberships will be removed from character sheets going forward.

  • One new faction will be introduced, The Bravado Militia, representing the remaining soldiers and troops recruited during the War of Antlers. Players that served as commanders during the war can add this Society Membership to their sheets for free.

Here’s a bit of a story update on the various Factions, and we will expand on this on the website and during our Season 6 stories.

  • The Widows of the Lone Star have been driven out of Widow’s Peak and have now joined the Criminal Factions of Bravado. They are no longer a full faction, as their story really concludes in September with the final confrontation against Arthur Lovelace. While some stories will continue in the background, particularly for characters in Murder Inc, we won’t have regular events like Widow’s Tea and you won’t see characters like Clauthia Lovelace during our games.

  • Prudence Penitentiary has ceased to exist following the war. With the disappearance of Tabitha St. Mercy, taken into custody by the General during the last days of the war, the location once known as Killhouse has been well and truly finished. With no remaining function for the prison after the collapse of the San Saba Board, the fortress-prison has taken on new importance to the Militia and the Grave Council as a strategic fortification and not as a place of incarceration.

The remaining six factions of the San Saba have each experienced their own trials and tribulations following the War of Antlers.

  • The San Saba Republic has splintered further following the aftermath of civil war. The SSR is eager to return to a more peaceful life following war, the destruction at Essex, and the betrayals during the rebellion. With the Breaker of Crowns’ rage finally satiated with the collapse of the Board, many families that were broken and torn apart on the opposing sides of the rebellion are seeking reconciliation. With Boss Deb’s focus on rebuilding Essex, only a few of the Tribes remain in Essex, and many of their soldiers recruited during the war and their Houses have returned to their homes once more.

  • The RRC is in crisis, as most of their fortunes were tied to the success of Felicity Redfield and the Board. Forced to abandon the outer Oxlines, they have taken a more conservative approach to survival after the collapse of the Board. A new CEO will need to be named, but the Ox is safe in Bravado for now. However, the families of Waking Prime have splintered with the rise of Bastion - some have joined the Mustang Loyalists in their new fortress-city, while others have remained in Essex and Bravado.

  • The Law Dog Union has established their relevance through the creation of several town charters across the area around Bravado. These new social contracts empower Marshals and Sheriffs to find new paths of redemption for criminals with the help of the Justices of Sin, and they have their work cut out for them. While Boss Wyatt has established an office for the Union in Essex, their agents roam the wasteland offering their services as investigators and beacons of stability in a lawless wilderness.

  • Following the death of General Rampart, Cassiopeia Stargazer has emerged as the leader of the Grave Council. With the help of the new Reckoner-General Solomon, the faction has diverted their expertise in necrology and the Grave Mind towards establishing a new Vault of Reckoning inside the strong walls of the fortress-prison formerly known as Killhouse. The new town charters have also redefined the grave tax for a new post-Board era, but the faction has a lot of work to do to rebuild their reputation.

  • The Junkerpunks are licking their wounds after the war, after being forced to retreat inland towards their new home of Drywater. After years of trying to appease the kinder elements of the Muddy Water Accord, the faction is ready for a clean break from law and order. Drywater has refused to sign a charter with the Law Dogs or the Grave Council, choosing to forge a new path ahead on their own. Will complete anarchy be a viable method of survival in the new lawless wasteland?

  • The Militia stands as the strongest military organization in the region, and has claimed the fortress-prison of Killhouse as their headquarters. Under the leadership of General Hargrave, the Militia now has to grapple with the unfortunate realities of a post-war landscape, including dealing with their veterans and the threat trained soldiers represent. How do they lay down their arms and return to a normal life without the purpose of serving in the rebellion? Who pays the bills now that the rebellion has been won? While many of their soldiers returned home, some remained behind to stand guard against the Mustang Loyalists, and others worry that the Militia will just find a new excuse to plunge Bravado into a new war against Bastion.

There’s still a few unknowns for how Factions and Society Memberships will function in a new DR Live world, but for now there are still plenty of stories to tell as we begin Season 6.

wrap Up

That’s it for today, Vados!

Tickets will be on sale soon for our September event, THE FALL OF THE SAN SABA BOARD, and you can buy tickets right now for our National Event, DOWNFALL! Don’t miss out on your first chance to play a whole weekend with the new DR Live rules and explore the nearby rival town of Bastion during our National Event.

Next week, we will start our coverage of the September event and finish our two-part story we started in May. Find out more about what Arthur Lovelace has been up to over the Burning Season, and what his burning revenge will mean for Bravado next week!

See you soon, Vados!

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The Story of Downfall

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Howdy Vados!

It’s Jonathan here with another signature DR:TX Rules Ramble, leading up to the start of our new sixth Season and the first DR Live National Event! This week, I’ll be introducing the story of our upcoming National Event and give some teasers about what to expect when you get to visit Bastion!

Our photos for this post were taken from previous DR:TX events by the talented Lauren Guzaldo.

Testing a new system and earning XP is a great reason to attend Downfall, but some folks want to know a bit more about the story and why their characters might make the trip to the San Saba region. Let’s cover the details below.

THE PREMISE

“Every settlement in the wastes has a similar story – a spark of hope amidst the irradiated wasteland, trying to survive in a hostile environment that is the product of too many nukes, too many raiders and undead, and too much conflict.  Now, a new hope for survival has arrived – a way to cure the threat of radiation.

The Wells Society, a group of Sainthood that survived the fall of the Trade Union, have emerged with a solution — a breed of mushroom that feeds on radiation itself.  With the help of the Grave Mind scholars known as the Servants of the Undying, they have developed the “Liberum Radicalis”, or Glow Shroom, and promise that they can “cure” irradiated areas across the wastes.  In a few short months, the Society claims they can return an area back to a state where crops can grow and new settlements can form, free from the plague of the green glow.

Their first test of the strange blue mushrooms on a large scale has happened at a Fallow Hope fortress called the Bastion of New Dawn.  Built atop the wreck of a massive crashed airship, Bastion has been surrounded by lethal radiation and massive ZOMBIE HORDES that continue to emerge from the destroyed generator at its core and has served as an impenetrable fortress during the recent wars in the area.  The soldiers of the Mustang Loyalists, loyal to the one and only GENERAL MUSTANG, have opened the fortress to new settlers and travelers, with a promise that the radioactive threat is no more.  

With the help of the Wells Society, the first proof of concept for their new mushroom is ready for others to visit, collect spores to take home with them, and see for themselves what the Sainthood have brought forward for the greater good.  Invitations have gone out to every major settlement across the wastes, to visit Bastion and see the revelations of the great work that has been completed, and how it can benefit their own communities.

But their opponents with the Temple of Evolution suggest that the radiation is itself a reason for the survival of so many settlements.  Without the mutation of the Infection, none of the Strains would exist.  What will happen to the Infection that runs in your veins when not constantly bombarded with radiation from the wastelands?  What will happen to the Mortis Amaranthine when the source of its creation is gone and it is allowed to expand unchecked?  Even if the Glow Shrooms are safe, who will control these new fertile lands and decide who will benefit from the homes that are created in the absence of radiation? 

Come and witness the birth of a new era of the wasteland, survive the zombie hordes, and gather the promise of salvation to bring home to your settlements, courtesy of the Wells Society and the Bastion of New Dawn.”

Radiation, Mushrooms, and Zombies? Sounds like a great Dystopia Rising event!

Inspiration & Tropes

For the Downfall story, we have focused on bringing some new elements of Survival Horror to the forefront of the story. In our tradition of Radical Trust, we want to share some of the inspirational bits of media and movie magic that we feel help capture the themes and feelings of our upcoming event. If you are looking for a movie to inspire your role play for this event, here’s a list of our favorites to get ready for DOWNFALL 2024:

  • Horizon Zero Dawn

  • Westworld

  • Minority Report

  • Gremlins

In Horizon Zero Dawn, Aloy is given a choice to restore technology from the ancients, but has to contend with this tech becoming new and terrible weapons in the hands of her enemies. While the glow shrooms could be a powerful way to restore the wasteland, they could lead to dangerous mutations or worse if not properly used.

Similarly, Westworld and Minority Report explore unintended consequences of technology. As a new resource is introduced to the wasteland, so too does the power struggle around new technology. While the glow shrooms can be a powerful tool to help a settlement, new land and new resources means there could be a contest for who gets to claim these new advantages.

The Wells Society can be a valuable ally for your settlement, but the glow shrooms they offer need to be properly cared for, like the movie Gremlins. Just like you wouldn’t feed a strange creature after midnight, it will be important to really research and understand what is being offered. If the players follow the instructions for the glow shrooms it should work well, but we know that they don’t always listen to sound advice.

The Themes of Downfall

Every game in DR:TX has a few themes we want to reinforce in the story. Here’s a few to watch out for during the National Event.

Greater Good vs Individuality

  • While solving a problem of radiation can present a benefit for the greater good across the wastes, as the Mortis is strengthened so does the sense of self fade into nothingness.  The Wasteland is a balance of radiation and death, and picking one or the other could be catastrophic.

Radiation vs the Grave Mind

  • Radiation is a useful tool against raiders and zed alike, offering powerful weapons and a natural enemy to the Grave Mind.  As radiation wanes in danger and the Grave Mind gets stronger, so too does the threat of undead.  If the glow shrooms are truly an answer to radiation, could this even remove the protective elements of the Infection such as quick healing and beneficial mutations?

Faith vs Order

  • The opposing faiths of the Darwin and Fallow Hope are placed in conflict during this story.  Mustang has a solution to help their people with new farmland, new safety, and the ability to help their faction grow.  The radiation leaks from Bastion have been a bane on the nearby settlements, and even the Darwins have precepts against unchecked evolution.  But, the glow shrooms represent the anathema of the Darwin faith, and a way to remove their faith’s holy focus from being a force of survival.

Breaking down the premise

For those that haven’t attended a DR:TX event before, we normally introduce our events with a bit of player-facing content to understand a bit more about what is going on. In the narrative description above, I’ve highlighted a few key points, and I want to make sure you have some context. This premise will introduce a few key concepts, some of the themes of the event, and some of the proper nouns and characters you might need to know for the story.

During this event, we will be running a lot of material inspired by the wonderful DR Live Plot Kit, “Illusions of Civility”. If you want spoilers, you can read ahead on the DR Live website, but our event will still have some surprises in store, even if your own game chooses to run this plot kit.

We’ve put together a longer list of Frequently Asked Questions about Downfall over on our website, but here’s a few of the questions you might have about the story of Downfall.

TL;DR - What’s the story?

A group of Sainthood called the Wells Society wants to share a new resource to help settlements across the Wastes, a mushroom that eats radiation. They’ve invited you to the place called Bastion where they have tested the mushrooms and can show you how they work. If you attend, you can even take some of the glow shroom spores home to share with your home settlement.

When is the game taking place?

DOWNFALL, a four-day event, kicks off on the evening of Thursday, October 10, featuring workshops and social activities. The story begins the morning of Friday, October 11, through the afternoon of Sunday, October 13.

Where is the game being set?

Bastion, a rival settlement near Bravado. While the game will take place on our usual campsite at Bluebonnet Shores, the story is set in a nearby town run by the Fallow Hope soldiers that follow a demagogue leader named GENERAL MUSTANG. Bastion is built on the wreck of a massive airship, and there is plenty of mystery left to explore inside.

Who is General Mustang?

General Mustang was first introduced in the 2.0 book Embers of the Irradiated Wastes (p. 42). They’ve been a powerful NPC in the Lone Star area since the start of DR:TX, and have been tied to a number of machinations over the years. This will be the first time that you can interact with this character in live play!

who is the wells society?

The Wells Society is a new National-level faction that is part of the plotkit Illusions of Civility. They are mostly Sainthood folks that want to help build a better tomorrow for the wasteland through mutual aid and support.

The Wells Society emerged from the vacuum left by the Trade Union’s withdrawal and stands as a testament to the potential for collaboration across diverse factions, each bringing unique perspectives and resources to a shared vision. The Wells Society’s mission goes beyond just survival; it seeks to reclaim and rehabilitate the ravaged earth, fostering conditions where life can flourish anew. You’ve probably heard stories about the Trade Union from 2.0 - this is where the ubiquitous Trade Note comes from after all.

What is at stake?

There’s been a few too many nukes used during our DR events over the years. The Glow Shrooms are a powerful new resource that could help your settlement clean an area of radiation, helping with new farm-able land, clean water, and an area free of irradiated threats. Every town in the wastes could benefit from something like this, provided it works like the Wells Society says it does.

Who else is involved?

There are a few major NPC groups that have a stake in what is happening in Bastion.

  • The Mustang Loyalists are a DR:TX militant faction of the Fallow Hope that follow the leadership of a demagogue named General Mustang. They have claimed the city of Bastion as their own after a recent war, and have deployed a powerful military force into the settlement. They offer safety and security to those willing to swear allegiance to their rule, and have invited settlements across the wastes to their home as part of the Wells Society initiative.

  • The Servants of the Undying are a sect of mostly Natural Ones that worships the Mortis Amaranthine, the Infection, and the role the Mortis plays in the cycle of creation and destruction. In the eyes of the Servants of the Undying, the Mortis is an aspect of existence that should not only be respected and revered, but also propagated and expanded whenever possible. You might have first read about these faction in the 2.0 book, Overgrowth of the Undying (p. 26).

  • The Temple of Evolution sees radiation as the light of truth in a false world created by the Mortis. Under the guidance of Curie Pierre, the Temple of Evolution believes that the Mortis gives the wasteland strength to survive, and it will eventually turn all of creation into a single organism. Free will, individual exceptionalism, and evolution does not thrive in a single organism environment without reason to evolve. You might have first read about these guys in the 2.0 book, Overgrowth of the Undying (p. 96).

what will we be fighting?

It’s a zombie game, so you can expect to face a LOT of zombies. We want to show off as many of the DR Live threats as possible, so you can expect to run into basically any of the undead variants outlined in the Zombie Threat Guide. There will also be the usual array of raiders, cannibals, critters, and your fellow survivors to contend with as well. The primary enemy outside of zombie will probably be other Strain threats, like the Mustang Loyalists.

Why would a player want to attend Downfall?

The easiest answer to this one is that you want to play with the new DR Live rules during a full weekend event. This will be the first National Event to use the new rule set, and one of the first chances you will get to get new blueprints, a special new currency card, and the first chance to build new DR Live gear that you can keep for your characters.

  • Test run your character build. Because the launch of DR Live will also involve a complete character reset, anything you build for this event will be temporary. This is a great time to test out your killer build or try some skills you don’t usually grab. Try out something new like being a psion or try out a new profession before the official launch of the game.

  • You’ll be able to collect a brand new collectable currency - The Wells Society Membership! This unique, foiled currency card will be available at our National Event for the first time ever. If you collect rectangles, you won’t want to miss out!

  • You can buy up to 10 XP for each of your characters. If you have an Advanced Membership, you’ll get the XP boost on all of your characters. This will be a nice way to get a boost of power for your characters before DR Live launches officially.

  • You can keep your gear. Anything you can make, craft, loot, or steal is yours to keep after the event. It’ll be available to use once DR Live launches, but the expiration dates won’t start until then. Get a head start on the new edition and enter armed and prepared for survive the apocalypse!

  • Get a head start on the National Plot Kit. The Illusions of Civility plot kit has been released to every chapter in the network. Your character could be the reason for the glow shrooms to get back to your settlement, or help establish a great connection with the Wells Society in advance.

  • It’s risk free! Even if you lose all your infection, no permanent damage can happen to your character during this event, unless you chose otherwise. If you end up dying your last time or gaining too many fractures, you’ll simply be able to play your character again at the next live event, wounded but whole. If you are worried about losing a favorite PC in the first DR Live game, you’ll be able to test the new system with confidence.

Our storytellers are hard at work crafting fun mods, interesting NPCs, and unique experiences to enjoy while you attend Downfall, but we have three major in-game events that you might want to experience for yourself. We want to share a bit of the uniqueness of the DR:TX experience when you come to visit, and we have some fun events that we think you will enjoy:

The Siege of Bastion

One of our culminating events of the weekend will be a massive fight, in true DR:TX style. Our team loves boffer combat and we really want to test your mettle with the new DR Live rules. You’ll need to survive an intense meat grinder of a fight over several hours, using teamwork, leveraging and rationing your precious Impact Skills to the best of your ability. We want to create a fight that will leave you exhausted and accomplished, and let you make a name for yourself on the battlefield.

morgue collapses & Grave Dives

Do you want to dive into the Mortis to face dangerous undead and help the town avoid a catastrophic morgue collapse? Do you want to try out new Necrology items and procedures for the first time? You can experience the Grave Dives described in the Grave Divers plot kit and A Grave Place books in the live space, and face the terrifying denizens of the Mortis Amaranthine. Grave Heads rejoice, as you can dive in the depths to save the day.

Liquidation Runs

A unique DR:TX experience, you’ll be able to brave the deadly radiation of the Exclusion Zone around Bastion to forage for new scrap and herb, the important glow shrooms, and face challenges as a team against the clock. You’ll face off against several kinetic challenges that can’t be solved by throwing Mind points or Impact skills at the problem. You’ll need to be quick, organized, and efficient to make it out in one piece with your prize, lest the radiation end your run with certain death!

Man, that sounds like a blast!

Why would my character want to attend Downfall?

This is the real important question for quite a few folks. Sure, you can buy a ticket easily enough, but WHY would your character want to travel all this way to see a mushroom? What’s in in for you, after all?

Here’s a few prompts to consider for why your character would attend:

  • A new hope for your settlement. The glow shroom can fix a lot of problems that face most settlements. Simple survival is tough in the wasteland, and being able to clean up important resources like food and water from the threat of radiation would be useful for any settlement. The Wells Society has promised samples of the glow shroom spores for anyone that wants them, and the Sainthood group is a bunch of charitable sorts that don’t even want money.

  • You have an opinion on curing radiation and the Mortis. What the Wells Society has suggested is bound to have some side effects. The Mortis exists in a delicate balance with radiation, and these glow shrooms may stand to create unfortunate consequences that could eventually spread to your settlement. Better see the research for yourself, in a controlled environment, so you can put your unique academic background to the test.

  • It’s all about the rectangles, baby. A new settlement opening their doors means new money to be made for the canny traveler that can make the trip. New blueprints, new gear, new marks.. ahem, new trade partners, and lots of folks to trade currency with. Plus, if a few things go missing from the Fallow Hope’s pockets, who is going to notice?

  • You’ve heard of dangerous new threats in the wastes and want to make sure your town is ready. In the last few months, the Grave Mind has been churning forth more and more dangerous threats. You’ve heard of deadly raider clans acting with more organization than ever before. If the Mustang Loyalists have some useful tools to help combat this threat, your hometown would benefit from the training and the chance to understand more before it reaches your door.

  • The city of Bastion is a trove of old relics and scrap. The airship that was once known as Waking was powered by a massive steam engine, and the wreck might have some useful treasures hidden inside. Maybe you can find some useful scrap in the radioactive husk to upgrade your ride or help with your most recent science project. The Exclusion Zone is covered in bits of discarded crazy future metal, steel, and other important metals for those willing to brave a liquidation run into the dangerous irradiated wasteland.

  • It’s a matter of faith. For the Darwins, a group of Fallow Hope claiming to have a cure for radiation sounds suspicious at best. There’s no better person than you to make sure these folks don’t leave a bad name for your religion. For the Fallow Hope, curing radiation sounds like exactly what the Lord Commander inspired their followers to do. This could be a new weapon in your arsenal against the hated Hellfire. For everyone else, your faith might have an opinion on what the Wells Society has offered. New farmland sounds great for the Sainthood and Tribes, but reducing suffering in the wastes sounds like something a Final Knight needs to have a say on. Maybe you want to make sure the hospitality of a neighbor is respected as a Nuclear Family, or you just want to show those Fallow Hope a good time through song or sin. Regardless of your particular faith, there’s plenty of reason to want to travel to Bastion.

  • You have a score to settle. General Mustang and the Loyalists have been a threat to the Lone Star for quite some time. They have been an enemy of Bravado for years and have only really recently buried the hatchet with their nearby rival. Getting invited behind enemy lines is a great time to get a bit of reconnaissance done, find out more about how the Loyalists function, and get a first set of eyes on what has changed inside Bastion. Or if you don’t have a grudge against the Loyalists, maybe you are more concerned about the connections between the Wells Society and the Trade Union and need to understand more about where they came from.

There’s so many reasons and more to attend DOWNFALL, and we hope you will join us in October for the first chance to experience the story in person!

wrap up

That’s it for today Vados! We have a lot planned for the next few weeks as we lead up to the start of our new season and the first DR Live National Event. Next week, we will cover some changes you can expect to see in our upcoming Season 6, and we will be continuing our Downfall coverage up until the event in October on our Downfall Blog.

You can purchase tickets for our DOWNFALL event today! Will you outrun the dead, or join them?

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DRL: Where to Start

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Howdy Vados!

It’s Jonathan here with another signature DR:TX Rules Ramble, leading up to the start of our new sixth Season! This week, I’ll be breaking down how and where you can get started on understanding the new edition of our game, DYSTOPIA RISING LIVE!

Our photos for this post were mostly taken from the DR Live website, with permission. You can find the artist accreditation for each of these pieces inside the front cover of the books.

A living Rule book

If you’ve had a chance to visit our Most Improbable partners at the Dystopia Rising Live website, you can find the complete listing of the available source books for the next edition, handy dandy download links, and a timeline of when to expect the next books in the series. Michael, Catie, and their whole team are hard at work building content for the new edition, and this is THE place to find the books. They’ve done an awesome job so far, and it’s a lot of neat material.

Unlike previous editions that you downloaded from places like DriveThruRPG or ordered physical copies of the book, this next edition is envisioned as a living rule book. The edition that you can read right now is the BETA version of the rules, and the next major update is due after July 15th. After that, we won’t see a major update until after our October event to allow the team to prepare the stuff we need to run DOWNFALL.

What does that mean?

Well, instead of needing an entire edition update to make changes to the rules, Michael and his team will be able to update the file on this website as those changes happen in real time. Once we launch DR Live, if some rule is found to be problematic or there’s some error we missed, they can just upload a changed book and fix the problem right then and there. No more typos staring you in the face years after the book was printed!

I’ll still strive to have some paper versions of the rules available for our October event, but digital is going to be the way to go for most folks, so you can make sure you always have the most updated version of DR Live.

These books have been updated fairly regularly so far, but as we approach the launch of DR Live those updates will slow a bit to be a bit more seasonal in nature. Once we’ve hosted our DOWNFALL event in October, we can expect to see some updates based on the feedback we provide from that event.

That’s a Lot of Books!

You can find the full list of the books for our new edition that can be downloaded on the Dystopia Rising Live website, found here: DR Live Books. However, that’s a LOT of books.

A common concern I’ve heard is being confused on where to begin, so the main focus of this blog is to help understand a bit about what is in each book, and how important it might be to your game play experience. Luckily, while Michael and the Most Improbable team have prepared a LOT of content for DR Live, you don’t have to read it all at once.

A quick reminder:

  • Pace yourself. This seems like a LOT of content, but it’s not necessary to try to read hundreds of pages at once. You don’t have to binge this content like some Netflix show, and we still have a LOT of time before the DR Live launch. If you don’t want to start into these books right away, that’s okay. No one is judging you.

  • This is the entire new system. Not everything is player side focused. A lot of these books are really meant for the staff so we can run games in the DR Live system, or are super narrow in focus. If it’s not something specific you are involved in, you can probably skip it and read it later.

  • There’s more resources coming. We will have some new guest micro blogs and my traditional Rules Rambles over the next few weeks, and our DR Live Workshops on the Thursday night of DOWNFALL will help you kick start learning the new rules. You’ll also be able to read over several of the blueprints as they are released over the next few months. There will be many more resources to come to help ease this process of learning a new system.

Start Here - The Player’s Guide

The Player’s Guide should be your first stop in your DR Live reading. This is a book you probably shouldn’t skip, but it’s only about 80 pages or so. That’s not nearly as long as core books have been in the past, and it’s a fraction of the size of rule books like D&D or Vampire.

Not only does this book have the full list of Impact Skills, Development Skills, Professions, and more, it also has a lot of the detailed rules for building a character in the new system, as well as the core rules for play.

NOTE: I’ve included some page numbers here, but they may be slightly off as the books are updated next week or in future updates. They should still get you close to where it will be in the book.

  • A lot of the material about experience points, mind, body, resolve, and the core stats of your character start on page 13.

  • There’s some good pages to bookmark - On page 8, you can find a quick reference to building a character and some short descriptions of the strains, lineages, and where to start with a brand new character. There’s also a great table on page 14 that details how much all the skills and professions cost in XP in the new system.

  • Lineages start on page 20. One thing to note is that Infection and Resolve are no longer tied to your Strain, and some of the Lineage abilities have changed. There is a lot of extra content about Strains that used to be in the core book that can now be found in the Strained Ancestry book that I’ll talk about below.

  • Skills start on page 31. These are broken into three categories - Default Skills are ones every starts with like weapon skills and basic lore, Impact Skills are active skills that refresh every 20 minutes out of combat, and Development Skills are most of the crafting and faith skills that use Mind points to fuel their use. I’ll be covering these in detail in a later blog post.

  • Professions start on page 52. These are advanced purchases that require you to meet a few prerequisite of Skills to unlock, but you can only learn three (3) total per character. These will require you to have a bit over 100 XP to unlock, so if you are just starting out you can probably leave this section until last. These are great things to work towards as you play the game, but you don’t have to take a Profession right away. Professions have two brand new Skills each, and don’t require item cards to function like the PFAs of 3.0.

    • There will also be some additional Professions arriving in future books, according to Michael’s posts on the Discord. When these release, you’ll have the chance to rebuild your characters entirely to take the new Professions if you want, but these won’t be coming soon. There’s a whole lot of other books to finish first.

  • The core Combat rules, CVC rules, and Item Card rules start on page 61. This is one of the must read sections in my mind, so don’t skip this part. That’s only 7-8 pages or so, but this is the stuff that you will use every single game.

  • Page 68 introduces the concepts of Fractures and Diseases, but the full rules for these mechanics are in the Guide’s Guide. This is a quick version of the rules, but you can save this part for later if you want.

  • The complete Lexicon is on page 70. This is a list of keywords, mechanics, and more that will come up regularly in the course of the game, now in the rule book instead of hosted on a webpage. This has rules for stuff like Agony, Knockback, Mangle, and even a few Threat Skills that you’ll probably be on the receiving end for. This is a really important section, and definitely one worth bookmarking. This will also continue to expand as the game evolves, so it’s a great place to find the quick reference for all those cool keywords.

I hope this quick breakdown makes it a bit less intimidating to read. You don’t have to read the whole thing in one sitting, and I recommend breaking it up into smaller sections as you go. This should be a book you read a few times if you really want to master the new mechanics, but it’s very streamlined and easy to understand.

Recommended, but Optional - Guide’s Guide

While it’s not entirely required to read this book as a new player, there are some useful parts I’m going to recommend below. A big chunk of this book is directed at your Storyteller and Guides and details a lot about designing stories for DR, building the world, and a lot of setting material.

If you are a staff member, I recommend reading this book entirely, but this can be mostly optional for others.

same page number note as above applies to this one.

Here’s the important stuff to consider if you want to skim the best parts:

  • The Genre and Technology summaries are on pages 7 and 8. This details a look at what to expect in the setting, and it’s a good reminder for your backstories and understanding the limits of the post-apocalyptic setting we share.

  • Anti-Aberrant Mechanics are on page 25. This details some of the disadvantages for being a psion in the world of DR Live, and if you take psionic skills this is worth reading. It’s only two pages, so it’s short and sweet. Psions - know what you are getting into!

  • Fractures are covered on page 52, and Necrology starts on page 54. These cover some common mechanics if you want to explore the Grave Mind, and are worth including in your reading. Grave Heads and Doctors should pay attention.

  • Diseases are covered on page 59, but I’d consider this section a SPOILER if you’d like to instead experience this in person. Doctor and researcher types will probably want to be familiar with this section.

  • Crafting begins on page 74, and this is a super important section if you want to use Development Skills like Artisan and Culinary. Notably, the Travel Buy List is on page 82, and the global Expiration Date list is on page 83. If you are at all interested in Econ in DR Live, you should definitely read this section.

As you can see, most of this book is aimed at the Storytellers. It’s still worth reading if you have a chance, but I only really recommend the whole thing to the members of staff, like Guides and Storytellers.

Recommended, but Not Quite Ready - Strained Ancestry

The released book on the DR Live website is only a Sample, and it covers the DEVOTED Lineage only. This book isn’t quite finished yet, but will be one of the next books to be released for DR Live. This might be ready for our October game, but probably not. There’s a good chance it may be delayed until later.

  • One neat thing about this sample is that it details two new variants of Strains, adding to the one in the Player’s Guide. Each Strain will have a Civilized and Wasteland variant in the future, along with the Common variant in the Player’s Guide.

  • While the Player’s Guide Common variant will be the standard for most players, this will allow you take on additional costuming and role play challenges for your character with a Strain Variant, in exchange for slightly different Strain Advantages. Some even have a mechanical disadvantage, similar to Strains back in 2.0. If you aren’t super interested in the Lineage Advantage for your character in the Player’s Guide, this could open up a LOT of new options to consider instead.

  • This book also includes your first details of the Fall of Man and what exactly started the zombie plague that wiped out the world. This is an AMAZING bit of lore, and I highly recommend reading this part. This is probably the single best bit of new lore that has been released, in my mind.

Save for later - A killer’s Mind

This isn’t actually new. Michael and the team released this one last year for their Dead Waters event, and it details the shadowy organization known as Murder, Inc. I’d consider this book SPOILERS if you aren’t part of this group.

If you are a member of this group, or want to join the murder game, this is a wonderful book to consider reading. If you don’t want anything to do with MI, then you can skip this one entirely. You can always read this one later, and a big part of this book is designed as a sandbox to inspire how each game runs their version of Murder Incorporated.

  • The Rules of Engagement start on page 27. This covers the creed of the masked killers and some important role play tips for your assassin.

  • The Hierarchy of Rank starts on page 30. This details how the organization chooses leaders and the internal hierarchy they use.

Mostly optional - Everything a Grave Head Could Want

The last few books of note that you might want to read concern the mysterious Grave Mind. These books can kind of reveal some of the mystery behind death and dying in the world of Dystopia Rising, so I’d consider them a bit of a SPOILER in general. Some of this stuff is fun to experience for the first time in game, so if you prefer that route, I’d consider these ones Optional.

  • A Grave Place isn’t new, as it was released several months ago. You might have already read this one, but of the two Grave Mind focused books, this is the one I recommend most for optional reading. One cool thing about this book is that it details the Timeline of the Apocalypse and exactly when the zombie plague first began. This is an important book to read if you like the lore of the world, and it details a LOT about the Grave Mind. If you plan on engaging with Necrology at all, this is a must read.

  • The Grave Divers is a organized mostly as a plot kit, and it details what happens when you encounter a Corrupted Morgue. Good thing that won’t happen in Bravado, right? Seriously though, this book should be considered SPOILERS for all but the most engaged with grave plots. If you are the Grave ST, this one is for you. Otherwise, this could be saved for later.

optional, except for staff - Behind the Scenes

These next few books are ones that I would consider SPOILERS, but matching our DR:TX tradition of Radical Transparency, have also been made available to everyone, including players and staff alike. These can provide an important glimpse behind the scenes of Ops and the NPC Shift, but these are entirely optional to read for most players. If you are on Staff, particularly as a Rules Guide or Storyteller, the Zombie and Raider guides should be recommended reading.

  • Zombie Guide - This covers all the Year 1 zombies you can expect to face off against, including new Impact Skills for the monsters, and brand new threats you’ve never seen before. There’s a few more monsters to come — including Aberrant threats and some of the Rank 3 zombies that aren’t included in here yet. If you want combat against zombies to be a bit of a surprise, I’d hold off digging into this one, but this is a great look at the common threats of the DR Live world and what to expect. If you appreciate boffer combat, it could be helpful to consider what the most common threats of the game look like. Zombies have gotten a LOT more dangerous!

  • Banners of Blood, the Raider Guide - This covers all the Year 1 raiders you can expect to face off against, including new Impact Skills, a hint of new raider types, and a LOT of history and lore about where raiders come from. Raiders have been stepped up considerably in difficulty and won’t be the common threat they were in 3.0. These threats are no longer push overs, and when raiders come to town it might be worth considering if you’ll run or hide instead of getting hunted by these fearsome new threats. The lore parts are really neat in this one if you don’t mind SPOILERS.

  • Illusions of Civility - Heavy SPOILERS. This is a Plot Kit that we are starting during our DOWNFALL event featuring a new resource in the wastelands, the Glow Shroom. You can read ahead if you like, but be warned that this covers a lot about the different factions you’ll get to interact with in person during our October Event. This is a bit of a sandbox style plot kit, so we’ll still have some secrets we can share during the national event, but I’d hold off of this one if you want to experience it for yourself. This is aimed primarily at Gamerunners and Storytellers, particularly our DR:TX team for DOWNFALL.

Coming Soon

The last line of books to consider are the easiest choice to exclude from your reading, because they haven’t been released yet! Michael still has several more books planned for the DR Live line up, including the three listed below. I’ve put a few of my guesses below, but these books are still being written so a lot can change.

  • Apocalyptic Control - This book will cover Factions that are national in scope, with organizations and subgroups across the wasteland. I’d expect we will see more about folks like the Trade Union, the Ottoman Institute, the ARK Society, the Red Ledger, and other similar large-scale factions. The exact list of what will be in this book is unknown, but you can probably expect to see groups like the Wells Society, the Servants of the Undying, and the Temple of Evolution from the Illusions of Civility plotkit in here as well.

  • Illicit Business - This is meant more as a companion to the Murder Inc. book released last year, and will delve more into the Criminal side of things, like the Dead Market and all the various organizations and materials needed to understand the shadier side of life in the wasteland. This will be a must read for Criminals once it releases.

  • Devotion & Faith - This is the book that will cover each of the various faiths of the wasteland, detailing their history, lore, tenets, subfactions, and all the various cults you might find in the world. This is probably going to be a much-anticipated book, as we have a lot of players that are super excited about Faith in our games.

    • If your character is a Priest or member of one of the many faiths of DR, this will be a must read. I’d consider this one as important as Strained Ancestry when it comes out, and I’ll probably be one of the 3 books I recommend to new players in the future.

    • The DR Live books don’t have a lot about faiths inside, unfortunately. To help out, I’ve created a list of the current documentation for faiths on our DR:TX website, that you can read for yourself. I’ve listed out the descriptions, tenets, and subfactions from the two most recent books, so this is a great stand-in resource until this book is published.

    • Read more about Choosing a Faith in DR Live

Wrap Up

That’s it for today, Vados!

I hope this has been a useful resource for your exploration of the DR Live mechanics. By next week, we should have the most recent update to the Player’s Guide and other DR Live materials, so I’ll be able to start into our blog series on the major parts of the new edition. I’ll be helping out with a deep dive into stuff like Impact Skills, Professions, and more.

Take a look at our Downfall website for more information, including a plot synopsis, an FAQ, site information, and more!

Don’t miss out on your chance to be one of the first to experience the DR Live rules in a weekend-long event during out October game, DOWNFALL! If you pre-register by August 30th, you’ll unlock some cool extra items and swag!