Story Overview  

Our Setting Premise

New Bravado is a boomtown built on the promise of wealth, status and discovery. The Blastlands that make up the San Saba Territories; the greater municipality upon which New Bravado resides, are irradiated and unforgiving to the fragile Survivors who brave them. 

Built by its own citizens, Bravado is a frontier town whose identity and relevancy are staked almost entirely on The Ox, the territory’s first locomotive built from the detritus of broken construction equipment, several derelict train cars and a single jet engine that empowers the Ox to rocket across the Greater Wastes at ludicrous speeds to deliver raw products and finished goods to their respective markets. 

Beneath the city, in the ruddy clay of yesteryear, lie the bones of an ancient Facility - fossilized in the stratum below the surface by eons of disuse and quietude. Rare metals, blueprints written in arcane script and weapons beyond the mortal ken of the Survivors of this Era rest uneasily in their tombs, waiting to be exhumed by the Delvers and Diggers who work for the various holding companies who compete for the lion’s share of the whole operation. 

Below them all, below the bustling streets of New Bravado, beneath the Facility where the secrets of the world hang in delicate stasis, and below what lurks beneath that, the Mortis Amaranthine churns with all the whirling surety of a meat grinder, and it waits inevitably for its time and its turn. 

It is the pith of man’s existence to be defined by what came before him. New Bravado has entered a tenuous epoch during which its future is unsure, but its potential is vast. It will be up to the citizens of this young town to shape the Blastlands around them, for the betterment of the Greater Wastes - or themselves. 

The Season Five Story

The San Saba Board has been bloodied with the fall of Waking.  Never before has the San Saba Board’s power been challenged so successfully as the fall of Waking Prime. Now, angry and determined, the Board is seeking to reestablish their strength and presence in the area and send a very decisive message: 

“We Are Still the Power of the San Saba.” 

The newly united Oxkiller Alliance has given them the opportunity to do just that. Raising hell for months against the San Saba Republic, the technophobic exiles under the new leadership of one only known as The Breaker of Crowns, wage war against the San Saba Territories and the Board.  They stand against anyone who remains in their way, ruthlessly exploiting the vacuum of power and the weakness exposed by the crashing of the great air city.  They have claimed the lands of the north San Saba into a new Oxkiller Territory, annexing land by force from the San Saba Board.

This means Martial Law. This means Militia Action. This means the Board must protect the San Saba – no matter the cost to life and liberty.  But the Oxkiller Alliance is not the only trouble plaguing the people of the San Saba. 

Lake Bravo boils.  The Ox and the prized railroad itself is corroding at an alarming rate, spreading from Essex.  The wreckage of Waking Prime lays burning with fire and radiation on their doorstep, leaching into the water, the soil, the Gravemind and the hearts of people who rely on the land for survival. The devastation is immense, and the clean up efforts will need to be just as extensive to restore the land to its previous state.  Bravado’s chief ally, the Railroad Conglomerate, must be restored to its former glory in the wake of the environment impacts and buckling profits.

And all the while, reality itself seems to be under siege. Once silent Obelisks have begun to hum all across the Lonestar.  A Beacon? A Call? A Warning? No one is sure. The only certainty is that when an obelisk speaks, the nightmares of the Mortis Amaranthine answer.  Creatures, never seen before now, from the deepest unexplored depths of the Mortis that bring insanity with them, twist the world to fit their horrific presence and drive people mad with their unfathomable and incomprehensible nature. 

Retaliation is on the doorstep of Bravado, and there is no peace in sight...