The Event
Downfall 2025 is a cross network event for the Dystopia Rising Larp Network. Cross Network events are opportunities for individual games to run materials that impact the entire network, the ongoing narrative of the game world, and to introduce content that is normally reserved for use with game world publication.
This year Downfall is being hosted by Dystopia Rising: The Anvil (Washington State) which is part of the Experiences for Creativity, Hope, and Outreach Productions Nonprofit organization. This event goes a little larger, a little longer, and a lot more intense than a standard Dystopia Rising Larp game. So this is a perfect time for returning players, new players, 1st time larpers, and established players. With the new Dystopia Rising Live system, the mechanical design and world content for Dystopia Rising has never been better.
The Focus
Downfall 2025 is a horror discovery scenario focused on slow tension, structural decay, and the consequences of revelation. The Mortis, Necrology, and horrors of the unknown sits at the center of this experience.
The Ossuary Society is embedded within this story in a narrative that crosses between the ideas of “can” and “should” when it comes to Mortis sciences. Expect Ossuary agents to be working, observing, and intervening. Players connected to the Ossuary (or looking to join the Ossuary) will face decisions around containment, classification, and disclosure. The society’s belief in record-keeping as a sacred duty is being tested, and what they choose to preserve—or destroy—will directly shape narratives going forward.
Alongside them, the Arbiters of the Bond have been assigned to enforce civic stability and to investigate a series of horrific acts that have impacted across the wasteland. Their authority is not passive. When situations escalate, the Arbiters are expected to act, and act with finality. Whether through public trials, bonded accountability, or immediate judgment, their role will be highly visible. They will hold the line even if the rules are no longer clear, and players will have to decide the definition line between the moral and the legal.
This event will not offer easy victories. Tension builds deliberately. The story opens with uncertainty and deepens into conflict. Players will face ethical pressure, hard choices, and a setting where personal action is seen and remembered. Discovery is not just about learning what happened—it’s about deciding what you're willing to do with that knowledge, and who will pay for the decision. Conflict between truth and stability, between silence and disclosure, will be constant. Institutions will strain under the weight of new information. Faith, law, and social bonds will fray. The Mortis will does wait for consensus.
Some Lines Aren’t Meant to Be Crossed
In the ashes of the old world—where law is more rumor than rule and morality’s just a matter of convenience—most folks still cling to something like order. A nod. A warning. You don’t screw your friends at cards, and you sure as hell don’t drink the last of a host’s hooch.
Small agreements. Flexible, sometimes. A shared understanding that even monsters have manners. But there are deeper codes. Unspoken rules about the eradication of life—about poisoning the well, so to speak—that even murderers won’t break. These are the lines in the dirt, the boundaries that even the desperate know not to step over.
But sometimes, someone does.
And when that happens, there are only two choices: Let the world unravel—let chaos reign and every person crown themselves a tyrant...
Or remind them.
Remind them that even in ruin, there are consequences.
Not quiet. Not polite.
A spectacle.
The kind that scorches memory. The kind that teaches a lesson. Because out here, justice doesn’t wear a uniform. It wears scars, walks tall, and speaks loud enough for the next fool to hear.