Echo Zed attack an injured Silent Cultist
So, you’re new around these parts or just don’t mess with the Grave Mind much. But maybe you’ve been hearing these terms like “Grave Attuned” and “Morgue”-- even “Dead Zone” if you were at our September 2022 event-- and you want to know more. Well, we’re bringing you a kickstart guide to the Grave Mind and all about its little mushroom hold on our character’s lives.
A First Look at the Mortis Amaranthine
The Mortis Amaranthine is a species of fungus which has become an omnipresent force within the world of Dystopia Rising. Engineered long ago, its release and spread played a key role in the Fall of humanity– and the subsequent rise of the Strains our characters belong to in their current day.
Particles of fungal Infection exist symbiotically within almost everything on post-Fall Earth– creating a vast network across the entire globe. When a character dies, their biomass is rapidly decomposed, causing their body to ‘sink’ into the ground and be absorbed as food for the local Mortis. After a period of time– hours, days, perhaps even years– it may finish processing this person, reconstruct them, and spit them back out, granting them another chance at life. However, unless protected by outside means (such as the work of a Lifebinder), some of the deceased’s sense of body and self will be eroded away. This fractures the mind, and brings their bodies one step closer to final Undeath.
The “Gravemind”
A dangerous medical procedure attracts Undead
While the Mortis is often colloquially referred to as the “Gravemind,” in fact those are two slightly different things– one physical, the other psychological. Though concentrations of gross, meaty, fungal material do exist underground, the Gravemind is not a place we can visit. Nor is it a sentient or malevolent being, no matter how convincing and/or traumatizing our experiences inside it can seem.
Rather, a ‘Gravemind scene’ is a vivid hallucination experienced during the process of death and reconstruction. Anything you encounter there, any tactic it employs to convince you to stay and be consumed, is actually just a reflection of your own psyche, as well as the psychological imprints left behind by those who have previously died. When it comes to the Mortis, “you are what you eat” really is true!
The mines lead to Mourning Glory’s Morgue
Morgues
A “Morgue” is a place where the Amaranthine fungus is at its highest concentration. Often, these develop naturally near population centers, and serve as the spot where the dead can reliably be expected to reappear once they’ve gone through their Gravemind ordeal. Studying and interacting with the Mortis is also easiest here, making it a useful location for grave dives and other procedures. As the Mortis itself is a deeply psionic creature, strange hallucinations and phenomena may occur the closer one is to a Morgue space.
Without a local Morgue, people can still respawn after death– though there are some dangers involved. Emerging at random locations can be hazardous, and an unhealthy Mortis may be more likely to mess something up when reconstructing a Strain. You wouldn’t want to come out without your lungs, or with your arms stuck on backwards!
Zed
A horde of irradiated zed attack
Though horrific, zed are simply a mobile extension of the Mortis– serving as its food collectors and as its “immune response” to perceived threats. They respond blindly to its primitive directives as a collective hive mind, and their bodies and abilities are always evolving, locked in a perpetual “arms race” to see which tactics are the most effective at ending Strain lives.
Unless a Last Dance medical procedure is performed, all Strains will lose themselves and become a zed at the end of their final life. There is no in-universe way to be 100% certain how much Infection a character has remaining, though it is common to see dark green discoloration of the veins when a character is on their last. This is called “green veining.”
In Conclusion
A simple mushroom? Or part of the Mortis Amaranthine?
Understandably, some characters may see the relationship with the Gravemind as an antagonistic one. After all, it’s the thing that sends zombies out to kill us. It’s the thing that uses our worst fears against us when we die, in the hope that we don’t fight our way back to life. It’s scary, and people often hate the things they can’t defeat or understand.
However, the truth is that Strain bodies are so deeply entwined with the Infection that it is impossible to separate the two. Where the Mortis does not exist, we cannot either– traveling too far into the atmosphere, for example, would result in sudden disintegration as our molecules fall apart. And things that die disconnected from the Mortis… well, they never come back. Period.
The key word, then, is balance. Just as an environment suffers if there are too many predators in the food chain, the Mortis actually benefits from keeping a sustainable population of Strains alive. If we were ever to go completely extinct, it would have nothing left to eat! And as much as it sucks to deal with zed– the more we mess with its health, the more prone we are to experiencing diseases, unusual hordes, and other hardships.
All that said– if your character still wants to spit in the mushroom’s face and stick a bomb in the Morgue, go for it! Just know what you’re getting into, and expect some consequences. <3
Special thanks to Kristen Lambert for writing assistance.