It’s time for another Rules Ramble with Jonathan! This week, we are continuing the discussion on what happens to your character when they die during a game of Dystopia Rising. Last week, we talked about some of the mechanics of what happens to a character, so this week we are going to focus on the post-death experience. This is a bit longer, but it’s a complicated subject.
Characters in DR start with an Infection Rate depending on their Strain (p. 154, DR Corebook). In the post-apocalyptic world, this is the reason why characters can survive multiple gunshots, being eaten alive by zombies, or cut to pieces by a Raider. The Infection stat is effectively the number of times you can “come back” from death in one piece. This means that death is not the end for your character. However, the journey beyond death can be a strange experience, and coming back intact is never guaranteed. There are many stories of survivors not emerging from the Mortis Amaranthine even when they had Infection remaining.
Mono no aware
When you die, you lose one point of your Infection (unless you had an item or Skill used on you). You can gain back Infection through a few expensive and risky in-game procedures, but generally once this hits zero, your character is gone for good. Once all of your Infection is lost, the Grave Mind is no longer able to bring back that “spark” of what makes you a person and all that is left is the unthinking hungry zed.
However, losing Infection (or even your character) doesn’t have to be a bad thing. In fact, some folks think that Infection is a currency, and should be spent. We even have an entire faction in the game called the Red Ledger that dives into this idea, and the SES System allows you to sign up take risks as your characters on a out-of-character level. If you avoid dying, you miss out on a chance to experience what happens beyond death.
The idea that your character is impermanent is an important part of the story of Dystopia Rising, in the Japanese tradition of mono no aware. Awareness of the transience of all things heightens appreciation of their beauty, and evokes a gentle sadness at their passing. When your character dies, it gives you an opportunity to progress their story, experience change based on what happens during your Grave Mind scene, or even deepen your role play with your friends as they express sadness or emotions about your character’s final death.
Beyond Death
When a character is killed, their body is absorbed by the tendrils of the Mortis Amaranthine, sometimes called the Grave Mind. Their corporeal form is broken down, their Infection reclaimed, and their body is reformed within a place known as a Morgue, which is tended by the Groundskeepers (at least in DR:TX). The Groundskeepers help draw a person through the process of reforming and are the STs in charge of the Grave Mind Scene. The Groundskeepers are responsible for assessing the Grave Tax for the recently deceased. There are even places beyond the Mortis Amaranthine, entering into a state of being Beyond Death. Sometimes a Graverobber might conduct a Grave Robber Scene, restoring lost infection to a survivor.
That’s a lot of vocabulary words, so let’s take a brief look at what I consider the ‘cosmology’ of DR. You can also find more about this starting on page 209 in the DR Corebook. This is just one interpretation of these terms, and these are loosely summarized from materials in the book, tabletop materials, fiction novels, and plot kits.
Infection - The infectious material that courses in your character’s veins is likely a blood-born fungal entity or virus, maybe even a mutation of the original zombie virus which broke the world. It is an organic, symbiotic host found both in Survivors, and the environment of the world itself. When you die, this Infection is reclaimed and absorbed by the Mortis Amaranthine. Eventually, when you have nothing left to be reclaimed you emerge as a zombie.
The Mortis Amaranthine - This is not so much a place, as a concept. While it is true a rotting fungal mass exists under the ground, it is not as simple as that. When you die, your consciousness is temporarily stored within a psionic network of everyone and everything with the Infection running through it, including this fungal network. Collectively, this refers to the state of being that is responsible for the process of death and reconstruction that happens afterwards. Regardless of the source of your regeneration, the out-of-body experience of being rebuilt is maddening and is capable of fracturing mind and body.
The Grave Mind - This is a bit of a urban legend, but many folks associate this term with a hungry intelligence within the Mortis Amaranthine. In fact, this could really just be considered the egoless space within the Mortis. There is no true sentience behind the Mortis and any voices heard within are simply fragments of their attempts to comprehend the experience. However, each settlement in the Wastes has different quirks and flavors of the death experience that seem to be unique to them so it’s easy to see how this legend has grown.
Morgues - These are places where the dead return after dying. They are found in highly psionic areas or larger settlements and are often tended to by Graverobbers and other folks that are passionate about the Mortis Amaranthine. In Texas, there are several Morgues but the primary morgue we use is known as the Grave Annex, located within the Zuni pavilion behind our Logistics building.
Groundskeepers - In the DR: TX setting, these are generally employees of the Grave Council, paid to maintain the morgues of Bravado and help the dead return intact. Out of game, these are the Grave Mind STs for our game, and are responsible for running the post-death experience.
Grave Tax - In DR: TX, this is a fee paid to the Grave Council under the laws of the San Saba Territories after a person returns to the living. This generally starts at 25 brass, and can increase based on if the death was avoidable. This can be paid immediately or deferred until Collection Day (our April event). This is an entirely optional mechanic, and the Groundskeeper will explain your options for opting out of this if you choose.
Grave Robber Scene - These are Action Requests generally created by a Graverobber LC that is attempting to “steal” lost Infection back from the Mortis Amaranthine. These are challenging mods set up in advance that allow players to risk their Resolve and future Infection for a chance at more time and new Infection. This is generally done via the Pallor Mortis procedure, a blueprint that can be found in game, and requires the player gaining Infection to spend 10 XP.
Beyond Death - There are deeper ways to interact with the Mortis Amaranthine other than a Morgue, taking you into places and scenarios beyond the limits of what is normal.
Sunless Garden - These are areas of the Mortis where the skeletal remains of the consumed world of “the Fall” exists in a microcosm of reality. It is a physical space that functions almost like a stationary point in reality between the living world, the egoless space of the Grave Mind, and what lies beyond the Mortis. You will see these types of locations primarily at National events.
Abyssal Rifts - Several blueprints mention the concept of Abyssal Rifts and how to control them, including bodily entering into the Mortis. These were introduced during the online Green House event and these are effectively breaches into reality from beyond the Mortis Amaranthine. Threats like the “Archons” that nearly killed everyone in Essex during our online events are just one example of the threats that can emerge from beyond if these Rifts are not sealed quickly.
The Monolith - Other times, unique experiences can emerge from the Mortis like a foreign object stuck in a wound. The Mortis, or at least the rotting fungal mass below the ground, often exhibits medical-like scenarios akin to being infected or experiencing impacted foreign bodies or cysts. These can sometimes become an issue for a settlement, cause new diseases, or even exhibit strange new behaviors of the Mortis Amaranthine. One example was perhaps the Fountainhead during our online season in Essex.
Now that you understand the lingo, let’s talk about what happens for you, the player.
The Grave Mind Scene
Once you are ready, have had any Infection changes and Fractures recorded on your sheet, the STs on shift will summon the Groundskeeper, the local ST on call to handle Grave Mind Scenes. This person is our specialist in crafting a unique experience for a player after the death of their character and will work with you to craft a memorable scene.
First, the Groundskeeper will talk with you about how you died, how your character background or in-game actions might impact the scene, and help establish clear boundaries of what you will experience during the Grave Mind Scene. Consent is an important mechanic of DR, and we want to make sure you are able to have a great experience after death. If you have any questions, the Groundskeeper will make sure to help you understand your options going forward and this “interview” will help them personalize a scene to your character.
The Groundskeeper will also help you decide on a Fracture, since every person that experiences a Grave Mind Scene gains a Fracture as well as losing an Infection. Fractures cannot be soothed or cured for two hours after you gain them, so the shock of your psyche trying to understand what just happened will have an impact on your character after their death. The Groundskeeper will also explain your options for dealing with the Grave Tax, and ways to opt in or out of this mechanic.
Finally, the Groundskeeper will take you to a secluded location and run what we call a “black box” scene. This might be within our Morgue area in the Zuni Pavilion, or simply in a quiet area nearby. They will have you close your eyes, describe the last moments of your death, and then give a shared verbal (and sometimes visual) narration of the experience in the Mortis Amaranthine. After this, you will be allowed to return to play with full Body and 5 Mind points, unless you spend a Resolve (check out my blog post last week).
If you have a concern about where you emerge (say you are worried about an enemy trying to catch you emerging from the Mortis), the Groundskeeper can spawn you in another location if you like. However, the idea of trying to kill a person over and over again until they don’t come back is a terrible crime in EVERY settlement, and the Grave Council will violently respond to people trying to “camp” the Morgue. Murderers beware!
The Story of Death
Every one that dies has a different experience or story of what happens beyond, and what happens next is often dependent on how you died, how your mind attempts to comprehend the experience, memories of your past, or even a personification of your negative emotions. The Grave Mind Scene should be unique, but most of those that die describe some similar experiences.
Most describe a presence watching them or aware of them in the darkness, or disembodied voices talking to them. They might speak of a island in a vast sea, an empty wasteland with a lonely road stretching to the horizon, they might encounter people and places that they have seen before but are gone or dead, or feel a malevolent entity enticing them to stay within. Some settlements have unique experiences, such as people reporting that the Grave Mind demanding a single currency or else losing an important memory, or a hungering maw below that beckons them deeper.
Most describe a presence that “takes something” away from them, where it be a memory or an emotional connection. Sometimes as a survivor nears their last Infection, these cracks in their psyche manifest on their body when it reforms as greenish veins, scars, or skin discolorations where the Infection is visible. Ultimately, the experience after death is your mind’s attempt to comprehend and describe a completely alien and horrific experience, but you always emerged changed in some way.
The story of what happens next is up to you, but part of the “horror” of Dystopia Rising is the cosmic threat of how and why you return from the grave. How will your character react after being broken down to their very atoms and reformed again? Are they even the same person, or like the Ship of Theseus have they become something else entirely? Will this brush with death change in you some way, or force you to rethink the time you have left? Let’s find out together…
Next time, we will discuss some important rules you might want to brush up on before the game, particularly with some frostbitten zed lurking in the shadows. See you next week!