Hi, everyone! You’re probably wondering just what the heck we’ll be doing next weekend, as we take you deeper for our June Helldive event. Especially if you’re traveling, you may be unfamiliar with how Dystopia Rising: Wisconsin does certain things that can vary from other chapters. We have a very specific paper form for conducting Plot Research, for instance. We also use a custom variation of Radiation Sickness for when your characters have been exposed to excessive radiation or certain irradiated threats. On the other hand, that variation of Radiation Sickness and other specific mechanics only exist here while attending Wisconsin events. When you travel elsewhere, it no longer ‘exists’ or affects your character unless your local chapter has said otherwise. We also have quite a few Items that only exist locally, whether crafted or purchased from our local Financial Institutions.
Local Mechanics
We will not be opting into any other branch’s Local Items or Custom Mechanics for our Premier. This includes other Plotkits that we’ve opted into in the past, such as NY’s Red Line and the Network wide Plotkit that introduced Black Fungal Disease to the Wastes. We instead would like to use our Premier to highlight all of the crazy things that make our Wisconsin branch very Wisconsin. Die Wisconsinbly!
This also means that we’ll have our own Local things going on! We’re very fond of Critters and their ecosystem, as many of you might have noticed, and “Bug Island” is aptly named. We will also be introducing a custom “Disease” for just this event. (Don’t panic! Keep reading!)
Local Mechanics, Items, or Rulings are just that: Local to that chapter. While multiple chapters may choose to work together to create a shared story, and often do, most of the time we’re all pretty focused on crafting our local stories for our players. All of those local bits and bobs help to flavor a given branch’s story in ways that are very particular to that game and help promote that game’s story, setting, and culture. Indiana has several Local Items for faith RP, Texas has a lot of different mechanical interactions with their Factions, New York created a fun puzzle game out of a new drug, and Wisconsin has a group of Final Knight librarians that make cheese in their dungeon. Taking all of these different factors into account can be tricky for crafting and balancing a given event, especially if you’re only partially familiar with them as a gamerunner.
Game On
Because our Premier will be set on the uninhabited Bug Island, all characters at Game On will be undergoing a travel mod together, unless you have a mechanical method of bypassing it such as the Nomad Advantage or spending Mind per Proficient or Master Trailblazing. Those physically incapable of participating will not be required to do so. As mentioned in a previous Facebook post, the Great Lakes Trading Company will otherwise be hot-dropping PCs onto the shores of Bug Island, and they will have to travel through the forest to “Site FOB” where several prefab buildings have been literally dropped from airships. Players who are not on this Introduction Mod will be asked to wait in a specific location, out of play, as some last minute setting up will be occurring during the travel mod. They will be allowed to enter play once the Intro mod has concluded and PCs have reached “Site FOB.” Characters entering play after the Intro Mod, whether arriving late or having NPC shift or otherwise, will have had an uneventful journey to the island and its rustic camp.
Players wishing to install WI Room Augments that had been installed in Steel Horse Crossing proper will need to have them transported in during this mod. We will have several carrying containers (IE, storage totes) to act as physical representations, and they will require a two-person carry. The card for the Room Augment should be placed inside of this container, but no other props are required to be physically carried. Props may be staged at their intended install locations before game to make things simpler, and you may choose to install your Room Augments at locations that are not “the usual”. PCs helping to transport an Augment only need to have one hand on the container to help carry it; one-handed weapons, shields, projectile weapons, etc. may still be used as normal.
Upon arrival, an Artisan only needs to spend 15 minutes “installing” the Room Augment. No Mind or other resources will be required. Additional Artisans helping may shorten the installation time by 1 minute each, to a minimum of 5 minutes per Room Augment. Only Basic Artisan is needed to perform this task. You do not need to install the Room Augment in the same Out of Game location as it existed in Steel Horse Crossing, and we encourage putting them in other areas to help give that feeling of being “elsewhere”.
The Dive(s)
While the PCs will be setting up a base camp in the wild wastes known as Bug Island and exploring their surroundings, many may wish to make excursions down under the water to a ruined research facility that has caught many folks’ attention. There will be more than one of these Dives, mostly along the themes of exploring and gathering information before eventually leading up to that last Helldive.
Each of these preliminary dives, other than the last one, will have a maximum number of participants and have set launch times. As is our tradition, we would like as many folks who wish to participate in that last climactic Dive to be able to do so. In order to promote as many people as possible getting a turn at the smaller Dives leading up to it, we are introducing a “Disease” that begins to impose negative mechanical effects for every dive your PC makes. It cannot be spread to others, cannot be inoculated against, and is entirely an environmental side effect of diving into the poisoned waters that make up the surrounding Dead Zone. Time and rest (the end of the Event) will cure it. That first Dive is free!
To help with transparency and Player planning, we will have an Out of Character Sign-Up Sheet with both Dive Times and blank slots for everyone to coordinate. It is our goal to release a list of those Dives and their respective Content Warnings this week before Game, so you can think about which ones you’d like to attend. This sheet will also list the mechanics for what happens when your character is immersed in the “Peacemaker” chemicals that permeate the surrounding waters, so that you can make those delightfully difficult choices as to whether to go on that next dive yourself or to share what you’ve learned with the next team. A Helscape Deathmask may help you against the worst of the immediate exposure effects of the Peacemaker poisons, but full body immersion in the waters of the Dead Zone will begin to take its toll if you continue diving multiple times. Taking too many people at once may also have disastrous consequences, as diving bells and air tanks can only supply so many people. We will have the Sign Up Sheet at Town Hall, near the Job Board.
For more information about our Local Items and Mechanics, please see the following links on our webpage:
Local Mechanics, including our Radiation Sickness variant: https://dystopiarisingwi.com/local-items-mechanics
Local Financial Institutions, including the Items available if you Affiliate with them: https://dystopiarisingwi.com/financial-institutions