The Reckoning
Howdy Vados!
It’s Jonathan here with another signature DR:TX Rules Ramble, leading up to next penultimate Dystopia Rising Live event of Season Seven, ARTIFACTS OF DEATH! This game will be led by Jonathan Loyd and Fable Brown. 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, I’m covering some tasty LORE about the relics and practices of the Reckoners and the Grave Council!
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The Grave Council
The faction known as the Grave Council has been around since the earliest days of 3.0, first introduced during the transition between the old 2.0 edition and the last Dystopia Rising 3.0 edition. With this change came a change of ownership for DR: TX and the new leadership updated the story first established in old Bravo. The three-year time skip that occurred during this transition helped explain some of the changes, but the Grave Council has been around a bit longer than that, in the form of the mysterious Imix Tribe. This group was one of the few factions saved during the Hiway War, and they become something new - the Grave Council.
We’ve wrote a number of short stories featuring this faction over the years, and you can read some of them here:
After the necrological bomb that ended the Hiway War led to a near collapse of the morgue network of the region and the spread of a terrible wasting disease known as the Plague of the Unfinished, the Grave Council arose as an answer to protect the weakened Mortis from further tampering. They collected experts in fields of medical science, biology, and necrology under their banner, and worked diligently to help stabilize the San Saba in the wake of the war. The Council collected the brightest of those grave experts to charter a new faction to unify the understanding of the Grave Mind and the Mortis Amaranthine, and to prevent any such crises from happening again.
The Grave Council today is loose confederation of the various outcasts and unwanted in the wastes, primarily of the more monstrous lineages and those at home with the death and decay of the morgue. When the ancient Imixin tribes fled from the Dead Marches far to the south in the Pride Lands after the Hiway War, they eventually settled in the area that would become Essex, the City of Light and Sound. These outcasts took shelter within the many morgues of the area and turned their expertise with the Mortis into a means of influence and importance. Over the years, they have brought professionalism to morgue operations of the region, helping towns deal with crises and corruption in exchange for a nominal fee, known as the Grave Tax. Though they have not always been able to prevent major crises from happening within the Mortis, they have been on the front lines fighting the undead and containing the threats that arise across the San Saba.
The oldcestors once said that nothing is certain in life but death and taxes, and the Council now claims undisputed authority over the Mortis Amaranthine in the San Saba. Through diligent morgue maintenance, fines for careless necrological behavior, and a skilled network of tax collectors and grave robbers, they represent the memory and conscience of the Lone Star itself. Part bank, part research institute, and part problem-solvers, the Council works with towns and settlements in the region to prevent threats from the Mortis before they can get out of control and keep eyes and ears on major undead hordes and problems that might threaten the largest towns and cities. Through their tireless efforts the Grave Council has earned a place of respect and power, as the balance of life and death must be carefully monitored and protected. After the war, the focus of the Grave Council has instead turned to new advances in Necrology as well as ensuring that they are the foremost experts and auditors of the Mortis Amaranthine in the region, while keeping careful watch for anything that would threaten the careful balance of the grave.
The Grave Council has several major philosophies that are shared by their order:
Maintain the Balance - The primary motivator of the Grave Council is to prevent calamities like the Hiway War and Robb’s manipulation of the Gravemind, the destruction caused by the undead Prince Undying, or the machinations of maniacs like Capricorn. The Council watches for signs of this type of manipulation by using and monitoring the Midnight Orrery, an ancient relic-shrine left in their care by the Imix Tribe. The device displays alien and almost maddening information, but the Mystagogues believe they can interpret this data to give them a window of insight into the health of the Gravemind. This Balance is something actively pursued by the Council, and keeping this balance is not a position of simple neutrality. The pursuit of the Balance involves taking careful and premeditated action to abide by this unseen measurement. Instead of relying on a passive and unseen guiding hand, the path forward is constantly measured and threats to the balance are removed. The Balance is the ever-present goal and the Council will pursue any means they deem necessary for that end, which can sometimes put them at odds with the more passive goals of their brethren within the Ossuary Society.
Keep Intact the Sanctity and Mysticism of Death - The Council was built around and by the remnants of the Imix Tribe of Unborn, and the belief structure of that group was used to build a reverence around the Gravemind and its keepers that permeates every level of society in the San Saba territories. Both the enforcement and culture around the Grave Tax are crucial for the Grave Council, and they have worked since their inception to ensure that the Tax was accepted and honored across the region. This tradition has given the Council the ability to separate the masses from the messier bits of the Mortis Amaranthine and replace it with mysticism and wonder. Their control of the grave must be maintained no matter who is in charge of the San Saba territories, even if it means taking direct action.
Death Comes for All, Pauper or Prince - Equality is the lens through which the Grave Council views the entire world. They know in the end that the Grave will collect us all, no matter the status as an outcast or elite. From their humble origins as homeless wanderers, they understand the toil and trauma facing those cast aside by society and how pointless it all is in the end. Burdened with this terrible certainty, the viewpoints of most of the Grave Council’s members have skewed away from a connection to this mortal plane. The Council prides itself on a detached and unbiased approach to their decisions, as they can wait out the competition after all. They do not revel in death, cruelty or suffering, and often see it as a perversion of the natural process towards death and the certainty of a final ending.
The Silence of the Grave - The Grave Council represents the tether to the unknown that is the Grave Mind, and all the mysticism contained within. The general populace does not appreciate knowledge of the process of cycling through the grave other than what the Grave Council has let them learn, and strict control of this knowledge helps them keep an eye on any that would try to abuse such information for nefarious means. Those that begin to delve and prod into the veil are often on the Council’s radar long before they know about it. The faction actively pursues individuals that show interest and promise in the field of mortis work, and after studying the interested parties for long enough they may approach them for initiation. They may also approach them for removal, depending on how dangerous the party is to the Council. Once a person is approached for initiation, they learn of the finality of their agreement: The Gravebound whisper to no one.
The Grave Council has built a network of experts throughout the San Saba, and many talented grave specialists claim membership within the faction. While it is true that others outside the Grave Council can also practice the art of graverobbing and morgue maintenance, those that become Sanctioned Graverobbers recognized by the Council enjoy a special status. Those that can work directly on behalf of the influential organization are trusted members that have been vetted for their knowledge of the Mortis Amaranthine and are skilled in dealing with threats to the morgues they protect. Backed by the money and resources of the Council, all Grave Councilors aim to stay neutral in the politics of the region, only seeking to serve their purpose in maintaining the balance and care of the Gravemind. It is a noble and necessary, if misunderstood, profession, and they are critical to the great work of the Grave Council.
The Leadership & Divisions of the Council
The Grave Council have weathered a number of leadership changes and crises in the past decade, but are still led by a group known as the Council of Grave Decisions. The actual leadership of the Grave Council is mostly unknown, save for the handful of the leaders of the various sub factions, but there are thought to be at least seven individuals that sit on the Council that gives the faction its name. Operating more like a secret society, they are said to have a voice in every major faction in the Lonestar.
While the Ossuary Society is known throughout the greater wastes for their scientific research and expertise on the Mortis, within the San Saba the Grave Council holds primacy. Their choice to directly influence the affairs of settlements in the wastes can run counter to the more scholarly pursuits of the Ossuary Society, though many of the Grave Council claim membership within the larger organization. Not every Grave Council member is part of the Ossuary, but all Ossuary in the San Saba report to the Grave Council and their leadership first.
There are three major subfactions within the organization, and each represents a major role of the Grave Council’s inner workings.
The Auditors - While the Sanctioned Graverobbers are the working class of the Grave Council, the vast majority of the faction serve in some role in keeping the flow of money and power in the hands of the Council by traveling the wastes performing services for towns of morgue maintenance and collecting taxes incurred by those dispossessed that have died. From tax collectors, accountants, and bureaucrats, the primary function of the Auditors is maintaining the vast reserves of Brass and wealth that have been collected through their duties and taxes. Each time a Graverobber performs a service for a town, tax collectors are there to assess the cost of the services. While acts of the gods or nature might be resolved for a few Brass, crimes of passion are punished much more severely. This money is reinvested in necrological equipment for their great work, gathering resources for preventing corrupted morgue scenarios, and in paying their sanctioned Graverobbers and representatives. The Auditors are represented on the council by Mother Mayhem, a skilled bureaucrat who manages the Grave Bureau within Essex.
The Mystagogues - The Grave Mind worshiping beliefs of the Imixin still hold sway in most parts of the Grave Council, and through the mystical order of the Mystagogues. Each of these cultists has shown a natural inclination towards Necrokinetics and their silent observation of those within the Mortis Amaranthine is the key to maintaining dominance over the morgues of the Lonestar. The Mystagogues help provide a spiritual focus for the Gravemind itself and interpret the Balance through faith and meditation. Though many faiths are represented within the Mystagogues, a cult known as the Quiet Path continues the practices of the ancient Imixin to this day. While most of the Grave Council embrace the mysticism of the Gravemind, the zealot adherents of the Quiet Path take it a step further. Following the philosophies of the Imix tribe and the Unborn families, they lean deeply into studying the interactions between the Mortis Amaranthine and the rest of the world. The monks and aesthetics of the Path seek to transcend the fear of death and reach a place of Apotheosis and self-improvement. They are represented on the council by Cassiopeia Stargazer, who holds the prime seat of the council and speaks as their leader of the Grave Council for day to day affairs.
The Reckoners - The former militant army of the Grave Council, the Reckoners seek to protect the Mortis by using surgical strikes and proactive efficiency to remove threats to the Balance. They use their psionic powers and repurposed necrological technology to enforce the will of the council and protect the organization. The Reckoners were part of a rebellion that nearly collapsed the Grave Council during the War of Antlers, when Reckoner-General Rampart took control of the faction by force and promised the faction as the military might of the villainous San Saba Board. The vicious infighting left deep wounds, and those that maintained their loyalty to the Council and not Rampart are still kept at arm’s length. The Reckoners have been denied a seat on the council in the wake of this betrayal, and are now represented by the Vault Keeper, Verim, a member of the Mystagogue cult assigned as their caretaker and the curator of the Vaults of Reckoning. A recently rising star within the group, Duty-Upon-The-Dias, has earned attention for her help in recovering lost artifacts for the faction and leading the first Reckoners in open conflict against Rampart’s leadership Duty is favored for a future leadership role once the Reckoners have earned enough trust to reclaim a seat on the council.
The faction is spread throughout the San Saba Territories, but their headquarters are centered in Essex, far to the south of Bravado. They have been instrumental in rebuilding the city in the wake of the last war, as they have had to shift their involvement from simply maintaining the Grave Bureau to helping with the administration of the town itself, under the kind leadership of city’s leader, Queen Debs. Their wealth has been reinvested to help refugees build new homes in the town and to provide loans to businesses and groups to rebuild critical infrastructure within the trade hub. Their investments have paid dividends, and they have even offered temporary shelter within the barracks of the Bureau itself for those displaced by tragedy, in a memory of the community they built of the outcast and unwanted tribes that first formed the faction.
More bank than church, the Grave Bureau is a triple-story stone affair with real glass windows, and it purposefully represents the wealth of the faction. It’s front double-doored entrance is flanked by a pair of painstakingly carved triple-headed lions. The steps are steep and well-worn by those looking to pay or to dispute their Tax and the whole place smells faintly of rot. Within the halls of the Grave Bureau were once deep vaults where dangerous artifacts are held in keeping, but these have been since repurposed to lodgings for those that have lost everything. The Court of Grave Decisions, where meetings between the Councils’ varied factions are protected below, alongside the Midnight Orrery, the clockwork and crystalline shrine of the Imix Tribe. Whether or not it has any actual purpose or function, the Orrery is the heart and soul of the faction’s faithful, and a representation of the strange knowledge that is their hallmark. Besides the various temple facilities for the Mystagogues and the Collections offices where the grave ledgers are kept, the Bureau has several connections into the Mortis Amaranthine that can allow a talented Graverobber to traverse the city and quickly access the various morgues of Essex to repel undead threats.
After the Reckoner Rebellion during the War of Antlers, the Grave Council has taken steps to separate their seat of power from the dangerous artifacts that have been collected by the Reckoner Legions. By doing so, they hope to insulate any danger that could escape away from the larger settlements, but still in place where they can be monitored and protected. In recent years, they have built a reinforced bunker within the nearby fortress of Pride’s Hold, known as the Vault of Reckoning, where these dangerous psionic and necrological items are kept under lock and key to protect them from outside threats. They have partnered with the Peacekeepers to protect the fortress, and many Reckoners have been recruited from the best and brightest the Peacekeepers have to offer.
After the collapse of the San Saba Board, the Grave Council has been forced to adapt to a harsher world where connection between settlements is more perilous. Where they once easily controlled a vast network of tax collectors and grave professionals, their influence has shifted to supporting settlements in solving their own crises and applying their assistance with more discretion and tact. With no overarching law enforcing a Grave Tax, the Council has to earn the trust and support of each settlement one by one and renegotiate the rights to their work on the Mortis each time. While the “Collection Days” of old are gone, this year’s focus is on finally recovering a shipment of dangerous relics that were lost over the previous summer. With this great Reckoning, the Grave Council will finally restore a balance back to the wasteland and remove these artifacts from the hands of criminals like Wildcat Kelly.
The Relics of the Grave Council
Throughout the years, the Grave Council has been responsible for collecting and cataloguing a number of dangerous items found throughout the wasteland of the San Saba, particularly through the skilled operatives of the Reckoner Legions. When the town of old Bravo was decimated by a necrological bomb at the end of the Hiway War and a plague spread in the wake of the destruction, the leadership of the Council realized that they could not allow similar devices to fall into the wrong hands. The efforts to stabilize the morgue network of the San Saba took great effort and risk, and they would not see their hard work undone by the callous and petty warlords and psychopaths of the wasteland. Thus began the Great Reckoning - a fervent crusade to gather dangerous weapons and relics from across the region and lock them away within the mighty Vaults of Reckoning.
While much of the day-to-day affairs of the Grave Council are focused on maintenance of the Mortis, the Reckoners are tasked with proactive management of future threats to the Mortis. They seek out issues and problems that arise across settlements in the San Saba, and help teach and train the populace to fight the undead threats that often emerge. The Reckoners also enforce a quick and brutal end to any that would seek to use the undead as a weapon, and ruthlessly kill those that try to weaponize plagues or diseases to inflict death on a mass scale. Often, they find various doomsday cults and criminals that are selfishly exploiting infection and the morgues for their own twisted purposes, regardless of the danger to others. The Reckoners steel their wills and blade against this type of corruption and work to protect innocents from potential apocalypses they never even realized were a threat before they were contained by the Grave Council.
When some new item or device is identified, a Reckoning is called by the Council of Grave Decisions, and the forces of the Grave Council descend quickly on the offending party and reclaim the contraband that has earned their attention. If the target is willing to deal in favors or tax credits, the Council can negotiate peacefully. But they will end up with these relics one way or another, even if it means incurring a trip through the Mortis for their victims. The Council has spared no expense in this upcoming Collection Day, employing the deadly mercenaries of the Black Tide Hunters and paying the RRC for salvage rights to the claims in Morgan’s Folly. They will restore a sense of order to the Vaults of Reckoning and return the lost Grave Council artifacts to their rightful home deep within Pride’s Hold.
Over the years, the Reckoners have become experts in these trinkets and relics of the past, often strange and misunderstood remnants of the fallen world that would inspire new atrocities if they were not tightly controlled. The Council has recovered countless numbers of psionic artifacts, weird gizmos, dangerous necrological procedures, and twisted mutations of the Mortis, and many of these items have defied all logic and understanding. While most of these items are only curiosities or religious relics of various doomsday cults and uprisings, some have inspired new demogogues and dangerous rebellions. These relics can represent a symbol of these heresies that need to be contained lest they inspire a new generation of corruption and violence. Other relics are bits of salvaged tech or oldcestor remnants that might be able to be used to craft new weapons of destruction and need to be kept from tyrants and would-be warlords. As the waste’s understanding of the Mortis improves, devices that were once prototypes might become common technology, but those first versions were dangerous and unstable. While the Reckoners cannot pretend to know exactly why every relic they claim is dangerous, there is no doubt that they are doing work that protects the Grave Council as a whole when they call a Reckoning.
Most of these collected treasures, artifacts, and curios are benign and harmless. They are ideological and religious inspirations at best and represent a history of the various Mortis crises of the years, from the discovery of ancient Barogue, to the terrible Fountainhead Incident, to the undead menace known as the Prince Undying. Any remnants of these threats are collected, stored, and catalogued within the Vaults of Reckoning, sealed away for the protection of everyone. Part museum, part weapons storage, the Vaults of Reckoning keep outsiders from tampering with these items, lest they create some new Mortis crisis by interfering with things they nor the Grave Council don’t understand.
The Council are not technophobes, per se, but they are viscerally aware of the dangers that science and learning can do without being checked by an outside voice of reason. The Mystagogues seek to understand the relics they have collected, but the backlog of recovered items means only a handful of these items have been truly understood. There are often strange psionic resonances and interaction between some of these relics, and trial and error can be hazardous, even for these experts.
The Dangers of the Relics
Most items recovered by the Reckoners are archaeological curiosities, but past mishaps have led the Auditors and the Reckoners to carefully catalog and record the dangers of the devices they reclaim, regardless of how safe an item may appear. There is some temptation to simply employ any functional devices in the defense of the Council, but such heresy was the heart of the Reckoner Rebellion and these types of misunderstood relics resulted in the release of the Prince Undying at the end of the War of Antlers. As such, there is a strong taboo against Reckoners trying to discover any useful traits of the items they store within the Vaults. These items belong in the Vaults, and there is nothing gained by tampering with the unknown. Better that these relics are simply removed and stored safely under the watchful eyes of the Vault Keeper.
The Council classifies these recovered relics into different danger ratings, from 1 to 5. While some 90% of the contents of the Vault are classified as L1, or inconsequential, some items need special handling. Items that are rated as L2 represent some minor threat, often a still active doomsday cult that is seeking to reclaim their holy treasure, or a recent uprising that would be bolstered by their martyr’s effects being returned to them. These items need to be protected and locked away but rarely impose any real threat to the Reckoners at Pride’s Hold. The next largest category is classified as L3, or active threats. These are often some necrological device that could be employed as a weapon, or an item with some latent psionic potential. These are not immediate dangers unless disturbed, but if they are accidentally discharged or brought to close to another relic with some similar frequency or radiation they have been known to cause incidents. Many of these relics are simply prototypes of some technology now more commonly traded in the San Saba, but the earliest renditions were much more unpredictable. Many of the treasures of lost Barogue are entered as this category, simply because of the threat that it once posed.
The final categories of relics, L4 and L5, represent threats that must be contained, or dangerous unstable devices. These might be corrupted Helscape bombs, strangely radioactive metals, or even strange fungal pieces of undead beasts that are not being claimed by the Mortis. Each L4 relic has claimed the life of at least one Reckoner, and these are treated with extreme care to prevent a new hazard from endangering others. Some have reported strange whispers in proximity to these relics, or psionic compulsions that strain their mental endurance. Others are actively dangerous, emitting intense heat or radiation, or carrying a deadly disease. Only a dozen or so items have ever been classified as L5 in the history of the Grave Council, as these represent potentially world ending dangers, like the bomb that leveled Bravado, a sample of an unstable virus like the Omni Plague, or strange items recovered from the heart of a corrupted morgue, like the Diving Bell recovered from Drywater. These items must never leave the Vaults of Reckoning, lest they create a new corrupted morgue, wipe out an entire population, or spark a war between petty tyrants to control the San Saba.
There are still whispers that not every item is kept within the Vaults of Reckoning, and that the leadership keeps a special vault for items they have deemed too useful to be locked away. Coupled with the loss of an entire shipment of the most dangerous of these items, these whisperings have shaken the confidence of even the most loyal Reckoner. These items must be returned to safety, and quickly, before the wrong person finds whatever relic Wildcat Kelly buried within the ruins of Morgan’s Folly. The Grave Council must maintain the balance, and it will only be restored when these dangerous relics are safely within the Vaults of Reckoning during this upcoming Collection Day.
Wrap Up
That’s it for today, Vados.
We hope that you will come join us for our next event, ARTIFACTS OF DEATH! Will you survive the dangers of Morgan’s Folly? Will you help the Grave Council recover their lost cargo, or will you have ulterior motives for collecting these dangerous relics? Will you help the Black Tide Hunters keep Wildcat Kelly in line, or will you be looking to help a known criminal escape justice? Will you help the town find the most dangerous of these relics before it is too late, or will a radioactive nightmare fall into the wrong hands?
Let’s find out together! See you soon, Vados!
