In advance of the climactic battle with The Taleholders at our October event, In the Flesh (tickets and details available here) , we would like to provide information to set expectations and make sure everyone has an awesome time wrapping up this story. In this blog post, we're going to go over what's happening before the fight, during the fight, and how it could all end.
Importantly and up front, the fight will happen during the 2 p.m. to 6 p.m. NPC shift block, so if you're aching to be involved on either side of the fight, we present this information so you can make an informed decision.
There will be a significant preparatory phase leading up to the fight, and we encourage you to make the most of it! In addition to various plot items such as the Weapons of Mortis Destruction developed last game and the tools to fight Workers – which will be key in the final fight – there's also a bevy of brews, augments, armaments, and more in the core rules to equip yourself with to better your chances! Hit up those crafters and resource gatherers and get to work to prepare for the fight of a lifetime. It's important to note that we will be reworking the living documents of Worker-fighting tools and mechanics to better accommodate a longer fight, as they were originally designed for a much shorter encounter.
Preparing the Weapons of Mortis Destruction and the Oblivio Mortis – the ritual which the Taleholders' Graverobber Flesher Calonyction uses as his primary tool, plotted to be his undoing by his rival and tenuous ally of the town, Tomas Gleaming Keep – will be key, to have weapons during the fight and to combat Flesher in the Grave.
Now onto the fight itself!
The fight will have multiple phases across multiple locations, something we have not yet experimented much with at DR:CO on our site at YMCA Camp Santa Maria. Prepare to walk, and to have to move across site to accomplish your objectives. In this fight, through the different stages and their dynamics, your preparation will matter, and tactics will be critical against deadly threats, which will be killing blow active. As the final flourish of a years-long storyline, we're not pulling any punches on this one, but we're also dedicated to making it fun and cinematic, no matter the results in-character.
Those are the details of the fight we're presenting currently, without spoiling too much, and it's important to talk about the role of this fight in the overall narrative. We've advertised through in-character means and want to be clear out of character that this fight most likely ends in the Gravemind, the multi-stage conflict determining the shape of that scene, of stopping and undoing the Graven work of Flesher. If the survivors of Barker Meadow stumble in their efforts, will they even be able to launch the Oblivio Mortis to counter Flesher, and if they succeed triumphantly, will he meet an even worse fate than in his attempted Oblivio Mortis at the Premiere event, where survivors subverted his efforts and slayed him multiple times?
We’ll all just have to see at our October event, where This Has All Happened Before, and it's up to our Barkers to make sure this will Never Happen Again. The cycle of the Everliving Wood and Flesher's machinations against Barker and Lorado ends in October, but what that looks like... as the TVs of the Taleholders might say, tune in, intrepid viewers, for a story ending like none other!