Glow Shrooms or Radiation: Which Will You Decide for Our Setting? Cast Your Vote Today!

The Dystopia Rising: Colorado team is excited for our first virtual event, Hordefront Part I: King of the Mountain, using the new ruleset. In addition to our take on a “back to the basics” Dystopia Rising experience, this event will be drawing from the Illusions of Civility Part 1 network plot kit’s themes, groups, and conflicts.

For transparency's sake, although the fate of Elder Mountain is an in-character decision that can be impacted by any and all participants of our February event, the direction of Illusions of Civility Part 2 — and its impact on our setting at Dystopia Rising: Colorado going forward — will be decided in a poll (here) that will be available to local players until March 11th. This is to both empower players to make decisions at the upcoming game even if they are not local, and to allow local players the chance to weigh in on long-term decisions even if they cannot attend a conclusion mod.

Illusions of Civility Part 1 involves choosing a path to either decrease or increase the ambient radiation in our corner of the wasteland. This leads directly into what antagonistic groups might appear in Illusions of Civility Part 2 — as well as what temporary diseases, threats, and other mechanics or narratives will be run while Illusions of Civility Part 2 is active until May.

In addition to those unique temporary mechanics, Illusions of Civility Part 2 will give players the option to narratively change their Strain and Lineage between our March and May events. There will not be future narratives that give players the chance to change their character’s Strain and Lineage after this, and to do so will require either a full retirement of an existing character and creation of a new one, or a discussion with local directors/game runners about your current and desired experience playing the character to resolve rewrites. These may be limited by other factors as well, per game runner discretion.

The most important aspect of the player choice in Illusions of Civility Part 1 is its impact on the setting and future stories over the season and potentially longer:

• If local players choose the path of the Glow Shrooms, the setting will have a greater focus on the Overgrowth and other Infection-influenced places and creatures.

• If players choose the path of Radiation, the setting will have a greater focus on the Apocalyptic Wasteland, resource scarcity, and mutated creatures.

You do not have to vote in the same way your character would. In fact, we’d prefer you vote based on the kinds of stories you’d like to see going forward, as well as the impact you’d like to see this decision have on the settlements and groups in them.

Cast your vote by March 11 here.

DR:CO Season 10 Starts February 28th!

Doing it Live!

Dystopia Rising: Colorado is excited to enter its 10th season this year, starting with online games February 28th (tickets now available) and March 28th! These games will be using a different online ruleset than we’ve previously used, because we will be using the virtual play rules for the new system that we are moving to this season.

Last year testing began for the newest edition of Dystopia Rising, Dystopia Rising Live. With overwhelming enthusiasm and support from chapter owners and directors across the network, all games are beginning the transition from 3.0 to DRL between February and May of 2025.  Dystopia Rising: Colorado will be using the DRL ruleset for the entirety of 2025.

Want to get the scoop on the latest ruleset, threat books, Strain variant mechanics, and lore of the world of Dystopia Rising? Download the latest publications here.

Not sure where to start? We recommend the “Player’s Guide” for updated rules of play, the Lineages book “Strained Ancestry” for new Strain variants and updated lore, and the “Devotion & Faith” book for updated lore and subsects of the wasteland religions.

Want a quick rundown on some key differences? We have you covered.

It’s Alive - All documents are Living

There will not be print publications of this edition available. Instead, the website will host PDFs of all documents — which will be updated as needed and include change logs. Most of these publications have already been updated since their release, so if you have looked at any of them in the past, it’s recommended that you check again. Some of these documents will likely see a lot of change over the first year as the system is played, and then will slow to only be updated as needed or when new content is published.

Impact and Development Skills

With only a few exceptions from professions and items, Mind Points are now completely divorced from combat. The skills you would rely on in combat or other tricky situations are now Impact Skills. Once you learn an Impact Skill, you may spend XP to purchase additional uses of the skill. These uses refresh after 20 minutes of resting away from combat, and new Blueprints facilitate the creation of items that can regain those uses should rest be untenable. Crafting, Gathering, and Social skills are now Development skills. These skills cost Mind or sometimes Resolve to use, as they did in previous editions.

Different Power Scale

All new characters now start with 50 XP to learn skills and/or train Mind/Body/Resolve at their first game. With this change, existing characters get a bonus 50 XP for putting together a DRL character. New players earn 10 XP per game for their first 10 games. After the first 10 games, players earn a standard 5 XP per game, and can purchase up to three (3) additional XP at a standard game, or more at a Premiere or National game. Players cannot earn more than 25 XP per month.

There is no longer a minimum XP expenditure before purchasing Tier 2 and Tier 3 skills — those can be purchased immediately.

Skills and Stats cost little to start, but quickly become very expensive. This better balances the scales between the largest characters and the smallest ones, empowering players with less XP and allowing players with more XP to participate in the game without threat of disrupting a challenge.

That said, this is a different scale from 3.0. The adjusted starting XP and increased XP per game leaves the number of games to reach certain milestones the same, but your XP milestones will be different — in 3.0, a character could get their first PFA after 100 XP spent, and additional PFAs every six (6) months. Now, while the requisite Skill or Stat purchases may be as little as 45 XP, it is recommended that a character looking to be fairly well-rounded aim for one Profession every 200 to 300 XP spent. This is a general bit of advice to help those who are feeling discouraged looking at the character creator — if you have a vision that involves a Profession and little else at lower XP, the right build is whatever is most fun for you.

Professions — like PFAs in the 3.0 system — have prerequisites. Development Professions require two Master Skills each, Impact Professions require at least 5 collective uses of either or both of their prerequisite Impact skills, and Default Professions require at least 30 cumulative purchased points of Body and Mind. Unlike PFAs, Professions each have two (2) skills unique to them. Profession Skills are purchased separately from the Profession title. And unlike PFAs where there really wasn’t a limitation on the number you could earn, your characters are limited to three total Professions. This is to help your characters feel more unique, as it is less likely for any two characters to pick the same three professions.

Updated Economy

• All items will have different mechanics now. Most will have an equivalently named item, but some won’t. We will have more information on how we’re handling swapping 3.0 items and blueprints for Live items and blueprints in the future.

• Scrap expires now. All scrap has an expiration date of one year, and cards without an expiration date will be assumed to expire February 2026.

• There are no more Twelves. Mind refreshes now only come from item and Lineage mechanics.

• Being interrupted during crafting or gathering only loses the time, not the resources or Mind points. Just start over again when it’s safe.

These are big changes to the game and the way the economy has functioned thus far, but serve the purpose of creating a system that encourages player interaction and cooperation. No character can be an island anymore, and you’re not supposed to be self-sufficient — the scaling cost of base Mind, the lack of natural Mind refreshes, and the lessened ability to stockpile resources, are all meant to encourage players to either form crews or coordinate with different characters each game to make the items needed to survive.

It’s called Live, but will you Live?

This system is designed to be deadly. Spike damage for players is limited and precious, threats are more powerful, and additional threats are unlocked when over a third of the characters checked into a game are aberrant. The threats are designed to be approached tactically, and while crafted weapons and gizmos are helpful, collaborating with others and strategizing make it possible for a group to handle any standard threat with starter equipment.

It’s worth noting that resolve expenditure is rarer in this edition, and forced Resolve loss rarer still. This means Fractures are a rarer occasion overall. Which is good, because after a character has accumulated four Fractures, gaining any more results in permanent character loss. In most cases, a character with a Fracture cannot be forced to gain another — they may only gain more through voluntary methods. This opens a new avenue of stories for players who want to portray a character shattering to the horrors of the wasteland, and greater incentivizes players to help resolve or soothe one another’s Fractures.

You will find that playing it cautious and buying more uses of Avoid and Mental Endurance, or raising your Infection cap, makes it harder to buy more ‘fun’ skills. You are encouraged to play it less safe and have fun with it. Infection only costs XP to raise your cap above three (3) now - if you are ever below your cap, there is no XP cost to regain Infection. However, Infection regain, and Infection loss prevention, are rarer and more expensive than they were in 3.0. There is a greater expectation that characters will retire or perm in this system than in the previous one - which is part of why 100% of your XP carries over for making a new character after permanent character death. When you retire a character, 50% of that character’s XP is available for new character creation, and the remaining 50% is awarded after six (6) months of playing the new character.

Presenting our first Live game: Hordefront Pt. 1: King of the Mountain 

On February 28th, we’ll be hosting our first virtual Dystopia Rising Live game on Discord using the new virtual play ruleset. Come visit scenic Elder Mountain, irradiated home to an ideological conflict between the Wells Society seeking to eradicate the radiation with their Glow Shrooms to pave way for civilization and the Temple of Evolution seeking to embrace radiation’s power and potential. The fate of Elder Mountain will be in your hands in more ways than one, as a horde the likes of never before seen in the region is on the way. With the potential for events on Elder Mountain to impact the future of the area, including Barker Meadow, stakes are high and we’re doing it Live!

Local Custom Mechanic: Lights Out

As part of our two-part June and July plot, we'll be running a custom mechanic called Lights Out. Here's how it works:

A guide will enter a building and call “By This Zone: Lights Out.” All characters not immune to blinding will be under the effects of Blinding and Stun until the guide specifies otherwise, calling “Lights Up.” All players affected by Lights Out will be asked to cover their eyes until tapped by a guide or NPC.

Any character that is not blinded does not have to cover their eyes during this time, and does not take the effects of the Stun. They are considered to have needed cover for Stealth, and can move to intercept NPCs as long as the NPC is not under the effects of Basic Enhanced Movement or Stealth.

If an NPC is intercepted, play will briefly pause while the combat is moved to an open space. Any players that are needed to be moved for safety will be informed by the guide. Once a combat space is cleared, play will resume.

Why would something kill the lights to a building? To snatch helpless victims, of course!

There will be times during our June and July events where NPCs may attempt to abduct your character. If you wish to opt out of being kidnapped, inform a Logistics Guide to receive an opt-out wristband.

If your character is abducted, your kidnapper will attempt to take you to a certain checkpoint. If you are rescued or use the Larceny skill to slip your binds before this checkpoint, you're free! Otherwise, you and the NPC will go back to Ops, where you will be presented with 3 options:

1. If you have Basic Larceny and the mind to do so, but chose not to slip your binds while being taken, you may escape and return to town without drawing enemy attention.

2. If you don’t have Larceny and are OK with your kidnapped character being "offscreen" until one of the rescue missions run the next day, you may NPC for CAPs or play a different character during this time.

3. If you don't have Larceny and don’t want to be offscreen until the next morning, a guide will spin up an escape scenario for you, and you can find out how you managed to escape and what state you find yourself in as you make your way back to town.

We hope to create a tense game with a sense of danger lurking in the dark. Will you find a way to hold back the darkness?

A Primer on the Barker Meadow Necropolis

As our February virtual event quickly approaches, we wanted to put together this little guide to let you know what you're heading into. Before the Wycked White settled in at the end of last season, Barker Meadow warped into a Necropolis - a place where the Grave holds powerful sway. Much (but not all!) of the weekend’s content will focus on interacting with, understanding and fixing the distorted Necropolis. Let’s talk about how we got here, where things are now and how the Necropolis might be dealt with.

How Did We Get Here?

Back before the early arrival of the Wycked White, the Barkers used Cracked Psionic Crystal Weapons of Mortis Destruction to defeat Flesher Calonyction. The ancient Graverobber had used strange Grave science to convert himself into a mass of Infection with the intent to overtake the local Gravemind. These weapon - the Cracked Crystal Projectile Shell and Cracked Crystal Coating - were understood to have terrible effects on the surrounding land. 

The Cracked Crystal Projectile Shell works by draining off Infectious mass and energy when it impacts a target, which then causes a backlash when that mass and energy interacts with the psionic crystals inside the shell. This causes necrosystemic and ecological damage where the shells land, weakening the bacterial biosphere that forms a barrier between the Mortis Amaranthine and the world “topside” while pulling the Mortis layer closer to the surface.

The Cracked Crystal Coating sinks into the soil and stimulates the growth of Cracked Crystal clusters. Since these clusters are typically an immune response meant to strengthen damaged or weakened Morgues, these clusters forming outside of conditions they are typically found in caused distorted Grave phenomena as they absorbed and concentrated Infectious material.

Where Are We Now?

This Necropolis is a region of unchecked Mortis expansion and growth, like a damaged organ replicating cancerous cells and spreading them to areas far beyond where they are meant to be. The Barker Meadow Reservoir Necropolis blurs the line that Strains understand to exist between the Mortis Amaranthine and the world they live in. Masses of Infection cause high concentrations of DMT - leading to psycho-reactant landscapes - while memories churned from deep in the Mortis spur it to fabricate corrupted structures and artifacts to recreate the past.

Although the freezing temperatures of the Wycked White have slowed the spread of decay, the winter will not hold forever. If allowed to continue in this manner after the thaw, this Necropolis will continue to build on itself. The end result will be the creation of a localized necrosphere deep in the Overgrowth. 

So, How Do We Stop This?

The Necropolis must be pushed back - both physically and psychologically in the minds of the people that live here. This will require the excavation and removal of the Cracked Crystal clusters, as well as the treatment of the land to repair the biosphere. The Mortis layer will then have to somehow be pushed back and repaired, while the tumorous Grave masses will need to be surgically, radioactively or chemically removed to prevent the Mortis from resurfacing. Finally, something must be done to lay the Necropolis to rest in the minds of Barker Meadow Reservoir - something to convince the entire town to accept the paradigm that the Necropolis is no more. What that is exactly? Well…

Continue the conversation on our main Facebook group, our private Facebook hype group, in our Discord server, and on Instagram. And we’ll see you in the “Wycked Wonderland” that is the Necropolis in Barker Meadow Reservoir.

The Premiere Event and the Mayoral Race: An Update

As we approach the July game, the mayoral race is in full swing. As such, we would like to dispel any potential confusion regarding the mayoral election before it has a chance to pop up.

In game, characters believe that the election will go off as planned in August, but the election itself will be moved to our September Event: Taking Care of Business.

Why are we doing this?
After a lot of discussion, the story team decided that it would be best to not hold the election over our August Premiere Event: Apotheosis, as we anticipate an influx of travelers that game, and do not want that to somehow sway the vote in a manner that could be frustrating to local players.

So should my character stop campaigning for a month?
Keep campaigning! In character, there is no reason to suspect the election will be pushed. The in-game state of emergency that will cause the election to be pushed back will not be recognized until the August event.

I have opinions about this!
We want to hear them! Our post-game feedback forms are a great place to give feedback about decisions made by the story and guide teams. You can also submit feedback using the Contact Us, Event Feedback, or Rules Call Feedback forms, all of which are located under the Contact Us section of our website at any time. Your feedback helps us to create the game you want to play, and lets us know when we're on the right track.