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Dystopia Rising: Evolution - Strains
over 5 years ago
– Tue, Aug 28, 2018 at 05:31:34 AM
Dystopia Rising: Evolution - Strains
The main "character class" you choose in DR:E is called a "Strain." I'll talk a little about Strain Paths in another update, but I wanted to give you a bit of an in-world explanation of what they are. Just remember -- while the people you play may be physically (and in some cases mentally) different from today's, in the end they're just as human as we are.
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Strains
Nobody really knows where the fungal infection came from; sure, there are theories, but I haven’t seen anything close to definitive proof. I’m not sure it matters anymore, really. It’s everywhere, it’s changed everything, and it doesn’t look like it’s going anywhere any time soon. So instead, let’s talk about what it’s done to us, the human race… or what’s left of us anyway.
For starters, we should all be dead. And I don’t mean in the live-die-return way, either. When I was learning medicine, we had a couple partial pre-Fall textbooks in the library, and while they were incomplete, there was still enough there to prove that none of us should be able to survive in this world — the radiation, the chemicals, the tainted water, the poisoned meat, and of course the fungal infection itself. Humanity should have died a hundred times over.
Yet here we are.
That’s where the Strains come in, I think. We’re looking at hyper-evolution in action, changes taking place in real time across a few generations instead of so many hundreds of years. It’s amazing, when you think about it. The world fell apart in a dozen ways, and yet we adapted fast enough to keep up — or at least enough of us did to keep the species going.
And from everything I’ve read, we’re better than humanity 1.0 in just about every way. Funny how the old differences also fell away too. Nothing like an apocalypse to make you realize that being an asshole to someone about their junk or the color of their skin is useless bullshit.
What’s fascinating is how we’ve changed compared to what I’ve read of pre-Fall humans. I mean, all the Strains still have some things in common. Not only are we baseline tougher, but we also heal fast, far faster than humans ever did in the past. I think we can also credit the infection for that development — if it can rebuild us from nothing, knitting some broken bones or stopping internal bleeding doesn’t seem so extreme. Plus, of course, we come back from dying, at least for a little while.
But then we diverge in ways that are just amazing, especially because it seems like something in the infection passes on not just physical traits but natural talents and inclinations as well. I don’t know how else to explain it. A Natural One I know compared these inborn affinities to how animals are born with certain knowledge and instincts already in place — how to hunt, where to find food, etc. Of course, he also thought it was more evidence that we should give up the ruins and go back to living as one with the wild, but still I think he might have hit on something there.
KICKSTARTER CONCIERGE
Hey gang, James here. We're in the final day of Week 1 and have done well out of the gate. The next two weeks are typically a plateau; a quieter period with slower growth than the first and last week of the campaign. Let's see if we can tweak that trend a bit -- we're pushing toward our second Stretch Goal, adding more content and rewards for all backers -- so let's see if we can recruit some more support to our cause!
Share your excitement about the project to your social media and in your social circles. Do all of your gaming friends know about this Kickstarter campaign? Inviting them to join in not only gets them in on the ground floor for an exciting gaming line, it can also help us hit Stretch Goals and add more rewards for everyone! So it not only rewards new backers, but rewards current backers as well.
Let's see if we can keep the enthusiasm and excitement of the first week up for several more days and make enough of a racket that others will check out what we're up to! And tomorrow - another big section of the playtest manuscript to preview!
#DystopiaRisingEvolution
It's Zombie James, your point person for this Kickstarter campaign.
Fiction: Tell Me About Yourself
over 5 years ago
– Sun, Aug 26, 2018 at 05:55:10 AM
Dystopia Rising: Evolution Ficton: Tell Me About Yourself
"Tell me about yourself."
The woman who spoke to Mila Tierney did not wear anything as fancy as Mila. She did not have a private army. She did not have vast wealth. She certainly did not have a name known among the powerful Pure Bloods, except in whispers and curiosity.
What she did have was a means to get answers from the dead. Mila offered money, and the woman took it of course, but she placed other conditions on her assistance. Most were minor.
This request, however, was the most uncomfortable of all.
The woman peeled back the skin on the body resting on the table in front of her; her child apprentice took notes in the dim light. They did not speak to each other; the woman pointed, and the girl wrote. The girl faded in and out of view on the edges of the operating theater, the sole lantern hanging above the table providing scant illumination. Occasionally, Mila heard others above and to the sides whom she could not see.
“Ms. Tierney, please tell me about yourself.”
“You know who I am,” Mila said, finally turning towards the woman rather than being transfixed by the body in various stages of skin and muscle.
The woman sighed and tilted her head. She wore a mask to conceal the Retrograde features beneath, a polished brass oval with a slit for a mouth and circles for eyes. Edges of her skin were rotten and corpse pallor, but her eyes were the silky blue of the sky and Mila’s sheltered childhood. The woman blinked once, twice, tilted her head again.
“But do you? I don’t ask these questions for idle talk, Ms. Tierney. I am not one to climb your high towers and twirl with soft-handed boys and girls. We are in the middle of a procedure which will give you the answers you seek if you only follow the instructions I gave you. And the instructions I gave you were?”
Mila saw herself in the mask, a funhouse mirror reflection of washed hair and exfoliated skin and painted lips. Her mouth twisted in brass as she answered.
“No matter what question you ask, I am to answer. No matter how simple the question, I am to answer truthfully. And I am not, under any circumstances, to step outside the light.”
Mila watched herself nod in the reflection; she realized it was the woman nodding.
“Good. Tell me about yourself.”
“Mila Tierney, of the Delphian Waste Tierneys. My family is acknowledged by the Lineage League —”
The mouth behind the brass mask hissed at Mila.
“Tell. Me. About. Yourself.”
Mila paused, seeking words and failing to find them. The woman grumbled.
“You are only what others define you as, Ms. Tierney. What is your happiest childhood memory with Tobias?”
Mila braced for the cold which ran over her heart.
“We had a pool.”
“A pool of water?” The woman in the brass mask carefully sawed at the top of the body’s head, blade rasping at bone.
“No, indoors, for swimming. It was ten feet wide by twenty feet long. It was a metal tank which used to hold oil from the time of the oldcesters; my father had the top cut off —”
“I asked about your brother, not your father.”
Mila sighed.
“We weren’t supposed to swim without our guards, but I loved it so much. I snuck away early in the morning to the pool.”
“How old were you?”
The woman stopped sawing, put her tools down. Her apprentice faced Mila, taking notes.
“I was nine.”
“What happened?” The woman stepped forward, uncomfortably close, blue eyes unblinking.
“The ladder broke free. I screamed, fell in the water.”
“Then?”
Mila watched herself tell the tale in the mask.
“It hit me in the head. The ladder was on me. I couldn’t move it.”
“You were frightened?”
Mila lost track of the woman with the mask, turning and nearly colliding with her on the other side. Mila banged into the table.
“Yes...”
“Why?”
“I didn’t want to die.”
The brass mask shook her head. Mila’s chest tightened.
“Why, also?”
“Because my father would know I disobeyed him.”
Her heart squeezed tighter.
“Why, also?”
“Because… because I promised my brother I wouldn’t swim without him.”
Mila felt words pulled from her; they were not just hers any longer.
Mila’s heart beat again, the tightness leaving it. The woman, in a blink, was on the other side of the table.
“My brother pulled me out and took me back to my room.”
“Why was this your happiest memory?”
“Tobias didn’t tell anyone.
He was the little brother, but he promised he would always keep me safe and that we would rule the wastes. I was the brave one, everyone said, and he was the sensitive one, and he wasn’t going to take that from me.”
Those words were no longer hers either.
“If you had died, he would have been next in line. But he saved you.”
“Yes.”
“And you trusted him from that moment?”
“With my life. My heart.”
“Good,” the woman in the mask said.
Lights flared, the single lantern glow replaced by dim electric lights amplified with polished metal and mirrors. It was an operating theater, rows and rows of empty seats and broken tiles ringed with crystals and fungus. Again, Mila Tierney was the confident and powerful Pure Blood Mayor of Philly Del Phia, not a scared drowning girl.
The Mütter, wrapped in robes, her rent and torn flesh covered and concealed, resumed her place in society as an oddity. A Graverobber, one who bridges life and death.
“I will have an answer in a day,” the Mütter said. “He should trust me, now that you shared that moment no one else knows. Feel free to stop by the gift shop on your way out.”
“Who are you going to ask?”
The Mütter paused, her eyes blinking abnormally long.
“Why, who else should I ask but your thrice-murdered brother?”
---
Kickstarter Concierge
Hello DR:E Survivors!
I love sharing fiction about our game worlds! Nothing sets the mood and puts you into the story as quickly as some of the stories we'll be sharing over the next few Sundays. They're cool, and creepy, and invoke the setting in ways I hadn't thought of at first. Look for more next week!
Yesterday, we hit our first Stretch Goal target!
UNLOCKED! - KICKSTARTER BACKER T-SHIRT - hosted on the Redbubble store for a limited time after the Kickstarter campaign, a Dystopia Rising: Evolution-themed shirt at a steep discount. All backers will be notified when the shirt becomes available.
So, we move on to our next target, which will add a supplemental PDF that'll automatically be added to the rewards list of everyone receiving the Dystopia Rising: Evolution core rules PDF.
At $29,000 in funding - THREAT GUIDE ALPHA – A section will be added to the Dystopia Rising: Evolution THREAT GUIDE, a first-person guide to the threats of the world (including game mechanics).
This scratches such an important itch - written as an in-game, first-person guide, it combines the fiction and characters of the DR:E setting with new challenges and story paths for your group. A perfect recipe! And only the start of what we can add to this game as we move through the campaign!
But, just like our protagonists in the game - this is something we've got to work on together. We're building this community, this world, over the next 25 days... Let's grow it as big as we can. And that means inviting your gaming friends to join in! So, share the link to this Kickstarter campaign on your social media and talk about it in your social circle! Let's recruit everyone we can to join in. And if you think you've already told everyone you know - tell them again! And let's get to that Threat Guide and on to more Stretch Goals!
#DystopiaRisingEvolution
#DR:E
Dystopia Rising: Evolution - Background
over 5 years ago
– Sat, Aug 25, 2018 at 07:39:38 AM
Hey Survivors!
A few words from Eddy from the book's introduction, and then some more words from me:
Dystopia Rising: Evolution background
So what is Dystopia Rising: Evolution actually about? Here's a snippet from the book's introduction, to give you a high-level view of the DR:E world. As you'll see, it's not your usual post-apocalypse game. There are some interesting elements, such as the fact that every character is essentially a mutant, that really give this a new spin. When I was talking about it at Gen Con, I called it "Mad Max meets The Walking Dead, but sometimes you come back." So sit back and enjoy this short overview of the world of Dystopia Rising: Evolution!
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It’s been at least four generations since the Fall of humanity. No one knows the exact number of years since the world was blasted with nuclear radiation and became infected with fungus and the undead, so the best the survivors can do is count the number of generations before them. Oral tradition and crumbling documents detail the remaining history of those first few generations of survivors, and misinformation has clouded the tragic events around the original catastrophe.
Prior to the Fall, humanity did everything they could to record and share data across the world; unfortunately, as green movements and landfill concerns took the forefront of human focus, the shift from hard sustainable technology to digital and virtual mediums caused a massive period of human growth to be lost. Music released on digital formats all but disappeared. Information shared via the internet and television was eradicated by electromagnetic pulses and low-level ground destruction. Generations of neglect, misunderstanding, and misuse caused localized electronic equipment to break or fall into disuse. Humanity lost most of the advancements from the mid-1990s forward, and comforts of the modern age were replaced with tools for survival.
The ancestors of today’s survivors were the first deviations of the human condition — the initial contact with the mutating fungal infection — and were able to survive the rapidly spreading epidemic. Those ancestors then taught their children, born in a deadly world, how to survive. Those children, the first generation of the new “strains” of humanity adapted to exist in this deadly new world, in turn taught their children how to live in the ruined world, and so on. History is a distant second to survival skills such as punching the undead and firearm maintenance.
Small communities come together in a world where concepts such as “democracy,” “freedom,” and “government” are newly reborn. Major cities have been all but destroyed; transit has been reduced to animals, wagons, and the occasional iron horse. Humanity has just started to rebuild the telegraph lines and the postmen have begun to ride from territory to territory, but large sections of the world are still irradiated or completely overrun by the undead. Steam trains become networks of travel for the affluent and industrialized territories, while small hold-out communities hidden in the wastes worship strange cargo-cult gods scraped out of the irradiated soil. Finding a community of decent size in this world is rare; finding one that has any concept of equality or morality is rarer still.
Oh, and people have the unnerving ability to come back from the dead, regrown from the very virus that destroyed the world.
This is dystopia. The world is broken. It is up to you to pick up the pieces and make a new world from the remains of the old.
Welcome to the evolution.
KICKSTARTER CONCIERGE
It's Zombie James, your point person for this Kickstarter campaign.
More news about the game spotted (or heard, in this case) out in the wild -
Click the link and check it out (they mention a few other cool Kickstarter projects going on as well...). Also, reminder to let me know if you see a cool article, hear a fun podcast, or write an interesting forum post about our campaign and I'll be sure to share it with everyone!
STRETCH GOALS
Reminder, we're *this close* to achieving our first Stretch Goal, with another on the horizon...
At $25,000 in funding - KICKSTARTER BACKER T-SHIRT - hosted on the Redbubble store for a limited time, a Dystopia Rising: Evolution-themed shirt at a steep discount. All backers will be notified when the shirt becomes available.
At $29,000 in funding - THREAT GUIDE ALPHA – A section will be added to the Dystopia Rising: Evolution THREAT GUIDE, a first-person guide to the threats of the world (including game mechanics). A PDF of the Threat Guide will automatically be added as a reward to all backers receiving a PDF copy of the Dystopia Rising: Evolution core rules.
So, spread the love and spread the word, to your social circle and on your social media! Let's land a Stretch Goal and then work toward the next to add more content to the game. AND - that's just the first section that could be added to the Threat Guide - if we keep going, there's room for even more content!
#DR:E
#DystopiaRisingEvolution
Closing on Target... and next Target in sight...
over 5 years ago
– Fri, Aug 24, 2018 at 01:31:00 PM
Hello Dystopia Risers!
(I really need to come up with a name for this community!) Evolvers?
It's Zombie James, your point person for this Kickstarter campaign.
Looking at my rough notes, scribbled on the backs of napkins and candy bar wrappers, it looks like we're already ahead of where my conservative estimates had placed us! Well done! We're over 400 Backers and are just shy of 120% of our funding target as I type this. Amazing!!
Our campaign is also getting noticed out in the wider world:
Click the links to read the stories, although you're right in the thick of it already! If you see a story - or write one yourself - let me know and I'll post a link in our updates!
STRETCH GOALS
As mentioned, we're almost to 120% funded, and closing in our our first Stretch Goal. So, let's take a quick peek ahead to see what's on the horizon...
At $25,000 in funding - KICKSTARTER BACKER T-SHIRT - hosted on the Redbubble store for a limited time, a Dystopia Rising: Evolution -themed shirt at a steep discount. All backers will be notified when the shirt becomes available.
At $29,000 in funding - THREAT GUIDE ALPHA – A section will be added to the Dystopia Rising: Evolution THREAT GUIDE, a first-person guide to the threats of the world (including game mechanics).
That's right - additional content!! And, as a bonus - the Dystopia Rising: Evolution Threat Guide PDF will automatically be added as a reward to all backers receiving the Dystopia Rising: Evolution core rules PDF. You don't have to do anything to your pledge, it just gets added on top of your existing rewards list!
So - let's get some more survivors in our post-apocalyptic community! Spread the word on social media and in your social circles! Share the ICv2 and GeekNative article - and go add comments where you can! We've already generated some buzz - let's get it louder still!
#DR:E
#DystopiaRisingEvolution
19 Hours in... FUNDED!
over 5 years ago
– Thu, Aug 23, 2018 at 06:01:36 AM
Hello Survivors!
Well, nineteen hours into this campaign... and WE'RE FUNDED! That means Onyx Path will be producing the Dystopia Rising: Evolution tabletop RPG core rulebook and everyone who's supported this project will receive the rewards listed in their chosen reward tier!
Also, I can now go full zombie for the rest of the campaign!
It's Zombie James, your point person for this Kickstarter campaign.
The exciting part is that we've just started - we're not even through the first 24 hours!! - so there's still so much more we can do! It's time for Stretch Goals! To start, a very familiar one from previous Onxy Path kickstarters, as we put fuel in the tank and see where we can take this campaign...
At $25,000 in funding - KICKSTARTER BACKER T-SHIRT - hosted on the Redbubble store for a limited time, a Dystopia Rising: Evolution -themed shirt at a steep discount. All backers will be notified when the shirt becomes available.
An opportunity to show your support in style! And this is just the start - like I said, let's get some fuel in the tank and see where this campaign can take us!
So, thanks for your support! And don't forget to spread the word in your social circle and on your social media! Just like in the game, we're building a community here, and the more people we have involved, the bigger and better it can be for everyone!
