This blog has been in the works since we began working on our May event, “The Dying Light,” and has gone through several revisions as we’ve seen and aimed to respond to questions and concerns from local players. The community of Will-o-the-Wisp is Dystopia Rising: Colorado’s first plot surrounding Aberrancy using the new Dystopia Rising: Live rule set. Our aim is to play it straightforward per the current lore and narrative advice given on pages 37 and 38 in the Guide’s Guide, a public document available to view and download here.
In the world of Dystopia Rising, all Strains theoretically have the ability to become Aberrant. Doing so involves learning or honing innate abilities within the Infection to acquire power. However, this power does not come without a price, as those with Aberrant powers draw Undead to them, interface with the Mortis Amaranthine in destructive ways, and can be vectors for disease. The more Aberrants there are in an area, the more dangerous that area becomes. This can lead to Aberrant characters facing social stigma and being the targets of anti-Aberrant factions.
These narrative factors have mechanical implementations. When an Aberrant character passes through the Mortis, approximately 1-5 higher threat Aberrant Undead are sent out. When over one third of the checked-in characters at an event are Aberrant, these higher threat Undead are available to run throughout game. When over one half of the checked-in characters at an event are Aberrant, the highest threat (Apocalyptic Undead) are available to run. The disease Cerebral Scourge spreads from Aberrants. Additionally, certain Mortis procedures are mechanically more difficult if more than one Aberrant is a target of the procedure.
Choosing to make your character Aberrant is choosing to accept the conflicts and challenges that narratively and mechanically come with it. The narratives surrounding Aberrancy are about power and consequence. If you reach for your potential and learn to bend reality, your powers could help you and the people you care about. But is it all worth it? That’s for you to decide.
These narratives are intentionally filled with moral ambiguity, with no truly right or wrong answer, and characters may have opinions that span from Aberrant supremacists to militantly anti-Aberrant and everything in between. In order to align with the intended themes of choice and consequence, characters in Dystopia Rising: Colorado’s stories are always able to give up their Aberrant powers without causing lasting physical or psychological damage to themselves. Narratively speaking, this process can be as complex as a surgery, or as simple as a period of meditation.
With all of that said, because the negative impacts of Aberrancy are core in-universe canon, players should not use Aberrancy as an allegory for neurodivergence, disability, and LGBTQIA+ identity in order to prevent negative bleed for themselves and other players. Unlike any of those things in our world — in the world of Dystopia Rising — Aberrancy is actually dangerous. Characters with anti-Aberrant sentiments can hold legitimate, logical concerns about the impact Aberrants and Aberrancy have on their communities. This imbalance between the canon of Dystopia Rising: Live and the reality of these experiences can result in:
negative bleed for players using this allegory when interfacing with anti-Aberrant plots and characters,
can make players of anti-Aberrant characters uncomfortable with the role they are forced into when an allegorical connection is created, and;
can make other players who have these experiences feel uncomfortable with the implication that their existence is equivalent to one with a canonical negative impact.
Aberrancy is meant to ask the question: “Yes, you can, but should you?” — which is not a question we want to ask about LGBTQIA+ identities or disabled and neurodivergent people.
Because of the narrative and mechanical impact Aberrant characters have on the setting, and the challenging narratives Aberrant characters can face, if you local to Dystopia Rising: Colorado and wish to have any Aberrant skills removed from your sheet, please reach out to the local game runners to accommodate this request either at game or beforehand.