REQUIRED READING: What to Know for Our Upcoming Premier Event

Barkers and Travelers alike!

Please read this blog in totality for important information about our August 2025 Premier Event at Camp Tumbleson Lake. A lot of this info is different from what we have done for events held at Camp Tumbleson Lake in 2024, and some will be specific to this weekend (e.g. we’ll be doing stuff slightly differently the rest of the season).

Where to go

Google maps will send you to 173 Co Rd 96, Ward, CO 80481.  When you get to that spot, you will want to continue down County Road 96 to the next left, which is the main parking lot.  

You may arrive on site at 5 p.m. to select a bunk, or aas early as 3 p.m. if you want to help us set up.

Check In

Right next to the parking lot is the Arts and Crafts building.  You will check in here with Seth P. to get your character sheets and make any outstanding payments, OR you will be directed to where to go in case we find a better place for Seth P. to set up.

All players will need to sign both a Dystopia Rising Colorado liability waiver (as we have re-upped our insurance) as well as a YMCA Camp liability waiver (this is new).

If you arrive after lay-on, you can check in at the Public Works (see below).

Arts and Crafts will also be the place to go for your assigned casting (NPC) shift if you have one (NPC Camp).

Cabins and Tents

Once you check in with Seth P. you will be directed on where to set up.  Most players will be sent to the Frontier camping pod, which you can drive your car to, unload, set up, and then later drive your car back to the parking lot. Once your car is reparked, we would love your help getting set up either in NPC camp or in the Frontier space, where the crafting areas and other zones are.

Please note: This area is a little more rustic and does not have any power, therefore it’s important to bring power banks or spare batteries as needed. There are plenty of glamping tents with more than enough bunk beds for our player attendance, a log cabin (called a longhouse), pit toilets, an amphitheater, and the space where we will set up a camping kitchen for food, a water cooler, agricultural area, morgue spaces, crafting areas, Public Works, and more.

If you need Medical Sleep we will have two options for you:

1. If you just need a space where your cabin won’t get attacked at night and quiet space, we will have a glamping tent set up as Medical Only at Frontier.  This space will be closer to the rest of the tents, the crafting areas, Public Works, etc.

2. If you need power or close access to the bathhouse, we will have a limited number of cabins available in Miner’s Row.  

Meals and food storage 

Food storage will be at the Dining Hall only; please, no food in the glamping tents, cabins, or vehicles, as this poses a wildlife risk.  Sealed bottles for water or beverages are fine; please remove labels/genrify your drinks.  The Dining Hall is in the main part of the camp, which is a bit of a walk from Frontier.  Please check with our kitchen leads, Lucan or Joelle, for assistance on where to keep any food that you’re bringing.  We recommend dry goods and other things that can be kept in a cooler for the weekend.  There will be a limited amount of fridge space for cold items.

Our access to the Dining Hall and the kitchen has some limitations this weekend, specifically on Friday night and all day Saturday.  As such, our kitchen staff has elected to host all meals after Thursday night, and our Saturday barbeque at Frontier, where we will be setting up a camping kitchen.  We will have our disposable cutlery but you are encouraged to bring your own mess kit.

On Thursday night, our dinner will be held in the Dining Hall.  Since opening announcements are at 9 p.m. and the opening mod will follow, you will want to be in costume.

You will be able to utilize the microwave in the dining room when it is not otherwise occupied; we are also looking to set up a microwave at Rustler’s, which is at the top of Miner’s Row (previously known as the Counselor’s Lounge, with the balcony porch).  We will update when we know for certain.

Guide Meeting

If you are a guide, we will have a pre-game meeting at 8:30 p.m. at NPC Camp (Arts and Crafts).  Please be prompt and we will do our best to be concise.

Opening Announcements

We will have opening announcements at 9 p.m. on Thursday at the Dining Hall, with lay-on to follow.  After opening announcements, all PCs will meet outside Arts and Crafts as the mustering area for the opening module at 10 p.m..  Any latecomers or people who haven’t checked in yet can get that done before 10 p.m.; afterwards, check-in will move to Public Works at Frontier.  Please be in costume for opening announcements; Frontier will be unavailable from 9 p.m. until after the opening module is complete.  This will also be a great time to return your car to the parking lot, if you haven’t moved it down before dinner.

Getting around site

While there will not be sufficient parking near Frontier for everyone, we will be allowing and utilizing people’s cars to shuttle NPCs, meal service items, equipment, and trash as needed.  Please let us know how we can help if mobility is a concern for you.

Public Works

Seth P. has secured a solar-panel set-up and a Starlink to set up Public Works at the Frontier camping pod.  Depending on the space, we will set up Public Works either in the Longhouse, the yurt, or a pop-up nearby.  We should be able to handle all Public Works requests, though there is currently an open question about blueprints.  We will either print blueprints at Public Works, or if our power solution can’t handle the printer, we will print them in batches at another location from time to time.

Closing Announcements

We will be calling lay-off at 3 p.m. on Saturday.  We will do a quick closing announcement, and then we will tear down most of our play space and NPC camp.

Folks who need to leave early can do so any time afterward cleanup; the camp will be available for folks for the rest of the evening for…

Community Gathering

Saturday after cleanup we will have our out-of-character hangout, board games, barbeque and more.  Non-attendees, friends and family members are welcome to join us and should RSVP so that we are sure we have enough food for folks.  Players are free to spend one more evening on site.

WHEN WE HAVE TO BE Off Site

We will be looking to be off site by 12 p.m. noon on Sunday, so any remaining cleaning, packing and loading will be done in the morning.  Breakfast will be available at 8 a.m.

We’ll see you all very soon!

"Resurgence" Event Overview and Expectations

We are excited to bring you, “Resurgence,” our July event this weekend! Before the event, we’d like to detail what you’re walking into for transparency and to get you excited, as well as set some expectations for the event and going forward.

Event Overview

The Barkers have been called to Resurgence, a new settlement formed in the shadow of the old Everliving Wood. Groups from the Darksky Natural Ones to some of the ever-persevering Irons of Ironwood have formed a settlement in dangerous territory based on tenuous alliances, unfriendly to outsiders – except the Barkers, who many of them owe or have entwined destinies with. They’d make a key and powerful ally in retaking Barker, but how will you convince this settlement of mostly Natural Ones dealing with their own problems to take on that amount of risk and inevitable death?

Resurgence has been dealing with the Devouring Pines who see the Overgrowth as a brutal way to enlightenment, the Overgrowth itself’s dangers (including Diseased Critters transmitting Feral Wasting Syndrome), and zombies aplenty. Worryingly, there’s even rumors of a Raider Den in the area…

Helping Resurgence with their issues and navigating their internal and external politics via. diplomacy, strength of force, and more, will be key to gaining their help with retaking Barker.

Expectations and Themes

We hope this game will mark a return to form and the intended genre of Dystopia Rising as a survival horror game. Let’s break down what each of those words mean in this context, starting first with horror.

Horror

Horror is rooted in threats both physical and psychological to the characters in the story. We look to bring a level of threat, danger and scares to the game that will excite fans of horror. 

This includes a  return to late night threats, and a potentially deadlier game for your character
As far as themes we may tackle that are difficult or disturbing, here is an ingredients list of the spicier ingredients this weekend:

• Kidnapping 

• Body Horror

• Torture 

• Medical Horror

• Depictions of loss and grief

• Plants 

• Animals in peril, including diseased animals and animal death

We hope that by returning to form and tackling difficult themes along the way, we can deliver a great horror experience. - 

Survival

Simply put, some plots do not have heroic outcomes. For example, running away is not “losing,” and not all stories are written with some “win” condition. Tragic narratives are intended to open story and character opportunities in both the setup and aftermath of the tragedy.

A “loss” is not the end of a story. This is, as much as we can make it, a living world LARP where we aim to expand on stories no matter the outcome of an encounter and we encourage you to roll with the dynamic story as well.

All that is to say, we want you to come to the game and have a fun time. We want to facilitate excellent character beats and role-play. We want you to be scared and traumatized in-character and have a ball out-of-character! We hope to see you this weekend at Camp Lazy Acre for “Resurgence.”

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.