WELCOME TO THE WORLD OF DYSTOPIA RISING
The world is gone. Humanity blew it. Fungal infections swept across the land, turning people, animals, and even plants into grotesque caricatures of life. Cities burned, governments crumbled, and, as humanity’s last great idea, somebody thought it would be smart to drop the nukes. It wasn’t.
Now imagine this: you survived. Not just you, but your lineage, a strain of humanity mutated to thrive in a world where the soil glows and the air tastes like old pennies. You’re not a regular human anymore. You’re something else, forged by generations of post-apocalyptic struggle. You’ve adapted, but so has the world. What’s left is survival, adaptation, and, if you’re lucky, maybe even hope.
Dystopia Rising is a post-apocalyptic world where humanity didn’t just survive, it mutated. Generations after “The Fall,” the planet is crawling with Strains of humanity altered by a fungal Infection that rewired biology itself. Radiation? A fact of life. Zombies (We call them “zed”)? A persistent nuisance. Civilization? A patchwork quilt held together with duct tape and dreams.
This isn’t about the moment the world ended. It’s about what comes next. Scavenged scrap is currency, technology is held together with spit and spite, and the scars of the old world are everywhere. This is a place where you can barter a rusty water pump for a sack of irradiated grain. Where radio stations are a genuine rarity. Where people worship deities cobbled together from half-remembered sitcoms and pre-Fall ideologies.
The Infection is the reason you’re still here, or rather, the reason your Strain is still here. It’s the fungal plague that rewrote humanity’s DNA after the bombs fell. Some people became monsters, but some… evolved. Strains are the distinct flavors of humanity in Dystopia Rising. You might be a salt-encrusted Saltwise, a thick-skinned Reclaimer, or even a hot headed Tainted. Each Strain is a reflection of the world’s decay and resilience, a living artifact of survival in a world that wants you dead. Strains aren’t just “mutants.” They’re culture. They’re tribes shaped by generations of adaptation, each with their own traditions, quirks, and grudges. Some thrive on the open road. Others cling to the ruins of old cities. Some don’t just accept the Infection, they embrace it.
And then there is the zed.
Zed are what happens when the Infection goes unchecked, shambling horrors that used to be human but now exist as walking metaphors for every bad decision ever made. They’re relentless, unthinking, and always hungry. But the zed isn't the only danger. The world itself is hostile: Radiation pockets that bake the flesh right off your bones. Raiders who’d just as soon steal your face as your life. Weather that feels like a cruel joke told by an angry god.
This isn’t a world where you’re fighting to fix things. It’s a world where you’re fighting just to stay alive.
In the absence of the old world’s institutions, new faiths and philosophies have sprung up like dandelions through cracked pavement. Religion in Dystopia Rising isn’t about gods: it’s about survival, meaning, and community. The Telling Visionaries who worship the static-filled remnants of old-world broadcasts like divine scripture. The Sainthood of Ashes, who believe in sacrifice and the greater good, even when it hurts. The Cult of the Fallow Hopes, who see war as a divine mandate and order as sacred. Not every survivor clings to faith, but everyone clings to something. In a world where the past is mostly lost and the future is uncertain, the present becomes a battleground for belief.
Let’s talk tech, or the lack thereof. This isn’t a place for sleek sci-fi gadgets or gleaming utopias. The tech level of Dystopia Rising is roughly “steampunk meets junkyard.” Think diesel engines, crude metallurgy, and weapons cobbled together from scrap. If it looks like it might fall apart, it probably already has, and someone’s already figured out how to repurpose the pieces.
But then there’s Necrology, the science of life and death in the post-apocalypse. Necrology is the study of the Infection and the Mortis, the strange force that allows the Strains to survive injuries that would kill a normal human. It’s equal parts science and horror, and its practitioners walk a thin line between genius and monstrosity.
At its core, Dystopia Rising isn’t just about surviving the end of the world; it’s about what happens after. It’s about rebuilding, badly and imperfectly. This is a world of contrasts: Decay and resilience. Memory and forgetfulness. Desperation and hope. The Divine and The Profane. It’s a place where every settlement is a fragile experiment, where every journey is a gamble, and where every decision carries weight. Do you cling to the past, scavenging the scraps of what came before? Or do you try to build something new, knowing it might all come crashing down?
When you step into the world of Dystopia Rising, you’re stepping into a story that’s already in motion. This isn’t a blank slate, it’s a canvas smeared with ash and oil, and you’re just one more brushstroke in a messy, sprawling masterpiece. You’re not here to save the world. You’re here to live in it. To scrape by. To carve out a place for yourself in a world that doesn’t want you to exist.
This isn’t a world of heroes and villains. It’s a world of survivors.