Rules You Should Know - September
Howdy Vados!
It’s Jonathan here with another signature DR:TX Rules Ramble, leading up to next Dystopia Rising Live event RED SKIES AT MORNING! This game will be led by Jonathan Loyd and Fable Brown. 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 some last-minute Logistics Updates, some changes to important Blueprints, our new STEEL NOTE, and some Rules You Should Know for this event.
TICKETS FOR OUR September EVENT ARE ON SALE at the door!
If you had a great experience during our DR:TX events over the summer or last season, 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. We give ourselves a few days after game to decompress, but we read every bit of feedback you submit!
Fill out our Feedback Form!
The national event DOWNFALL has been announced for November 13-16! This will be hosted by our friends at DR Washington and will be the next opportunity to earn some unique rewards and faction items from the Ossuary Society and the Arbiters of Bond. If you are fortunate enough to be able to travel, this could be a cool way to visit another chapter!
Our photos for this post were taken from previous DR:TX events by our talented Photo Team, including Lily-Jay Jones, Miranda Farmer, Noah Goodman, and Max Pohlmeier. Social Media images are designed by Noah Goodman.
september logistics update
We have a channel in our DR TX Discord, for #blueprint-updates. I’ve been cataloging changes to important blueprints here, as I receive the updates from our Network Support team. You’ll be able to see the changed blueprints in real time on the Juno Database, but I’ll keep a running tally of changes in those channels. You can’t post there, but feel free to ask any question in our other rules discussion channels.
However, with that said, there’s a few items that you need to be aware changed. Basically, every two-handed weapon changed over the summer, and there were a number of minor print updates with big impacts. The summer National Event DeathCon also released a number of new blueprints you can see over on our Blueprint Checklist.
Two Handed Nuclear Sledge
Mountain Pike
BBQ Rib Spearer
Gamma’s Jonesin’ Shovel
The Gallagher
Rope-Weighted Pole
Bigol Sledge
Harvester Scythe
Heavycraf Ax-I-Dent Booster
That Cursed Pitchfork
Heavycraf Counterbalance Blade
Nasty Spiked Handguard
Memento Mori Medallion
If you have one of these item cards in play, please bring the card to the Post Office so we can issue you a corrected card.
steel notes are here!
Over the summer, we’ve taken the opportunity to revisit our local currency, the humble BRASS NOTE. This has been our currency since the first days of DR:TX and is comprised of the melted down casings of bullets used during the many wars that tore apart the San Saba over the years. We’ve had the Brass Note as our 1, the Lead Note as our 5, and the Tin Note as our 10. This season we are finishing the collection with our official 20-note, the STEEL NOTE!
Recent updates to our printing processes have updated our currency to a new, thinner plastic material than before and we will have new editions of our currency starting this season to spend, collect, and steal… ahem, scavenge. While the only major change to the Brass Note and the Tin Note is just the new thinner plastic printing, but the Lead Note has had a major glow up in the art by the very talented Heather Halstead. If you didn’t know, Heather’s been the artist behind our currency since the first plastic currency printing back in 2.0.
It’s a very exciting update to our currency and brings us in line with the other games that have larger denominations. This will be handy for big purchases, or just to buy extra pizza slices or hooch. You’ll be able to acquire these from the Post Office with the Financial Influence skill right away, but NPCs throughout the weekend will provide some opportunities to make change and trade in the newer currencies.
If you’ve been playing in Bravado for a bit, you may have collected some of our ‘unofficial’ plot currencies over the years, such as Amaranthite or Shards of the Red Crown. These currencies will be considered collector’s items moving forward and will be phased out as we move to our official currencies. There will be no official exchange of these currencies for the new Steel Note but keep an eye out in game as some face NPCs may offer advantages if you still have these currencies over the season. The primary use for these obsolete currencies will be currency collecting, as travelers and players from other game are definitely interested in acquiring these cards as collector items.
rules you should know - SEPTEMBER
During our September opening event, RED SKIES AT MORNING, one of the primary dangers will be the lingering threat of the BURNING SEASON. During the weekend, you’ll be asked to defend your home against a foe that can’t really be defeated for good — Mother Nature herself.
Summer in Bravado is brutal in a way that outsiders cannot really appreciate. The oppressive heat brings everything to a halt - even zed and raiders. During the hottest part of the summer, the heat can ignite the dry brush and wildfires can spark in a moment’s notice. The fires of the Burning Season can even ignite the undead as they shamble during the afternoon peak, and the burned corpses sometimes stay lit for days at a time. Raiders shelter in tunnels below, and even the bustling city of Essex is quiet in the afternoon as residents shelter from the heat.
The Burning Season is a significant threat during the summer, but the hardy natives of the Lone Star have adapted with a stubborn persistence. Many residents travel north during the summer, and the population of Essex and Bastion often reach their lowest points during the extreme heat of the Burning Season. Houses and buildings often need to be repaired once the weather cools, and there are hours of easy-to-find work for anyone willing to pitch in. In the first part of fall, often known as Sept-Embers, scorched zed are a nuisance that must be dealt with until the weather cools.
This year, you’ll see the effects of the Burning Season in a few repeated mods throughout the weekend. You’ll need to deal with burning buildings during our FIRE FIGHTING mods, and you’ll occasionally deal with dangerous pyroclastic RAD STORMS during big fights. Each of these activities will be communicated via a Zone of Mechanics, and you’ll be able to find a copy of these at the Post Office during the game if you need to remind yourself of how to interact.
Fire, Fire, Everywhere!
The lethal heat of the Burning Season has ignited the new plant growth in the Exclusion Zone. Radioactive Fire is being carried by the wind, spreading into Bravado. During this event, you’ll see several environmental effects that can complicate a fight or turn simple tasks into a deadly encounter. These effects will be accompanied by a Guide that will direct the damage calls, fire props, lights, and smoke effects.
It will be clear when these things are happening, and you will likely hear a SIREN warning you of the impending danger. The goal of these Zone of Mechanics is to create an immersive, challenging addition to the weekend that can’t really be resolved by hitting it with a boffer. Keep in mind that these fire storms often push other deadly threats into town, like raiders or zombies, and are dangerous to threats and survivors alike. You might find yourself competing for shelter with some unfriendly guests…
These are the environmental effects may appear during the September event, usually accompanied by a fog machine or fire props with the following Guide calls. Normal defenses and items can be used on these calls.
Rad Storm! - The fiery winds of the Burning Season have spread lethal radiation from the Exclusion Zone. The Guide will count a slow count from 10, then begin to call increasing Radiation damage every 30 seconds. “By the Sound of my Voice, 1 Rad Damage!”, then “2 Rad Damage!”, etc., increasing until the storm has passed. If you are completely indoors, you will have evaded the damage, but barricades, shields, or open air pavilions will not protect you. The Guide will give an all clear when the storm has passed and it’s “safe” outside…
Lightning Strike! - The pyroclastic storms frequently express their energy in a terrible bolt of fiery lightning. The Guide will have a flashing red light, hold their fist in the air and call a “Lightning Strike! 5, 4, 3, 2, 1” then call a slow count from 5. If you are still in the area at the end of the count, they will call “AOE, 20 Body, Agony 10 seconds!”.
Ash Clouds! - The fire has created billowing smoke that chokes and blinds any nearby. The Guide operating the smoke machine can raise a fist in the air and call “Ash Clouds! By My Voice, All Lineages, Blinding and Choking Blow, 1 minute!” If you remain in the affected area longer than one (1) minute, the Guide may call “Line of Sight, Unconscious! Inflict Disease: Ashen Lung, Stage 1” on a non-Full Dead target. The smoke we use for these in-game events is a water-based vapor, but we will strive to only use these smoke effects outdoors.
Fire, Fire, Everywhere! - The Guide will call “Sound of my Voice/AOE, five (5) Body Damage!” every 10 seconds while characters remain in a Zone or building marked by fire props. If you remain in the area longer than 30 seconds, the Guide may call “Line of Sight, Agony! Slowed Steps, 30 seconds!” as you catch on fire. This may be an Area of Effect call depending on the size of the fire or building.
These environmental effects will also be posted at the Post Office at the start of the game if you need a reminder.
Fire Fighting
A brand-new kinetic event for this weekend will be our FIRE FIGHTING challenges. When the deadly heat of the Burning Season threatens a building in Bravado, you’ll have a limited time to deal with the fire. This area will be marked with smoke, fire props, and other interact-able items to mark the event, and a Guide will be present to oversee the challenge. In order to deal with the fire, you’ll need to douse the flames. A Fire Fighting event will involve a few steps to resolve:
First, you will be warned that a fire has been spotted at a building. A guide will deploy our fire props, lights, and smoke to the area, so stay alert so you can respond in time to the fire. It will be obvious that you need to fight the fire.
Get a WATER BUCKET! These will be staged at a nearby water source by the Guides and will have “water” in the bucket and provided by the Guide. The water will be a gauzy blue cloth, so we can avoid splashing actual water everywhere.
Douse the Fire! You’ll need to bring the WATER prop to the fires to put them out. If you aren’t quick, the Guide may deploy more fire props to the area as the blaze spreads. You can also spend 30 seconds in Active Roleplay fighting the fires in other means, just in case a bucket isn’t available. With limited buckets, we recommend using teamwork to get the buckets to the fire.
Break up Burning Debris! Occasionally, you’ll need to deal with some BURNING DEBRIS during the fire fighting. This will be a larger prop clearly marked. You’ll need to either spend some time in Active Roleplay breaking it up, or you can use some of your Impact Skills.
Watch out for Zombies! The Lurking Dead are often drawn by the screams and activity of fighting fires. The dangerous RAD HUNTERS are known for a nasty habit of exploding when they die, and are sometimes called CINDERS by our locals. You’ll probably need to deal with zombies will fighting some fires, so be prepared!
Once all of the Fire props have been properly doused and defeated, the Fire event will come to a close. However, if you aren’t quick enough and let a fire burn out of control because it’s “an over there problem” this could damage your valuable workstations and crafting zones. Maybe the Sainthood of Ashes should start a fire brigade?
NOTE: Please do not actually throw water or sand on our props. We don’t want to create slip hazards or muddy puddles outside of buildings we use throughout the event. This is an interactive event, and we want to keep actual danger to a minimum!
We hope that you enjoy these events during RED SKIES AT MORNING! However, fire won’t be the only threat of the weekend. There’s a pesky riot that happened at the neighboring town of Drywater, so you might encounter some local threats as well.
Threat Skills You Should Know
As such, let’s consider a few prominent skills that are useful in CVC as well as ones you might see on a few unique local threats.
radiation damage (Player’s Guide, p. 95)
This is a mechanical damage effect normally associated with an area or mechanical item. When it takes effect, it normally causes low ends of radiation damage. Radiation damage in plot mechanic zones can be high (due to volume of radiation) but most items carried by individuals will cause damage that is mechanically lower than comparable forms of damage. Radiation damages causes an equal degree of lost Mind as it does lost Body. In addition, Zones of Mechanics and related plot mechanics can have Radiation damage that causes Radiation Rot (Disease). In the instance that Armor prevents a loss of Body with a Rad call, Mind is not lost.
You’ll encounter Rad Damage throughout the weekend, particularly during the Rad Storms and when you encounter RAD HUNTERS. In the new world of Dystopia Rising Live, losing Mind points to the damage can still sting but it doesn’t affect your Impact Skills.
There are a few items that can interact with Radiation, like the Devotion of the Free Radical, but most player side effects involve DEALING damage, not preventing it. You should also check out the mechanics of RAD ROT, the disease that can be spread through repeated exposure to Radiation sources. You can find the details of this disease on page 82 of the Guide’s Guide if you don’t mind spoilers.
Area of Effect (Modifier) (Corpse Catalog, P. 8)
Area of effect is a 10-foot radius for the mechanics for a skill or effect, centered on the user of the skill. No areas of effect outside of plot mechanic zones reach more than 10 feet. Areas of effect do not pass through structural walls, but they do bypass partial cover and non-permanent structures. (Player’s Guide, p. 83)
Skill affects a 10-foot radius, centered on the user. Effects do not pass through structural walls but bypass partial cover. (Corpse Catalog, p. 8)
Sound of my Voice (Player’s Guide, p. 95)
A mechanical effect modifier that targets everyone within a 50-foot radius who can hear the call. Claiming to not have heard the call when you did hear it within the zone is against the spirit of the rules (feel free to clarify the call if you see everyone taking an effect around you). Sound of My Voice ignores walls, doors, and all other barriers
Some threats this weekend will use larger radius effects that can hit multiple targets. Area of Effect attacks automatically hit any target in the range of the attack (sometimes even the user of the skill!). This will hit past a line of shields, through an open doorway, or behind a curtain. If it’s not a shut door or inside a building, you’ll be in range. Sound of my Voice is even harder to avoid, as you have to physically out of range to avoid the call.
There’s only a few ways to interact with this abilities, particularly the SHIELD MASTER skill of the Battle Wall profession. This powerful ability lets you react to a single AOE or Sound of My Voice call, and call “Shield Master” to negate the effects of the call on themselves. Much like how Avoid can negate a melee strike, this is the one real way to stop an AOE or Sound of my Voice attack.
You can’t use Interfere to take a hit from an AOE attack (p. 37), nor can you use Balance (p. 35) to stop the attack. The only time Balance works on an AOE call is if it also includes some sort of movement effect or causes the Stunned condition.
The Angry Anchor Riot Shield item is one way a Battle Wall can protect the people around them. This shield allows them to extend the protection of the Shield Master profession skill to up to two nearby allies.
The Fast Mover Vest can be a useful escape, provided you are the Skirmisher profession. This armor lets you expend one use of Agile Movement in response to an AOE or Sound of my Voice call not activated by the user to call 'Fast Mover'. You get to take up to 10 steps out of game and if you move out of range of the call, you do not suffer the effect. Keep in mind, this is generally solid against AOE effects, but Sound of my Voice calls are pretty big so you may not be able to get out of the radius if you are near the monster.
AOE effects and Sound of my Voice can be pretty deadly, so maybe stick next to those big guys with shields?
Dead Switch Detonation
Upon hitting Bleed Out, call “Area of Effect 20 Radiation Damage”.
Some dangerous undead release a powerful burst of damage when they hit Bleed Out. This is a super dangerous ability, as it will wear down defenders fast. In addition, this is is Radiation damage so it will likely also hit your Mind points if the damage overwhelms your armor. Since most Armor can only have 20 points of armor, this can quickly break armor as well.
Radioactive Meltdown
Call “Area of Effect Break All Brews”.
This is a VERY dangerous and rare effect on some Rank 2 and above undead and raiders. There are very few things that will avoid this effect, short of Shield Master, particularly because it is an AOE. This means you might lose Injectables, healing brews, or restorative items when they explode. If you see a big glowing threat, be real careful about where your stash of item cards are stored.
That’s a high level look at some of the more common threat skills you might encounter during RED SKIES AT MORNING. We hope that you can keep your homes (and friends) save from the deadly ravages of the Burning Season this weekend!
Wrap Up
That’s it for today, Vados.
We hope that you will come join us for our next event, RED SKIES AT MORNING. The Burning Season is almost over, but the deadly fires remain. What threats lurk in the smokey ruins of your town? Will you be able to keep your home in one piece despite deadly fire storms? Will you be able to help the Junkerpunks begin their campaign to retake Drywater? Will you uncover the deadly mystery hidden in the shadows?
See you soon, Vados!
