Lupum Venari
Howdy Vados!
It’s Jonathan here with another signature DR:TX Rules Ramble, leading up to next Dystopia Rising Live event LUPUM VENARI! This game will be led by Casie Spivey. Each post, 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 themes of our upcoming event!
If you had a great experience at our last event RED SKIES AT MORNING or had some suggestions for how we can improve, we’d love to hear from you! We appreciate your high-fives and suggestions and always want to seek ways to improve our events.
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The Juno Database has been updated! If you didn’t attend one of our last events of the season, you may have missed the reset. You might need to remake your characters before this event, so I’ve included step by step instructions in a blog post on the topic. Check it out here!
Feedback is open for the next quarter! We’ve opened a new channel on our Discord called #DRL-feedback, so you can have a say in what I represent for our chapter. Each quarter, we get to pick our five most pressing changes we would like to see, so if you feel up to it get involved in the conversation!
We’ve updated our DR Fiction page! This summer, I’ve published some new stories digging into the narrative of our upcoming season. I’ve had a lot of fun writing them, and I’ve even dusted off a few of our older stories from the start of 3.0 if you’d like to see how far we’ve come.
Our photos for this post were taken from previous DR:TX events by our talented Photo Team, including Lily-Jay Jones, Miranda Farmer, Heather Halstead, Noah Goodman, and Max Pohlmeier.
THE PREMISE - lupum venari
With that out of the way, let’s get to our next event. Each season, we share a bit of a teaser about our upcoming event. It’s one part ‘movie trailer’ and one part ‘story time’, but it covers some of the important beats of our upcoming event.
The DR:TX team has prepared some fun stories ahead, so let’s see what is in store for LUPUM VENARI:
As the Burning Season cools to a simmer, the spark of life returns once more to the San Saba. After a tough summer of fires and riots, steeped in the bloodshed from the Drowned Sun, the town of Bravado longs for quiet normalcy. The lull after the Burning Season is interrupted by a surge of undead in greater numbers than usual that haunt the forests and woods of the peninsula. But a long and bloody history of hunting Nemesis and deadly Indulgences has prepared Bravado for the dangers that accompany the season of the witch.
In the midst of this carnage, a friendly trade caravan has been marooned in Bravado to wait out the threat of the undead in the safety of a community. The Canis Family, a Nuclear Family clan of Nomads traveling from Essex, has brought vital supplies for the refugees of Drywater to be smuggled to the rebels across Lake Bravo. Until it is safe to sneak past the growing undead population and dangerous pirates of the Junkerpunk’s occupied home, they’ve been content to bring fellowship and help where they can. The patriarch of the family has shared tales of strange creatures following in their wake, while they seek shelter and communion with friendly survivors until they can lead their family to safer pastures.
The threat of the undead aren’t the only trouble plaguing Bravado as the season changes. Strange ritualistic markings spattered with blood and the wax of recently burned candles have been found in the woods. Citizens have been going missing, and the Law Dogs have been getting a number of reports of strange howls and wolf masked bipeds dragging the unwary off into the night. Is it just curiously clever gore hounds, a new clan of whisper quiet Raiders, or some new plot from the Drowned Sun? The brutal attacks are becoming more frequent, even as the town grows isolated from the undead hordes in the woods. It begs the question — where are they coming from and why are they here now?
Hunted from without and possibly from within, Bravado finds itself in a dangerous position as the nights grow ever longer and a doomsday is threatened...
INSPIRATION & TROPES
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 or show to inspire your role play for this event, here’s a list of our favorites to get ready for LUPUM VENARI!
Texas Chainsaw Massacre
You’re Next
Children of the Corn
This event combines ritualistic cults with strange undead threats, and the mystery of animalistic hunts hidden under the cover of darkness. Creatures that prowl the night may come in unusual shapes as you strive to survive the spooky season. Serial Killer maniacs hunting in the darkness like in the Texas Chainsaw Massacre can threaten you in the night, while the perversion of faith with a doomsday cult echoes the ritual magic and dark sacrifices of the Children of the Corn. The wolf-faced threats hunting in the darkness bring up memories of strange creatures and savage rendings, like the killers in You’re Next, and the tropes of evil religions are sure to make an appearance during LUPUM VENARI.
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 December premiere event.
Religious conflict, religious-related death, corruption, and abuses of power (only in-game faiths - not real faiths)
Doomsday Cults prey upon the weak, worship destruction, and twist the teachings of existing faiths. Cultists may use blueprints and other means to pervert common faithful rituals during LUPUM VENARI, and they represent the perils of extremism and the dangers of belief taken too far. They are evil groups, luring in the desperate with promises of safety, purpose, or power, but use acts of violence disguised as devotion to lead their flock in a dangerous agenda.
You may find strange, ritualistic sites marked with candles and blood. While prowling around the darkness of Bravado evading enemies in the night, you may find grotesque and disturbing scenes of gore or violence. If you are foraging and see the glow of candles in the woods, be warned that it could stain clothing or make a mess, and please don’t put the bloody props in your mouth. You know who you are!
These are bad guys. Period. There’s no rehabilitating a zealot, and they cannot be really reasoned with. The enemies of the weekend aren’t ones to secretly aid and abet as part of a subversion, but are dangerous and deadly foes. If you side with the villains of the weekend and find yourself joining in on their plans, you should expect your characters to meet a swift and untimely end. You’ve been warned!
SUDDEN VIOLENCE, JUMP SCARES, DEADLY SURPRISES
The dangerous threats in the woods will be mostly zombies, but they are much more dangerous in DR Live. It’s worth mentioning that any threat with the Cannibalism skill is functionally “killing blow active”, capable of killing your characters without need for quarter. Some threats will have dangerous abilities that can make traveling by yourself in the darkness very dangerous indeed, so make sure to bring a buddy!
Many of these stealthy threats will hunt the living from the shadows. These threats like to prey upon fear and terror and focus on anyone that makes noise or strays from the light, so you can avoid the sudden violence by avoiding their attention. You’ll need to stay quiet and hope they find other prey elsewhere. Just hope that it isn’t someone you know.
Intelligent enemies are dangerous and tensions are rife for CVC conflict. Sometimes the best way to end an argument in the wasteland is with the truest form of diplomacy - VIOLENCE. There’s a solid chance that you may also be facing off against your fellow players in order to survive the strange hunts of LUPUM VENARI. Remember, the whole town is WASTELAND, so you could find yourself in CVC conflict before you realize it. Remember, the most dangerous foe in the wasteland isn’t zed, raiders, or critters, it’s the fellow survivor you share a home with in Bravado.
Resource scarcity, and the struggle to provide for yourself in the apocalypse
There will be some resource sinks during this event, but none will require massive investments. The impact of the Burning Season will be felt across the town, but these repairs and damages will focus more on your particular actions during the game rather than a need for a ton of scrap. These repairs will involve roleplay and kinetic actions to fix, not Mind points. Your Skills will help reduce the costs and times needed to return the town to function, but any character can participate in helping the town survive the radioactive firestorms.
3.0 Scrap is expiring soon! Scrap cards that don’t have an expiration date will expire in February 2026. This even includes the Natural Scrap that would have expired sooner, so expect there will be some adjustment this season as folks work to use their remaining items before the winter break. Make sure to check your item cards before you come to event to prevent some surprises!
Expect a scarcity of some resources. One lesson we see every September is that many items (like Herbs) were scarcer than folks imagined they would be. A lot of these farmed resources may have gone bad over the summer, so there will be a rush of folks trying to rebuild their stores for a new season. There’s still going to be a LOT of folks building new equipment after the summer and or excited by some items that are brand new since our last event in May. Crews will likely be focused on copying new blueprints, making items for their team, and harvesting resources for their personal use. There may not be as many people selling the goods you need, so plan ahead!
MISTAKES, RULES ERRORS, and CORRECTIONS IN FIELD
This is still everyone’s first game. We are all still learning a new system at the same time. We have some brand new guides and Storytellers for Season 7. We will make mistakes, we will get the rules wrong, and so will you. While many of the new systems are intuitive, it’s still a lot of information to absorb at once. We must treat every moment of this event as everyone’s first game ever, and treat our fellow players as if they were tender-horns experiencing the world for the first time. For some of our players, it literally will be!
Please show your fellow players and our staff grace and forgiveness. For this event, we will especially ask for your grace, patience, and forgiveness as we experience the ups and downs of our first event of the season. Please be kind to your fellow players and especially our volunteer staff, as we all have the same goal — telling an amazing story in the zombie apocalypse. We will learn and explore this new system together.
Correct and Move On. If we make a mistake in the field, as either a guide or player, we will practice a strategy of fixing it for future encounters. We won’t try to reset or roll back any major rules calls, but trust our Guides to make the call in the moment. If we find an error later, we will correct and move on with the right ruling for any future instances. We might have to calibrate a combat encounter on the fly, so be prepared for sudden ends to fights, and generally expect us to continue to improve as the weekend goes on. We will try to avoid any major scene or continuity breaks, and try to keep everything in game as much as possible.
There may be delays at the Post Office. We appreciate your patience as we work with a leaner team of guides in the new season. We’ve changed up some of our coverage to account for the new needs of DR Live, but this is something we will continue to iterate and improve over this season. We will be training some new guides, so there may be some delays or mistakes at the Post Office during your crafting trips. Please be prepared to show some grace to our Logistics Guides!
doomsday cults
As some of you may have guessed from the first teasers and content warnings, this game will feature DOOMSDAY CULTS. If you’ve devoured all the new Dystopia Rising Live content, you might have spent some time with the DEVOTION & FAITH book. This guide covers faiths and rituals in the world of the zombie apocalypse, and covers our faiths like the Nuclear Family and the Tribes of Seasons. Tucked in the back of the book is a section on Doomsday Cults and Heresies (starting on p. 135).
While this part can be full of SPOILERS, I’d like to cover a few concepts that are important on this topic.
Doomsday Cults are the worst of the bad guys. These are not groups built for community or growth, but founded on lies and deception. They are dangerous, and violate the social norms of most civilized groups in the wastes. While many characters or other faiths can operate a bit in the murky gray of morality, there’s nothing subtle about these groups — they are unambiguously antagonistic. They prey on the weak, and turn faith into a weapon.
These are not groups to join, or to idolize. Unlike some of the similar stories of earlier editions like the Cult of the Nemesis, these are all groups mean to exploit faith as a means of control. These stories are mean to have an end, and it will often be a violent and bloody one. These aren’t really groups for players to try to join without serious thought, as they are truly evil and revel in twisting the teachings of other faiths into grotesque parodies.
Cults are antagonists, and revel in extreme and unsettling philosophies. These characters are symbols of existential terror and nihilistic purpose, and their very actions should challenge the others to confront the fragile nature of their existence. They are often dark reflections of the established faiths of Dystopia Rising Live, and they work to infiltrate, subvert, and corrupt other faithful from the shadows.
Doomsday Cults have a number of benedictions and sinister abilities unique to cults. These powers are not the blessings of enlightenment and belief, but allow the cultists to mimic the rites, symbols, and mechanics of other legitimate faiths. They corrupt faiths from within and weaponize their rituals against the practitioners in a warped and profane act of deception.
Characters interested in these groups MUST embrace a Character vs Character (CvC) mentality, and be capable of separating in-character actions from out-of-character relationships. These characters should expect to face hostility, mistrust, and strong emotions in character, and their stories are destined for brutal, consequences that likely end in their death. These are the bad guys, and if you attempt to sympathize or help these groups, you should expect your time with your character to be short.
We hope that you enjoy the stories we have to share for LUPUM VENARI and we can’t wait to share a spooky Halloween season with us at Dystopia Rising Live.
Wrap Up
That’s it for today, Vados.
We hope that you will come join us for our next event, LUPUM VENARI. Casie has prepared a fun story for the weekend, and we have a lot of fun props and threats in store to hunt you in the darkness. Will you be able to save the Canis Family from the threat that is chasing them? Will you survive the hordes of deadly hunters and worse that lurk in the shadows? Will you be able to evade deadly traps and sinister rituals, or will you fall prey to the worst that faith has to offer? Let’s find out together!
See you soon, Vados!
