TEXT: TIL DAWN
  TIL DAWN
  TIL DAWN
  TIL DAWN
  TIL DAWN
  A WORLD OF 
  ADVENTURE FOR
  KIRA MAGRANN
  MIKE OLSON
  
  This adventure was made awesome thanks to our Patreon patrons at patreon.com/evilhat—thanks folks!
  INSIDERS
  __skwrl__
  Andrew Turbott
  Andy Arminio
  Arlo B Evans
  Bob Ross
  brian allred
  C.K. Lee
  Charles Albrecht
  Chris Angelini
  Chris Flipse
  Chris Jahn
  Christopher Cassino
  Christopher Hatty
  Christopher Vollick
  Clifford Crate
  Colin Mills
  D.C. Upton
  Daniel Gutiérrez 
  Martínez
  David Dorward
  David Hayes
  Demian Buckle
  Denise Atwood
  Don Arnold
  Dustin Evermore
  Ed Pegg
  Edward MacGregor
  Eric Nething
  Frank
  Frédéri POCHARD
  Gareth Davies
  Gavran
  George Harnish
  Graham Owens
  Graham Wills
  Griffin Mitchell
  Howard M 
  Thompson
  J Hunter
  J Quincy Sperber
  jal wu
  Jamie Smith
  Jan Heitger
  Jason Cotton
  Jeremy Tidwell
  Joakim Andersson
  Joe Trzos
  John Rogers
  John Rudd
  Jon-Pierre Gentil
  Joshua Forisha
  Joshua Lutz
  Justin Evans
  K T
  Ken Ditto
  Kris Herzog
  Kurt Blanco
  LilFluff
  Linda Larsson
  MAINGUET Francois
  Malc Arnold
  Mark
  Marty Chodorek
  Matt and Nykki 
  Boersma
  Matt Anderson
  Michael Bowman
  Mike C
  Mitchell Evans
  Morgan Ellis
  Nicolas Marjanovic
  Philippe Herve
  Phillip James
  Remy Sanchez
  Rhel
  Richard Bellingham
  Rick
  rlancel4
  Russell Hay
  Ryan Singer
  Sarah Vakos
  Scott Vesely
  Sean M. Dunstan
  Selene O'Rourke
  Stephen Rider
  Tara Zuber
  The Catholic Geeks
  The Roach
  Timothy Carroll
  Tristan Smith
  Troy Ray
  vargr1
  Will Goring
  William J. White
  William Lee
  Zach
  Zach Hunt
  ADVENTURERS
  A Person
  Adam Gutschenritter
  Adam Rinehart
  Adrian Arias-Palomo
  Adrian Chaluppka
  AJ Real
  Al Billings
  Alan Phillips
  Alan Timothy Rogers
  Alan Twigg
  Alessandro Gagliardi
  Alexander Gräfe
  Alloyed
  Amanda Valentine
  Amazing Rando
  Anders Jonsson
  Andrew
  Andrew Dacey
  Andrew Grant
  Andrew Horn
  Anthony Damiani
  Arthur Lace
  ArthurDent
  Ask Charly Leetham
  Barac Wiley
  Becca
  Ben
  Benj
  Benjamin Cush
  Benjamin Welke
  Björn Steffen
  Bo Madsen
  Bob Hiestand
  Brandon Wiley
  Brandt Bjornsen
  Brent Ritch
  Brett Taylor
  Brian
  Brian Colin
  Brian Paul
  Brian S. Holt
  Brook Freeman
  Bruce
  Bryan Botz
  Bryan Brake
  Bryan Gillispie
  Bryan Wiltgen
  Bryce Perry
  BurninChrome
  Cameron M Miller
  Carlos Martín
  Cerity
  Charles
  Charles  Evans
  Chip Dunning
  Chris King
  Chris Little
  Chris Newton
  Chris Nolen
  Christian
  Christian Ebel
  Christoph Thill
  Christopher Allen
  Christopher Dennis
  Christopher Mason
  Christopher W. Dolunt
  Chuck Dee
  Clemens Schmitz
  Clyde Clark
  Colin Matter
  Craig Maloney
  Craig Mason
  Creative Play and 
  Podcast Network
  Curt Meyer
  Curtis Hay
  Dain
  Damon Richard
  Daniel Chapman
  Daniel Ellingsen Lund
  Daniel Gallant
  Daniel Kraemer
  Daniel Ley
  Daniel Markwig
  Daniel Taylor
  Darin Henley
  Dave Joria
  David Bellinger
  David Bowers
  David Goodwin
  David Maple
  David Millians
  David Morfin
  David Starner
  David Thornley
  Davide Orlandi
  Declan Feeney
  Dennis Groome
  Dennis Malloy
  Derek Hiemforth
  Dillard
  Dirk Methner
  Doug Blakeslee
  Doug Bolden
  Douglas Molineu
  Dr. Mitch
  Duane Cathey
  Duncan
  Dylan Green
  Ebenezer Arvigenius
  Edward Sturges
  Ehedei
  Eirch Mascariatu
  Elizabeth Creegan
  Elliott M. Freeman
  Elsa S. Henry
  Enrique Esturillo Cano
  eric
  Erik Ingersen
  Ernie Sawyer
  Fabrice Breau
  FelTK
  Fide
  Florian Greß
  Frank Beaver 
  Free Xenon
  gamedave
  Garrett
  Garrett Jones
  Genevieve
  Geoff
  Geoffrey Walter
  Gian Domenico Facchini
  Giuseppe D'Aristotile
  Glynn Stewart
  Grant
  Greg Conant 
  Greg Matyola
  Gregg Workman
  Gregory Adams
  Guillermo Calvo
  Gustavo Campanelli
  Haakon Thunestvedt
  Hal J Neat
  Heather
  Herman Duyker
  Hourousha Mokujin
  Ian Charlton
  Indi Latrani
  Irene Strauss
  Ivan Begley
  Jack Gulick
  James Hoag
  James Husum
  James Marz
  James Pacheco
  James Winfield
  Jamie Wheeler
  Jan Oetjen
  Janet Oblinger
  Jared Hunt
  Jarrett
  Jason Bean
  Jason Pasch
  Jason Penney
  Jayna Pavlin
  Jeff Craig
  Jeff M
  Jeff Pitrman
  Jeff Vincent
  Jeffrey Boman
  Jeffrey Collyer
  Jennifer Steinhurst
  Jens Alfke
  Jeremiah McCoy
  Jeremy Hamaker
  JF Paradis
  Jim Hart
  Jim Nicholson
  Joanna
  Joe Levey
  Joe Mason
  Johannes Oppermann
  John
  John
  John Beynon
  John Fiala
  John Helmuth
  John Lake
  John Lambert
  John Portley
  John T
  John Taber
  John Tobin
  John William McDonald
  Jon Mayo
  Jon Smejkal
  Jonathan
  Jonathan Finke
  Jonathan Korman
  Jonathan Perrine
  Jose A. 
  Joseph
  Joseph Formoso
  Josh Salyers
  Joshua Reubens
  Juan Francisco Gutierrez
  Juan Trillo
  Julia
  Julianna Backer
  Kaarchin
  Karl Thiebolt
  Katherine Malloy
  Katie Baker
  Katie Berger Tremaine
  Keith Mantell
  Keith R. Potempa
  Keith Stanley
  Kesh
  Kevin L. Nault
  Kevin Lindgren
  Kevin McDermott
  Kevin Payne
  Kielo Maja
  Klaas Bock
  KP
  Krzysztof Chyla
  Kyle
  Kym Malycha
  Landon
  Larry Hollis
  Laura
  Lester Ward
  Liam Martinez
  Lore Graham
  Loren
  Lp and Nick Daly
  Luca Agosto
  Maia S
  Manfred
  Marc Kevin Hall
  Marcel Lotz
  Marcel Wittram
  Marcus
  Mark Chu-Carroll
  Mark Tygart
  Markus Haberstock
  Markus Sauerbrey
  Martin Deppe
  Martin Terrier
  Marty Gentillon
  Matt Houck
  Matt Landis
  Matt Larson
  Matthew J. Hanson
  Max Kaehn
  Michael
  Michael Bradford
  Michael Brewer
  Michael Brown
  Michael D. Ranalli Jr.
  Michael Feldhusen
  Michael Friese
  Michael Hopcroft
  Michael Riabov
  Michael Thompson
  Mike Vermont
  Mirko Froehlich
  Mo
  Mook
  My Humble Assault
  myrandomscribblings
  Nat
  Nat
  Nathan Fritz
  Nathan Hare
  Neil Macbeth
  Nicholas Hopkins
  Nicholas Pilon
  Nick
  Nick Reale
  Nicola Urbinati
  Nicolas Decomble
  Nikkelitous
  Nos Doughty
  Olav Müller
  Olivier Nisole
  Owen Thompson
  Pablo Martínez Merino
  paolo castelli
  Paolo Jose Cruz
  Patrice Hédé
  Patrice Mermoud
  Patrick Chapman
  Patrick Ewing
  Patrick McElfresh
  Paul
  Paul Arezina
  Paul Maanen
  Paul Olson
  Paul Rivers
  Pawel Ngei
  Pete Curry
  Peter Bingham
  Peter James Burczyk
  Peter Kahle
  Phil Groff
  Philippe Marichal
  Philippe Saner
  Phillip Webb
  Pint Wakefield
  Piper Thunstrom
  Porter
  R Roy
  Rachael Hixon
  Ralf Wagner
  Randall Orndorff
  Randall Wright
  Raun Sedlock
  Rebecca Harbison
  Rebecca Hubbard
  Renzo Crispieri
  Richard
  Richard Greene
  Rick LaRue
  Riggah
  Rob Knop
  Rob Meyers
  Robb Neumann
  Robert Bersch
  Robert Carnel
  Robert Huss
  Robert Slaughter
  Ron Müller
  Ruben Smith-Zempel
  Ryan Junk
  Ryusui
  Sarah Williams
  Schubacca
  Scot Ryder
  Scott Acker
  Scott Beattie
  Scott Greenleaf
  Scott Millward
  Scott Puckett
  Scott Velez
  Sean O'Dell
  Sean Smith
  Sean Walsh
  Sean West Money
  Serge Beaumont
  Seth Clayton
  Seth Hartley
  Shervyn von Hoerl
  Shijuro
  Shoshana Kessock
  Simon Brunning
  Simon White
  Stefan Feltmann
  Stefano Monachesi
  Stephan
  Stephanie Bryant 
  (Mortaine)
  Stephen Figgins
  Stephen Fleetwood
  Stephen Waugh
  Steve Discont
  Steve Kunec
  Steve Radabaugh
  Steven Code
  Steven D Warble
  Steven desJardins
  Steven K. Watkins
  Steven Markley
  Stu Adams
  Stuart Dollar
  Susanna Tallberg
  Svend Andersen
  Sławomir Wrzesień
  tcoustic
  Teppo Pennanen
  Teresa O
  Tevel Drinkwater
  The Older Avocado
  The Vampires of San 
  Francisco
  Thierry De Gagné
  Thomas
  Thomas
  Thomas Balls-Thies
  Thomas Maund
  Thomas Ryan
  Tim Davis
  Timothy Masamitsu
  Timothy Miller
  Todd Estabrook
  Todd Willey
  Tom Lommel
  Tony Ewing
  TR Merchen
  Travis Stodter
  Tsht
  Ty Volpo
  Tyson Monagle
  Tyson Streich
  Urs Blumentritt
  Veronica Hamilton
  Victor Allen
  Ville Lavonius
  Vladimir Filipoviń
  Volker Mantel
  waelcyrge
  William Hutton
  William Johnson
  William McDuff
  Zeb Walker
  
  TIL DAWN
  A WORLD OF 
  ADVENTURE FOR
  WRITING & ADVENTURE DESIGN
  KIRA MAGRANN
  DEVELOPMENT
  MIKE OLSON,  
  TARA ZUBER, AND 
  ROB DONOGHUE
  EDITING
  JOSHUA YEARSLEY
  PROJECT MANAGEMENT
  SEAN NITTNER
  ART DIRECTION
  BRIAN PATTERSON
  LAYOUT
  FRED HICKS
  INTERIOR & COVER  
  ARTWORK
  ELISA CELLA
  MARKETING
  TOM LOMMEL
  
  An Evil Hat Productions Publication
  www.evilhat.com • feedback@evilhat.com
  @EvilHatOfficial on Twitter
  facebook.com/EvilHatProductions 
  Til Dawn
  Copyright ©2019 Evil Hat Productions, LLC and Kira Magrann.
  All rights reserved. 
  First published in 2019 by Evil Hat Productions, LLC.
  10125 Colesville Rd #318, Silver Spring, MD 20901.
  Evil Hat Productions and the Evil Hat and Fate logos are trademarks  
  owned by Evil Hat Productions, LLC. All rights reserved. 
  No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, 
  or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, 
  photocopying, recording, or otherwise, without the  
  prior express permission of the publisher.  
  That said, if you’re doing it for personal use, knock yourself out.  
  That’s not only allowed, we encourage you to do it. 
  For those working at a copy shop and not at all sure if this means 
  the person standing at your counter can make copies of this thing, they can. 
  This is “express permission.” Carry on. 
  This is a game where people make up stories about wonderful, terrible, 
  impossible, glorious things. All the characters and events portrayed in this work 
  are fictional. Any resemblance to real people, cyborgs, drag queens, dragborgs, 
  borgqueens, or queen DJs is purely coincidental, but kinda hilarious.
  
  CONTENTS
  Introduction ...................................................................................... 3
  Media in 2121 ..................................................................................................................4
  Music Styles ...................................................................................................................5
  DJ Skins ...........................................................................................................................6
  Gender, Race, and Ability in 2121 ...........................................................................7
  Baby Shine Bright .......................................................................................................8
  Character Creation ........................................................................... 9
  Approaches ...................................................................................................................9
  Aspects..........................................................................................................................10
  Squad Name .................................................................................................................12
  DJ Skins ..........................................................................................................................12
  Consequences .............................................................................................................13
  Stunts and Refresh .....................................................................................................13
  Creating Stories ...............................................................................16
  Relationships and Conditions ................................................................................17
  Focusing on Emotional Challenges .................................................................... 19
  Including Culture ....................................................................................................... 19
  Depicting Cultures ...................................................................................................20
  Advancement .............................................................................................................20
  Structuring Sessions .......................................................................21
  Scene 1: One-on-One Confessionals...................................................................22
  Scene 2: In and Around the Arena ......................................................................23
  Scene 3: Green Room Prep ....................................................................................23
  Scene 4: DJ Battle .................................................................................................... 24
  Scene 5: Debrief ........................................................................................................ 24
  Scene 6: One-on-One Confessional .................................................................. 24
  Creating Non-Player Characters...................................................25
  DJs .................................................................................................................................. 26
  DJ Squads ................................................................................................................... 26
  Fans ................................................................................................................................27
  Media ............................................................................................................................. 28
  Groupies and Roadies ............................................................................................. 29
  Locals ............................................................................................................................ 29
  DJ Battles ........................................................................................30
  Squad Ranking ..........................................................................................................30
  Running a DJ Battle ...................................................................................................31
  Venues .............................................................................................. 37
  Cape Town Megaplex .............................................................................................. 38
  Fallingwater ................................................................................................................ 39
  Canyonlyfe ................................................................................................................... 41
  The Cancun Chain .................................................................................................... 42
  Viti Crater Festival Grounds ................................................................................. 43
  Kyoto Biodome..........................................................................................................44
  Example DJs ....................................................................................45
  Example DJ Squads ........................................................................47
  The Aliens .................................................................................................................... 47
  Dollhouse .....................................................................................................................49
  An Example Session in Borobudur ...............................................51
  Faces ...............................................................................................................................51
  Cultural Touchstones .................................................................................................51
  Notable Locations .....................................................................................................52
  Running the Session .................................................................................................53
  NPCs .............................................................................................................................. 54
  
  2
  FATE: WORLDS OF ADVENTURE
  This is it. The chance of a lifetime for aspiring DJs all over the world. 
  Only a select few squads get into the Planet’s Next DJ Supersquad 
  World Tour, which means just the best of the best, baby. This elite 
  event is broadcast live all over the world, and the stakes are mega 
  high. These DJ squads are about to get famous. After this, people 
  everywhere will adore them and the multimedia sensory experi-
  ences they create.
  All they have to do is survive the tour. This festival, broadcast 
  for all to see, is infamous for its drama, and not just about the per-
  formance. Everything about these artists—who they are, how they 
  identify, who they’re dating, what their intimate past was—will be 
  exposed like the electric insides of their cybernetic skins for the 
  entire world to see. The interactive musical environments these DJs 
  create all come from the heightened emotional states they tap into 
  and share with their fans. It’s easy to fall in love a hundred times a 
  day when emotions are that raw, and for some DJs, this just makes 
  their creations even better.
  
  3
  INTRODUCTION
  Til Dawn focuses on exploring romance and queerness at an emotionally charged 
  music festival. By performing emotions and body transformation by wearing 
  various robotic and cybernetic DJ suits called skins, players can experiment with 
  gender presentation and see how it affects both public and private relationships.
  A huge inspiration for this Fate World of Adventure is RuPaul’s Drag Race. Drag 
  is a super visible pop-culture representation of how to queer our public perfor-
  mance of gender, both in attitude and dress. Another one is Scott Pilgrim vs. the 
  World, because much of the combat is social and metaphorically represented in 
  DJ battles on stage. Til Dawn is basically a cross between the two!
  Each player will create their own DJ, complete with a unique style, feelings, 
  and approaches, and collectively they’ll make up a DJ squad, a band working 
  together to win the competition! Each session, squads will go up against each other 
  in a battle of music. Individuality is important, but so is supporting your squad! 
  The PCs can totally go against each other in this environment—even though the 
  characters in the squad have got to stick together, their emotional reactions to 
  each other can be extreme.
  Til Dawn takes place about a hundred years in the future! Thankfully, trends 
  come back around, and what is trendy now is of course trendy again a hundred 
  years from now. If players are having trouble describing weird future styles off 
  the cuff, it’s real easy to just combine a few styles of the twenty-teens and voila: 
  future media sensation.
  The conflict in this setting has two speeds: social and musical. There is no 
  physical combat! The “enemies” you’ll go up against will mostly be media reps 
  and other DJ squads. Prepare to enter a futuristic world of shade-throwing and 
  music battles!
  
  4
  FATE: WORLDS OF ADVENTURE
  Media in 2121
  Visual media in the year 2121 is far more expansive and inclusive than in the past. 
  People are open and hungry for new experiences and new cultures, and want to 
  learn how they can blend and merge rather than divide and conflict. They consume 
  media so they can connect with others all over the world. Small, independent 
  creators can share their unique voices, and anyone can access them. Lots of simple 
  media sharing is completely free, shifting people’s consumption from big media 
  to the brands that people create out of their personalities and products.
  Popular media often uses newer tech trends in video and sound. Projection 
  mapping and neon are back in style, and retro 21st-century renaissance is a hot 
  new thing. People are trying to create new hyperreal environments that seamlessly 
  blend digital environments and real environments. Much of the new visual art 
  makes use of the simulacrum: how can people make something out of an unex-
  pected material and have it resemble something else?
  The fusion of sensory experiences is also hot. Designers seek to create entertain-
  ment that enhances multiple senses at once or creates a feeling of synesthesia. Of 
  all the tech out there that can create these experiences, the best are the DJ skins, 
  which is what’s making music festivals with DJ squads so popular. People want 
  to be overwhelmed with feelings, but without needing some chemically altering 
  substance.
  Almost everyone has access to many tools to share social experiences through 
  video, pictures, audio recordings, and virtual-reality mods. Especially with the 
  popularity of hyperreality—virtual reality or video projections that seem real 
  but are not—people love to push their technology to ultrapersonalized extremes, 
  creating their own home environments and decorations, altering their fashion 
  accessories and clothing, and making companions—animal, robot, or fantastical, 
  but not human—that are incredibly lifelike. These illusions have generally been 
  accepted as part of the design landscape.
  Entertainment and news media have changed drastically as people have contin-
  ued sharing their own stories. Often, media reporting groups are simply collectives 
  of individuals with similar taste and style who gather funding to support their 
  message and stories. Most movies are no longer created by big-budget studios 
  in Hollywood. Now, most people have created their own elaborate films just by 
  using handheld devices, which can do all things that movie cameras could do at 
  the turn of the 21st century. The internet still exists, but it’s much more complex 
  and far more wireless, and almost everyone uses it daily, since it can be accessed 
  even by the poorest in the world.
  
  5
  TIL DAWN
  Music Styles
  Music is all over the place, ever since the tools became more accessible in the 21st 
  century. Anyone with some determination can put together some tunes. So there 
  are many, many creators putting their stuff out there. Music can gain popularity 
  through so many venues and is accessible to most humans, so basically there’s just 
  a lot of it. Record labels no longer exist as gatekeepers, either, so more marginalized 
  voices can be heard. Despite this, power imbalances still exist—the oversaturated 
  market makes it more difficult to connect artists with their audiences, so music 
  festivals are still one of the best ways of getting out there.
  Lots of music is still made unplugged, but the most popular stuff is all electronic 
  and vocal. Much electronic music comes from natural sounds, but distorted and 
  mixed to sound either very artificial or hyperreal. Many past genres of music still 
  exist, but they’ve exploded and transformed. Like the memes and meta-context 
  present in much pop media at the turn of the 21st century, music now contains 
  multiple levels of inside information, imagery, and agenda—references upon 
  references that cater to very specific audiences who can understand the code. 
  Many of these ideas start small and grow until they become abstract symbols for 
  a concept or a feeling.
  The trendiest stuff are the multimedia experiences that our DJs specialize 
  in. Music is no longer just sound—it’s the festival, the culture, the fashion, the 
  affinity groups who listen to it, and the visuals associated with all this. It’s now a 
  multisensory experience in ways that only new, pervasive technology can allow 
  for. Music is a multitude.
  
  6
  FATE: WORLDS OF ADVENTURE
  DJ Skins
  DJ skins are cybernetic suits designed to creature transmedia sensory experiences. 
  They’re part fashion, part technology, and all style, baby.
  In the past, DJs created the visual and musical experiences of their concerts 
  by using turntables, acoustic and electronic instruments, sound boards, live 
  vocals, prerecorded sounds, computers, samples, speakers, video, and other stage 
  effects. Over the years, all of this equipment got replaced with smaller and more 
  ubiquitous technology. Combo tools that were easier to carry around and con-
  nect became popular, as did ambient sound devices and drone speakers, which 
  could be very close to everyone in the venue at once, letting DJs project sound 
  without giant speakers.
  With the recent invention of DJ skins, though, the artist no longer needs all of 
  this separate equipment. Now it’s all contained within a wearable and articulated 
  piece of cybernetics. Skins are completely customizable in size and design—any-
  thing from a praying mantis molded out of foam-like fabric to a robotic mech 
  made of hard plastic. From this suit the DJ can emit sound, project video, and 
  mix digital samples. Some use gesture technology to activate sounds and images, 
  others use an elaborate set of props, and still others have collections of buttons 
  programmed to do different things. They’re called skins because, to DJs, they 
  are like a second skin.
  A skin’s look often reflects the style of music and experience the DJ creates. 
  They vary from pop-culture references to wild high fashion to things that just 
  look alien for the sake of being weird. Skins are not only tools the DJs can use 
  to create things, but also ways to modify their bodies. Arms can be extended by 
  wearing skins designed as realistic prosthetics, for example. Some DJs embrace 
  the tech style of the skins and go for looks that are very human–machine hybrids. 
  Others use the technology to create things you might see in nature.
  The materials used to create the skins allow for nearly limitless possibilities. 
  They just have to fit a human body and can’t really be bigger than ten feet. Every 
  skin is designed for the DJ who will wear it, and sometimes famous DJ squads 
  even have designers help to build newer and wilder looks.
  The final thing that skins can do is evoke feelings the way molly and acid used 
  to. People can still do drugs at concerts if they want to, but why do that when 
  skins can emit emotion- and sensation-altering brain stimulations? The science is 
  a little beyond most DJs, but, more or less, the stimulation hits the neurochemi-
  cal spots in the brain that push different emotions and boom, that sensation can 
  be transmitted to the audience through the receptor they plug into the base of 
  their skull. Concert attendees can opt in or out of the specific experiences they’re 
  looking for based on the settings of their neuroreceptors. It’s a much safer way 
  to experience heightened feelings without needing to ingest herbs or chemicals.
  
  7
  TIL DAWN
  Gender, Race, and Ability in 2121
  The world has become much more inclusive of gender, race, and ability, but many 
  people still hold onto conservative values. Among the DJs and performers on 
  the circuit there’s a broad spectrum of people and of gender and sexual expres-
  sion—and the more experimental, often the better. Even among these weirdos, 
  though, there’s traditionalists who shy away from the newer, weirder forms of 
  expression and inclusion.
  Here’s a few popular subcultures, but this list is by no means exhaustive.
  • Traditionalists: They believe mostly in the gender binary, but very much 
  welcome any expression of it, including trans expressions.
  • Genderfucks: They want to push gender boundaries in every possible 
  loud way.
  • Body Worshippers: They are open to gender expressions outside the binary, 
  and they want to look as “natural” as possible in their body construction 
  to a particular gender expression, without many modifications.
  • Cyborgs: They use machines and modifications to express gender in ways 
  that were technologically impossible in the past.
  • Artists: They are creating new looks that have never been associated with 
  gender, things that look transhuman or alien in nature.
  There are many more blended races now, and it’s especially accepted to be of 
  many different racial and cultural backgrounds. Most people value the intermin-
  gling of different backgrounds far more than the history and traditions of just one. 
  The more complicated your past, the better! People often have many different 
  racial features indicated in their skin tone, build, and facial structures, and these 
  are modifiable too! Although it’s still taboo to appropriate other people’s racial 
  identities in total, it’s rather accepted to use plastic surgery to add variety and 
  enhance certain features or body parts.
  The advent of advanced prosthetics and robotics has made wheelchairs and other 
  archaic mobility devices obsolete, allowing people to move more freely than before. 
  Many diseases have been cured, though many birth defects have still not been 
  solved. Accidents still happen too, sometimes leaving people with one less limb 
  or eye. Cybernetics can help with a lot of this, as biomechanical parts can modify 
  the human body in ways they simply couldn’t before. While many people still 
  identify as disabled because they need the cybernetics to help them, many others 
  move seamlessly through society without their cybernetics being noticed at all.
  
  8
  FATE: WORLDS OF ADVENTURE
  Baby Shine Bright
  Led by various divas, groups, and individuals from all over the world, the cultural 
  movements of the future are as complex and nuanced as the places they come 
  from. Right now, in the year 2121, trends from one hundred years ago are super 
  popular! All things come back around in fashion, after all.
  With the popularity of meme styles, mixing and remixing sounds and images 
  from the 2000s through the 2020s is a hot trend. Conveniently for your players, 
  they can take current trends from music and fashion and use them in play. An 
  easy way to make current trends futuristic is simply to combine three current 
  genres. This way, they’re familiar and a little easier for the players to describe, but 
  the mix still makes them totally futuristic.
  
  You may notice that these 
  all describe how a character 
  does something, rather than 
  what they’re doing. That’s in-
  tentional. Emotions and moods 
  the swirling maelstrom of your 
  character’s life in Til Dawn. 
  Whatever it is you’re doing, 
  you’ll describe it through 
  the lens of one of these six 
  approaches.
  So your first instinct is proba-
  bly to pick the action that gives 
  you the greatest bonus, right? 
  But it doesn’t work like that. 
  Your approach will depend on 
  how you describe your action, 
  and you can’t describe an 
  action that doesn’t make any 
  sense. Would you Fabulously 
  sneak past a knot of ravenous 
  fans, hoping to avoid notice 
  and get to your waiting car? No, 
  that’s being Dark. Would you 
  Technically shut down a hater 
  with a snide remark? No, that’s 
  being Shady. Circumstances 
  constrain which approaches 
  you can use, so sometimes 
  you’ll have to go with one that 
  doesn’t play to your strengths.
  9
  TIL DAWN
  CHARACTER CREATION
  Time to make DJs for your supersquad!
  Approaches
  One of the main ways Til Dawn defines characters is through approaches, 
  adjectives that describe the different ways a character can approach a situation 
  or problem. Every character has six approaches—Chill, Dark, Fabulous, Fierce, 
  Shady, and Technical.
  • Chill: A chill approach is cold. It can 
  be physically cold or icy in demeanor. 
  It can send a shiver of excitement or 
  anticipation down someone’s spine, or 
  raise goosebumps in fear. Chill can also 
  be relaxed or cool.
  • Dark: A dark approach is heavy with 
  emo goth and punk aesthetics. It could 
  be sad, angry, or brooding. It’s full of 
  shadows, vampires, and dark feelings. It 
  could also be manipulative or, literally, 
  under the cover of darkness.
  • Fabulous: A fabulous approach is when 
  you wanna look or behave or project 
  absolute fabulousness. A fabulous hair 
  toss. A fabulous hip sway. A fabulous 
  beat drop. It’s got flair, grabs attention, 
  and is in some way completely extra.
  • Fierce: A fierce approach is something 
  a queen would have. Regal presence, 
  like a diva or like the claws of a wild 
  animal. Something so gorgeous it’s awe-
  inspiring, with a sense of danger to it.
  • Shady: A shady approach is full of 
  insults. To be shady is to be critical or 
  blunt about something that is obvi-
  ous about someone else, in a kind of 
  insulting or sarcastic way. It can also 
  be funny or cute.
  • Technical: A technical approach is all 
  about the details. It’s about applying 
  knowledge to action. It’s precision. An 
  acute technological process. Something 
  that is known within that art to be by 
  the book.
  
  10
  FATE: WORLDS OF ADVENTURE
  Ranking Your Approaches
  When you make a character, choose one approach at Good (+3), two at Fair (+2), 
  two at Average (+1), and one at Mediocre (+0). Your character’s approaches will 
  help you roleplay them, too—someone absolutely Fabulous will act very differ-
  ently from someone more Dark.
  Whenever you take an action in play, describe what you’re doing, then choose the 
  approach that best matches your description. Add that approach’s bonus to your 
  dice roll to determine how well your character performs the action you described.
  Aspects
  This game has lots of aspects! It’s part of the fun, using as many descriptors for 
  actions, sounds, and fashion as possible. It feels kinda frenetic, music in motion, 
  like futuristic lingo. Feel free to use them wildly.
  Characters in Til Dawn don’t have a high concept or trouble. Instead, they 
  start with these aspects:
  • Your performance
  • Your relationships with the other PCs
  • Your culture
  • Your creativity
  When creating aspects, use the prompting questions in the following sections 
  as a guide! You can look at these questions as you’re trying to come up with 
  meaningful aspects that tie into the setting and scenario.
  GMs, printing out a few of these question lists will be helpful, so everyone 
  can look at them simultaneously. Alternatively, the player can take turns asking 
  each other these questions to prompt a conversation at the table. This is great 
  for brainstorming if someone is slow or stuck or needs some extra inspiration.
  Performance
  Your character has a burning desire to perform and compete in the Planet’s Next 
  DJ Supersquad World Tour, and this drive says something unique about them.
  • Why is it important that you compete?
  • What usually prevents you from performing well?
  • How does your performance epitomize your personality?
  • Who do you owe for getting here?
  • What kind of performer are you?
  • Why do you love performing?
  • What do you love about the audience?
  • Why do you want to be famous?
  Examples: I’m the Best and I’ll Prove It; My Beetle Skin Is Who I Really 
  Am; They’re Gonna Know My Name; My Mom Will Love Me If I’m Famous; 
  Performing Validates My Trans Identity
  
  11
  TIL DAWN
  Relationships
  Create a relationship with each other PC, and write down an aspect representing 
  it. Talk to their player to come up with something that’s satisfying for both of 
  you. It doesn’t have to be a positive relationship, or even a mutual one, but you 
  can’t impose something that makes their player uncomfortable.
  • Who did you hook up with last week?
  • Who do you have a secret crush on?
  • Who do you wish would notice you?
  • Who do you idolize?
  • Who is like a younger sibling to you?
  • Who do you wish you were?
  • Who are you so done with?
  Examples: Smooching Red on the DL; Shiva Makes My Heart Skip a Beat; 
  TomBoye Is Such a Talented Dancer; Galadriel Can Miss Me with His 
  Drama Bullshit
  Culture
  Every character comes from somewhere. Wherever yours is from, their origin 
  informs their personality and their art.
  • Were you considered “normal” in the city you grew up in?
  • What types of people are you attracted to?
  • How did being part of a minority group affect you?
  • Did you have a lot of money?
  • Do you love food? What kind?!
  • Do you still wear fashion from your hometown?
  • Are you proud of where you’re from?
  Examples: I Don’t Belong in My Hometown; Curries Remind Me of Home; 
  In It for My Family; Bling Just Like Harlem
  Creativity
  What is important about your character’s music, style, and performance?
  • What’s so important about expressing yourself in different skins?
  • What styles really inspire you?
  • What music do you derive a lot of your sounds from?
  • Where do you create a lot of your music?
  • What contemporary musician (to the player) are you like?
  • How is your music like your identity?
  Examples: My Long Tentacle Arms Give Me Life; Glitter on Everything; 
  Trip Hop or Die; Lady Gaga but Hindu
  
  12
  FATE: WORLDS OF ADVENTURE
  Squad Name
  Once you’ve made some characters, come up with a DJ squad name! What do 
  y’all call yourselves? What’s your theme? What’s your squad style, even though 
  most of you have individual styles too?
  For the squad style, think Kiss, or Gorillaz, or the Bangles, or Tribe Called 
  Quest, or Shonen Knife. Have an overarching style, but don’t all wear exactly the 
  same thing. That would be gauche.
  DJ Skins
  During performances, your characters will wear various outfits called skins. 
  Imagine the amazing costumes that idols and performers wear on stage now, but, 
  like, robotic and futuristic and emitting emotional, sensational musical video 
  arrays. They can be as simple or outrageous as desired—they could be pants, or 
  they could be a ten-foot-tall rainbow-colored carapace with ten extra functioning 
  bug arms. Ten feet is the maximum size, by the way, DJs.
  Each character gets three skins, each represented by an aspect. The first skin is a 
  squad skin, which embodies your squad’s look and is shared by all the PCs. The 
  other two skins, though, are unique to each performer and may be wildly different.
  Here’s an easy way to make a skin aspect: choose a look, a media style, and 
  an emotion and combine them into something more. For example, you might 
  combine “Dark,” “Complex,” and “Bliss” into Midnight of Blissful Complexity 
  or The Complex Experience of Darkness and Bliss. Or you might take “Sexy,” 
  “Chill,” and “Hope” and write down Sexy Chill Tones of Hope.
  Check out the lists below if you need inspiration, but you can even come up 
  with your own custom skin aspects. Also, feel free to name your skins!
  Look
  What does your skin look like?
  • Goth
  • Colorful
  • Dangerous
  • Playful
  • Sexy
  • Outrageous
  • Kitschy
  Media Style
  What types of sound, light, and video does your skin create?
  • Loud
  • Soft
  • Complex
  • Scratchy
  • Hard
  • Erratic
  • Smooth
  • Vibey
  • Mellow
  Emotion
  What emotions does your skin transmit?
  • Melancholy
  • Hope
  • Rage
  • Longing
  • Excitement
  • Confidence
  • Bliss
  • Lust
  • Safety
  • Hostility
  • Spite
  
  13
  TIL DAWN
  Consequences
  Even though Til Dawn isn’t a game about violent conflicts, there’s still plenty of 
  conflict in the characters’ lives, and more-than-ample opportunities for people 
  to get hurt—if not physically, then in every other way imaginable.
  Characters have three consequences—one mild, one moderate, and one severe—
  but no stress tracks. When something bad happens to a character in Til Dawn, 
  they feel it. It sticks with them. Every lost roll in a conflict changes them and 
  their story.
  DJ Skin Consequences
  DJ skins have consequences too: one mild and one moderate. When you’re attacked 
  in a DJ battle, you can take the hit with your DJ skin instead of you. Your DJ 
  skin is tied into your emotions, though, so when you start to lose confidence, 
  your skin will begin to malfunction. Parts of the skin might break, or it might 
  become duller and less impressive.
  Also, once a skin is dead on stage, it’s dead for the rest of the fight, gorgeous.
  Recovering skin consequences is much like recovering normal ones. Mild skin 
  consequences clear at the end of a DJ battle—it’s just a minor repair, after all—but 
  the moderate skin consequences require a Great (+4) recovery roll, though if you 
  succeed you don’t need to wait until the end of the next session.
  Stunts and Refresh
  Characters start with three free stunts and a refresh of 3.
  If you want to make your own stunts in Til Dawn, make sure they heighten the 
  emotional, cultural, and performative themes! Stunts that hook into DJ battles 
  and social interactions create the coolest and most interactive outcomes.
  
  14
  FATE: WORLDS OF ADVENTURE
  Example Stunts
  Brood Master: You’re excellent at making a show of brooding if someone’s hurt 
  your feelings or you didn’t get what you want. When you use Dark to create a 
  situation aspect related to your sullen mood, you can use a free invocation to 
  make an NPC feel sorry for you and help you get what you want, as long as it 
  doesn’t put them in a tight spot.
  Claws: You literally have animal claw implants that extend or retract depend-
  ing on your mood. When you successfully defend with Fierce by “getting your 
  claws out” and showing disdain for your attacker, you can spend a fate point to 
  immediately deal a 2-shift hit to them.
  Commanding Presence: People know to make way for the queen when you’re 
  around. When you walk through a crowd, you can spend a fate point to make 
  any NPC DJs in the scene roll to overcome with Chill against a difficulty equal 
  to your Fierce rating. For each NPC DJ who fails this roll, you get a boost that 
  goes away at the end of the scene.
  Detail-Oriented: It’s the small things you tend to notice more than anyone else 
  does. Is something missing or out of place, or is someone acting weird? When 
  you enter a new place and take a quick look around, you can roll to create an 
  advantage with Technical against Good (+3) opposition. You can spend the free 
  invocation on this aspect to make the GM reveal one aspect about someone or 
  something (such as the venue) in this scene.
  De-escalation: If things are getting heated, you have a few techniques to calm 
  people down. When you roll overcome using Chill to pacify someone and suc-
  ceed, you can suppress one of their aspects, consequences, or conditions until 
  the end of the scene.
  Diva Heart: No matter what you do, you’ve got the heart of a diva beating in 
  your chest, and sometimes you use that for good. Once per session, when you 
  stand up for someone, you can roll Fabulous without spending an action to try 
  to remove a condition from your relationship with them.
  Epic Gown: There’s just something about this outfit that’s so original and amazing 
  it blows people’s minds. Once per session, you can create an advantage using Fierce 
  to represent your fashion ensemble. Until the end of the scene, you can use a free 
  invocation on the resulting aspect to either shut down a hostile NPC—they can’t 
  even approach you, you’re looking so fierce—or utterly win over a non-hostile 
  NPC—you’re so fierce they can’t keep away.
  Flirty Bitch: When you create an advantage with Shady while flirting with the 
  object of someone else’s affection, you can invoke the resulting situation aspect 
  to create trouble between them. This essentially takes them out of the scene while 
  they argue with one another. When the scene ends, you can spend a fate point to 
  keep both the situation aspect and their argument around. Otherwise, they make 
  up when the scene ends and the situation aspect goes away.
  
  15
  Goth God: A dark soul lies deep in your heart and in the shiny black things you 
  wear on stage. When you win an exchange in a DJ battle using Dark, you get a 
  boost on top of whatever else your roll gets you.
  History Buff: You know the ins and outs of music, performance, and DJ skin 
  technology. Once per session, you can recite one fact about the history of any of 
  these things and it becomes true! When you do, write down an aspect with a free 
  invocation to represent your technical knowledge on the topic.
  Ice Queen: You’re cold. Ice cold. It takes a lot to get inside that castle wall around 
  your heart and actually hurt your feelings. When you create a situation aspect 
  related to your emotional unavailability, you get +1 to defend yourself against 
  criticisms, provocations, or even attempts to get closer to you as long as that 
  aspect remains in play.
  Is That Gucci? You’ve got designer style, and it’s so front-and-center the bling can 
  be seen from the moon. Get +2 whenever you Fabulously create an advantage by 
  showing off your fancy pants.
  Laid Back to the Max: You’re so chill, not much upsets you. When you’re in an 
  argument with someone and concede, you get an extra fate point.
  Let’s Dance: While dancing, you can get a read on someone’s feelings through their 
  physical cues. When you create an advantage while dancing with someone, you can 
  force them to defend against your attempt with the same approach you’re using.
  Robotic: There’s something very robotic about you. You really identify with all 
  the technology, your emotions are somewhat rote much of the time, and you 
  have a pretty strict routine. When someone attacks you or creates an advantage 
  against you, you get +2 to Technically defend against it, as long as they’re not 
  using Technical as well.
  Super Cool: You’re so cool, you’ve got a fan club. When you Fabulously create 
  an advantage by talking to your fan club, get +2 to your roll.
  Super Sly: You’re real observant and can easily hang around people talking without 
  them noticing. When you Shadily listen in on a friend’s convo to create an advan-
  tage, you can create two aspects, one about your friend and one about someone 
  else in the conversation. You don’t get any extra free invocations, though—you 
  have to distribute the ones you earn between the two aspects. If you succeed with 
  style, you can give one free invocation to each aspect or give both invocations 
  to one aspect.
  Throw Down: You’re known for your cutting, hilarious insults, especially when 
  you can make it personal. When you Shadily attack, invoking one of the defender’s 
  aspects gives you a +3 bonus instead of +2.
  Tease: You use your big dark emo puppy eyes to flirt and attract attention. 
  Whenever you’re flirting with someone but turn them down, you immediately 
  learn one of their aspects and get a free invocation of it.
  Vid Beetle: Your beetle DJ skin is the best interactive vid enhancer on the market. 
  Once per DJ battle, you can invoke its aspect for free.
  
  16
  FATE: WORLDS OF ADVENTURE
  CREATING STORIES
  Stories in Til Dawn focus on social conflict, culture reflected through music, and 
  performance, identity, and relationships! When thinking about how to create this 
  setting, GMs, it can help to answer some questions about these themes:
  • What is the nature of the characters’ social conflict?
  • How does this social conflict highlight something important about the 
  character’s identity?
  • How does the music set they’re playing affect the audience and touch on 
  some key points in their culture at that moment?
  • What relationship brings out the best and the worst in the character, and 
  how can you encourage that?
  If you’re asking yourself these questions whenever the characters act, or whenever 
  you create a new NPC, you’ll be a golden child.
  Throughout the rest of this chapter, we’ll give various ways to help you tell Til 
  Dawn stories full of emotion, drama, and culture.
  
  17
  TIL DAWN
  Relationships and Conditions
  Til Dawn features a lot of drama about relationships among people. Each PC 
  has a relationship with every other PC, and the health and well-being of each 
  relationship is represented by three conditions.
  Conditions are prenamed aspects with a negative tinge. The more conditions a 
  relationship has, the worse it is. The three relationship conditions are Awkward, 
  Strained, and Not Speaking.
  How does a relationship get a condition? If you ask the other person for a favor. 
  It’s got to feel pretty meaningful, though. “Hand me the hot sauce” doesn’t count. 
  “Can I borrow your new fav dress?” does. “I need to pretend we’re not together so 
  I can impress this cool guy” really does.
  You’re probably thinking, “Well, can’t I just have my character say ‘yes’ when a 
  friend asks me for a favor?” Absolutely you can, but there’s no drama in that, and 
  drama’s kind of a big deal in Til Dawn (by which we mean it’s the biggest deal).
  The Big Ask
  For this explanation, we’ll call the character doing the asking the “asker” and the 
  person they’re asking the favor of the “friend.” The friend gets a fate point from 
  the GM just for hearing you out.
  First, the asker’s player describes how they’re asking, then rolls to overcome with 
  the most relevant approach. The difficulty of this roll starts at Mediocre (+0), but 
  it can increase in a few ways.
  • Add +1 if the friend’s matching approach has a different rating from 
  yours. Some fundamental differences between your personalities make it a 
  little harder to get your point across. For example, if you’re being Technical 
  and your Technical rating is Good (+3) while your friend’s is Average (+1) 
  (or vice versa), you’d add +1 to the difficulty.
  • If the relationship already has any conditions, increase the difficulty by 
  1 if it’s Awkward, by 2 if it’s Strained, and by 4 if you’re Not Speaking. 
  These are cumulative, so if it’s Awkward and Strained, bump up the 
  difficulty by +3.
  • Add +2 per aspect on the friend that might make granting this favor 
  more unlikely. Your request just rubs them the wrong way, and they’ll 
  have to overcome some intrinsic part of themself to go along with it. For 
  example, if they have the aspect No One Upstages Me, your gentle request 
  to let you take their solo tonight probably won’t go over well.
  
  18
  FATE: WORLDS OF ADVENTURE
  Using Conditions
  If your roll fails, you can give the relationship one or more conditions to grant a 
  bonus to your roll as follows:
  • Taking Awkward gives you +1 to your roll.
  • Taking Strained gives you +2 to your roll.
  • Taking Not Speaking gives you +4 to your roll.
  You can also spend fate points to invoke aspects, as normal.
  Like we said earlier, conditions are aspects, so they can be invoked and compelled 
  against you—either of you. A creative GM could certainly find ways to invoke 
  or compel them against other characters, as well. Every web of friendships gets a 
  little wonky when a strand breaks, after all.
  Aspects are always true, so be sure to reflect relationship conditions in the 
  story, too. Play it up! If you’re Not Speaking with someone, you’re not speaking. 
  “Gem, would you please tell Rainbow to clean up after herself if she’s going to 
  eat in my car? Thanks.”
  Removing Conditions
  How can you mend an ailing relationship? Depends on how bad things are.
  Awkward goes away when the two of you have a few minutes to talk about 
  it, in character.
  Strained sticks around until the two of you have a lengthy talk about it, at 
  least partially in character. After you do, downgrade it to Awkward. If you’re 
  already Awkward, you can’t downgrade Strained.
  Not Speaking takes more significant effort. Because you’re not speaking, you 
  can’t just talk it out. You’ll probably have to communicate through intermediaries 
  and feel each other out for a while. Even then, the eventual conversation between 
  you two is likely to be a tough one. Whoever approaches the other first, you’ll 
  have to roll using an appropriate approach. Set the difficulty of this roll as if you 
  were asking a favor—because in some ways, you are. If things are also Awkward 
  and Strained, this roll will be very difficult indeed!
  • If you succeed, downgrade Not Speaking to Strained, or downgrade it 
  to Awkward if you’re already Strained. If you’re Strained and Awkward 
  already, just remove Not Talking.
  • If you fail, you’re still Not Speaking—but the next time either of you 
  tries to patch things up, you get a +2 to your roll. This bonus increases by 
  +2 per extra attempt, so on the third attempt it’s a +4, on the fourth it’s a 
  +6, etc. You’ll get there eventually!
  Whenever a relationship condition is downgraded or removed, both characters 
  in the relationship get a fate point. Things are normal again, and your friendship 
  is stronger than ever!
  DJ Battles and Relationship Conditions
  Sometimes your relationship with a friend can be strained by a shaky performance! 
  See “DJ Battles” for more on how that can happen.
  
  19
  TIL DAWN
  Focusing on Emotional Challenges
  This setting doesn’t have physical combat at all. At all. So, all of the conflict is social. 
  Rivalries, jealousies, friendships, loves, crushes, and even just simple competi-
  tion to be the best are some of the relationship conflicts that can drive the story. 
  Conflicts between PCs are great! They’re baked into the rules with relationship 
  aspects and favors, ya know.
  This drama also drives interactions with NPCs too, because it reveals weaknesses 
  in the PCs for NPCs to poke at. Imagine your favorite reality competition show 
  and the conflicts that those people have. Imagine an awkward family dinner, but 
  instead of being at a table you’re all on a tour bus. Remember all the tumultuous, 
  passionate relationships you’ve had and the things that made them dramatic and 
  passionate. Think of your favorite Gilmore Girls episode. Now, drop that on some 
  DJ characters in the future!
  You’ll want to create some conflicts that can last many sessions and run through 
  many venues, and some that will be done in one session and in one venue. Here 
  are some ideas:
  • Miscommunication
  • Hidden agendas
  • Jealousy
  • Musical competition
  • Heightened emotions
  • Making something big out of something small
  • Popularity contests
  • Bullying
  • Fallout from false media coverage
  • Love triangles
  Including Culture
  Culture is what makes this weird futuristic world of music festivals and reality 
  media feel more real. The more setting and surroundings the GM can include, the 
  more the players will feel grounded in the world. We don’t include an expansive 
  description of the setting with every single object and ritual detailed. Instead, 
  here’s a trick for creating a future culture—just add about three vibrant features.
  You could draw from the costume of the people on the street, the color of 
  their skin, or what most of them are doing. Contrast what the festival-goers are 
  wearing with what the local people the next town over are wearing. Consider the 
  smells in the air, the flora and fauna, how flat or hilly the land is. How do the 
  doors open here? How is it all different from the place the PCs were last session?
  Some other great details you could include are everyday things like food and 
  drink, what kinds of pets people have, and what the air smells like. You can flesh 
  out the people who live there with broader things like how people get around the 
  city, language barriers (even just misunderstanding accents or localisms), differ-
  ent neighborhoods, and what races are represented there and in what percentage. 
  Other details about the city—like what industry flourishes there, local topography, 
  and how the environment influences fashion—could help demonstrate what is 
  motivating the NPCs.
  
  20
  FATE: WORLDS OF ADVENTURE
  Once it feels like you’ve got a good list of things, future it up. Add vehicles 
  that would only exist one hundred years from now. Consider extreme weather 
  outside of a bubble city. What future fabrics exist to enhance people’s clothing, 
  shoes, or sunglasses? What traditions stuck around from a hundred years previous?
  Think about these in each area, and the GM can make a list of things that might 
  be fun or compelling to include. Things that are different and that stand out.
  You can include these details when framing scenes and when the PCs visiting 
  places outside the festival grounds or interact with locals.
  Depicting Cultures
  Til Dawn is a global game, emphasizing play outside of Western and US concepts, 
  but remember to be culturally sensitive as much as you can, since you’re basing 
  places and characters on real people in the world, living their lives in real places. 
  When roleplaying a character of a different culture or race, it’s easy to fall into 
  using tropes and stereotypes, but this won’t help you gain empathy for the culture 
  and might even alienate them further. It’s difficult to make cultures—they’re 
  complex things! But don’t let the complexity hold you back.
  Here are some simple steps to follow when depicting cultures outside your own:
  • Treat the culture with respect—do five minutes of googling to see what 
  might be normal there. Wikipedia is a pretty good resource for demograph-
  ics and brief summaries of countries and cities.
  • Familiarize yourself with some common tropes—tvtropes.com is a good 
  place to start!
  • Don’t use accents, since it’s easy to exotify or make fun of people with them.
  Don’t be afraid to speak up if a portrayal makes you feel uncomfortable. If 
  anyone makes a mistake, it’s easy to say “Oops! Sorry!” and change the idea or detail.
  Advancement
  Advancement works as in Fate Accelerated, with milestones happening at these times:
  • Minor Milestone: At the end of a session
  • Significant Milestone: At the end of a venue
  • Major Milestone: At the end of three venues
  
  21
  TIL DAWN
  STRUCTURING SESSIONS
  Romance, social conflict, and emo drama are 
  what drive the action in Til Dawn. Generally, 
  you’ll want to structure a session so there’s one 
  or two encounters with big NPCs, have a few 
  individual scenes, and then amp it with a DJ 
  battle. The battle will metaphorically resolve the 
  situation, even if it causes even more sadness and 
  emo-ness. After the battle, run a debrief scene to 
  process any emotions about what just happened.
  Try to have a few big planned encounters in 
  mind, conflicts between the squad and another 
  group or squad. That one’s easy since it’s so obvi-
  ous, of course they’re who the PCs are going 
  to have a conflict with because…they have to 
  compete! The shape of that conflict can change: 
  Maybe they’re not super antagonistic until the 
  PCs egg them on. Maybe they’re friends or family 
  that the PCs now have to go up against! The big 
  drama that’ll be the focus of the session could 
  have one of many causes, and you’ll want to make 
  that cause a centerpoint.
  Once you have a big encounter or two down, 
  consider tinier scenes that might involve con-
  flicts or conversations between individual PCs 
  and NPCs. Sometimes it’s great to just have the 
  conversations or conflict arise. Their relation-
  ships can take stress and grow in these situations. 
  Try to pace a session so that there’s a bunch of 
  emotional encounters throughout the weekend 
  of the festival that lead up to a conflict on stage.
  Think about each session as being an episode 
  of the broadcasted show of the tour that’s hap-
  pening in the current venue. The episode might 
  drift into another session, and that’s okay, but 
  this basic structure will help you frame scenes 
  and get ideas for what could happen next.
  GMs, you can use the session structure below as 
  a tool to guide the players through the story. Use 
  it as a guide, not a hard and fast rule! Structuring 
  sessions in this way also gives the players a way 
  to prepare for later scenes, since they will know 
  what’s coming, so it gives them more agency! 
  This is great news for the GM—less work to do!
  
  22
  FATE: WORLDS OF ADVENTURE
  Scene 1: One-on-One Confessionals
  A one-on-one confessional with the media takes place with a character talking 
  to a camera privately. Players, you can get into character or monologue a bit 
  about what your character might do or feel going into the session. The first one 
  of these might be a little awkward as you get into your character, but that’s okay! 
  You can also call for a short confessional to express feelings at any other time 
  during the session.
  GMs, you can use a confessional to prompt the players to reveal things about 
  their characters or highlight parts of their background that will come to light 
  during this session.
  LowRez faces the camera, without their characteristic makeup and 
  costuming. A digital screen moves behind them, showing a fanciful 
  image of VHS glitches and cgi clouds.
  GM: “So tell the camera a quick summary about you and why you’re 
  here. Hook the audience.”
  LowRez’s player looks over their character sheet and decides to high-
  light their DJ skin aspects, which boil down to translating old media to 
  a new audience in a sarcastic, self-referential, queen-bitch type of way.
  LowRez: “Hey, I’m LowRez, cause I’m not fully rendered and I’m a real 
  glitch. I’m here to, like, challenge your perceptions of deadmedia and 
  remix some familiar memes for you. Get ready to experience…newstalgia.”
  
  23
  TIL DAWN
  Scene 2: In and Around the Arena
  This scene can happen any time during the festival when characters aren’t per-
  forming. A festival runs from Wednesday to Monday for the performers, and 
  they have to be there to set up early and then potentially play multiple times 
  during the weekend. It could be when they’re setting up, during the day at other 
  performances, or out and about in the city for a brief romp away from the festival.
  Use these scenes to highlight the local culture outside of the venue, or to point 
  out even cooler things about the venue. Bring the setting to life! This scene is also 
  great for developing relationships among the PCs and NPCs, since it’s when they’ll 
  have the most chances to interact. Great possibilities for emo drama all around!
  LowRez and Paganz are grabbing Thai tea at a local café just outside 
  their venue.
  LowRez: “I dunno, I feel pretty anxious about performing tonight. Maybe 
  it’s just this venue? I’m not really sure how, like, Indonesians feel about 
  old technology, or like, if they’ll get it, y’know.”
  Paganz: “I’m sure Indonesians have a similar relationship to tech as 
  we do, Low. I mean, we wouldn’t be performing here if they didn’t 
  want us here.”
  Their social tech devices start beeping with notifications. Their convo 
  has gone viral in just a few minutes. Looking at the angle it was filmed 
  from, they spot its origin—a few local festival kids a couple tables over 
  took the vid. LowRez confronts them.
  LowRez: “Whoa, wtf? Why’d you post that? That was personal.”
  Kid: “Not when you’re talking about my hometown culture it’s not. 
  C’mon, that was a little backwards.”
  This conversation could lead into social conflict or more roleplaying, 
  depending on the players’ tastes.
  Scene 3: Green Room Prep
  The green room is where bands traditionally wait and prep before they go on stage. 
  Here, the squad members can put on makeup, psych each other up, chat and 
  gossip, or let loose with some interpersonal drama before they go on stage to play.
  Players, in this scene you’ll each pick out which skin you’ll wear for the DJ 
  battle! You can wear either your squad skin or one of your own skins, and you 
  can describe what tweaks you’ve made to it just for this performance, and exactly 
  what else you’re wearing with it. This is where you can really get into your look 
  and identity! Once you go on stage, you won’t be able to switch your skin out, 
  so pick carefully.
  
  24
  FATE: WORLDS OF ADVENTURE
  LowRez and their squad are getting ready in their green room—a trailer 
  right next to the outdoor stage. LowRez is fretting about what to wear.
  LowRez: “Really, though, all those comments on the vid of me that went 
  viral have me really stressin’! Should I wear something, like, completely 
  outrageous to be, like, fuck your opinions I’m woke, or should I just do 
  something recognizable?”
  LowRez’s player says, “LowRez gestures to one DJ skin that’s the same 
  shape and size as they are, but with parallel chunks of the body split-
  ting off to the left and right as though it were a VHS glitch come to 
  life. Then they gesture to the other skin, causing the blank boy suit to 
  come to life, with many political memes moving as though they were 
  digitally projected on and around it.”
  Paganz: “I dunno, follow your heart! They’re both lovely like you.”
  Scene 4: DJ Battle
  The performance! At this point the squad will battle against a rival squad on stage, 
  generally on the other side of the audience. You’ll find all the details of DJ battles 
  starting on page 30.
  Scene 5: Debrief
  Players, in this scene you can roleplay any kind of drama or fallout from what 
  happened on stage. Let out those feels and be a total drama queen! Are you ignor-
  ing your best friend? Do you hook up with the roadie who’s been flirting with 
  you all this time? Work it out!
  MASSIVE leaves the stage, and LowRez is suddenly getting tons of 
  media attention, with a swarm of small press and fans surrounding 
  them. Paganz is pretty off-put, knowing that really it has nothing to 
  do with LowRez’s performance and all about the scandal from earlier.
  Paganz approaches LowRez with a snarky frown and attacks with 
  Shady: “Hey Low, I’d like to see your actual 3D projections cause a 
  scandal this popular.”
  LowRez, still surrounded by media, defends with Chill: “You’re just 
  jealous I’ve got actual opinions.”
  Scene 6: One-on-One Confessional
  End the session the way you started it, with another confessional with the media. 
  They’ll want to know how you’re feeling after your recent loss or defeat, who you’re 
  dating now, what you thought of this venue, that kind of stuff.
  
  25
  TIL DAWN
  CREATING NON-PLAYER CHARACTERS
  When creating characters for the PCs to encounter, there’s a lot of options! Imagine 
  who would be at the music festivals and why. You might think of one or two 
  minor characters to add into the town should the PCs venture out, but they can 
  always run into festival NPCs outside of the festival grounds too.
  Don’t forget to create NPCs that embody the antithesis of the characters’ 
  identities and creative spirits. Those are typically the things GMs will want to 
  help the players highlight in this game! Think about how you can make a PC’s 
  weird obsession with historical jams shine through an NPC’s hatred of history.
  Start with the people who will be on tour, who might be with the PCs through 
  the campaign! The interesting thing about the other DJ squads in play is that how 
  long they’re there depends on when you insert them into the story. GMs, you 
  don’t have to create all the DJ squads before starting a session—you can reveal 
  them during play to make your job easier. If the PCs lose, they might be still in 
  the top three based on ranking. Find a way to keep them in the game even though 
  they may have lost the battle.
  In this section, you’ll find rules for making stats for DJs. Normally, other NPCs 
  won’t need stat blocks or rules, but ones that become important to the players 
  should get a couple of aspects to help further define them. Sometimes a “fan” or 
  a critic with an axe to grind will become a genuine antagonist during the story, 
  in which case they should be defined as if they were an NPC DJ.
  
  26
  FATE: WORLDS OF ADVENTURE
  DJs
  These are probably the most important NPCs your players are likely to face, and 
  you’re going to need a lot of them! Lucky for you, they’re easy to make.
  1. Choose three approaches. Rate one at Good (+3), one at Fair (+2), and 
  one at Average (+1).
  2. Give them two aspects.
  3. Name them.
  4. That’s it.
  5. It’s really only two or three steps, honestly.
  DJ Squads
  Making NPC DJ squads requires a bit of finesse! Before throwing one into a session, 
  think about what the group might look like. They’ve got a style, an agenda, and 
  a feeling. What they look like will provide a lot of the color for the session they’ll 
  appear in. If they are playful and colorful, the session might be more lighthearted. 
  If they’re dark and deceptive, there might be more sneaking around and sad feels.
  An NPC squad is the emotional opposite of the PC squad, bringing out the 
  insecurities and personalities of the PCs. Look at the big emotions that the play-
  ers chose for their skins, and create NPC squads that represent the opposites of 
  those emotions. There’s likely a bunch of different emotions to cover here, and 
  that’s okay!
  See if any patterns emerge in the NPC squad’s opposing emotions—things 
  like Cutesy and Immature or Aggressive and Loud. It’s easier to stick to a big 
  theme at first. If the NPC squad sticks around, you can develop and complicate 
  them further.
  Also, try to connect the feeling of the NPC DJ squad with the feeling of the 
  current city. They could be polar opposite aesthetic to the venue or match it 
  pitch-perfect—both are valid choices.
  
  27
  TIL DAWN
  Making a Squad
  First, choose or make NPC DJs equal in number to the players. A well-rounded 
  DJ squad is more of a challenge to face, but one with a glaring weakness in one 
  or two approaches can make for some surprises during a DJ battle.
  SQUAD APPROACHES
  As the competition goes on, say in the latter two-thirds, give all NPC DJs a small 
  bonus (+1 or +2) to their approaches. There’s a reason they got this far in the 
  first place, and besides, DJ battles are the most dramatic when the odds aren’t 
  in your favor.
  SQUAD CONSEQUENCES
  Give the squad a pool of consequence slots. As it gets later in the competition, 
  add more and more powerful consequence slots to the pool.
  • At the start, an NPC DJ squad has mild consequences equal in number 
  to its DJs. In the early battles of the competition—the first third or so—a 
  DJ squad’s consequence pool is limited to this.
  • In the middle, add moderate consequences equal in number to half the 
  DJs in the squad, rounded up.
  • Near the end, double the number of mild consequences in the pool.
  GMs, when a DJ in the NPC DJ squad loses an exchange during a DJ battle, 
  you have a choice: fill in one or more of the squad’s consequences to deal with 
  the hit and save the DJ from being taken out, or let the hit go through and take 
  out the NPC in question, removing them from the competition.
  SQUAD PRESENTATION AND NAME
  Figure out what they look like and how they present themselves, and give them 
  a name! That’s it! See? DJ squads are almost as easy to make as DJs.
  Fans
  Fans are more or less around to add drama. They’re always around, they’re always 
  watching, and they’re probably obsessed with the PCs—in good and bad ways! A 
  fan could have amazing connections that could get the PCs a better spot in the 
  competition, better representation from a media corp, or even upgraded tech for 
  their performance. Fans could also present social strengths, providing comfort, 
  love, or support to a PC in need. Or a PC could find themself with a problematic 
  fan, someone who might want to harm them or their reputation.
  Fans are interesting because they let you explore the power dynamics between 
  stars and fans. How will the PCs treat them, and how will it reflect on them in 
  the media? Players, you’ll want to be wary to not abuse that power dynamic in 
  problematic ways—for example, think about fans who are minorities and how 
  that could easily turn into a trope.
  
  28
  FATE: WORLDS OF ADVENTURE
  Media
  The media reps in Til Dawn are a pretty big deal as far as NPCs go! GMs, you’ll 
  want to create the names of the media companies that are covering the festival, what 
  type of media they represent, and what their basic agendas are. Instead of fleshing 
  out the companies, though, just come up with the NPC rep and attach a media 
  company to them. The style of the NPC can represent the style of the company.
  These NPCs are great to detail for a few reasons. The PCs will be interacting 
  with the media quite a bit, and who they choose to interact with could create 
  different types of drama and scenes. For example, they might choose the hyper-
  corporate mainstream media rep, or the alternative-styled one, because they want 
  to be known by that audience and grow their fanbase. Manipulating the media 
  could even create advantages for the PCs!
  When creating media reps, think of the Stephen Colberts, Adam Levines, Ellens, 
  and RuPauls of the world. They could be a show host, or a reporter, or maybe on 
  a panel of judges for a popular show critiquing a livestream. Or perhaps they’re a 
  reality show critic, a virtual fan club expert, or a skin style enthusiast rep.
  
  29
  TIL DAWN
  Groupies and Roadies
  The DJ squad might acquire some hangers-on as they grow in fame and glory 
  throughout the competition. These people might be friends who knew them from 
  before, family who want to get in on the opportunity, or fans who’ve become 
  trusted over time.
  Groupies are people who tag along for the fun of the tour, and become like a 
  road family. They party after a successful (or unsuccessful!) set, provide moral sup-
  port, and maybe mooch off the experience and riches of the DJ squad. Groupies 
  could be anyone, really, and there’s a lot of room for creativity in where these 
  characters come from and what they look like. It’s an opportunity to show off a 
  culture that the PCs haven’t visited, maybe something really radical and strange! 
  Or they could be really normal and everyday, a contrast to the wild world of DJ 
  squads and the competition. Some variety here is great. Mechanically these NPCs 
  could provide PCs bonuses or advantages, or help them out in a stitch.
  Roadies are more like techs who help set up the stage and keep the tour hover 
  van working. Technically the DJ squad doesn’t need roadies, because they can do 
  all the tech themselves, but if they want to create really elaborate stages or cos-
  tumes, roadies could help. Roadies are technically savvy, so they might be fashion 
  designers, sound nerds, festival artists, hackers, or sensation junkies.
  Locals
  The locals represent the actual place in the world the venue is located. Outside 
  of the bubble of the music festival is this whole town with a history and culture! 
  Think of representatives of this culture and interesting ways they could interact 
  with the PCs to bring that culture to life. Hardly any culture is a monoculture—
  show some variety, maybe two NPCs with opposite opinions or styles, one very 
  traditional and one very contemporary, for example!
  Locals who might be wandering around outside the music festival could be 
  from any walks of life. Business-owners, food-truck workers, kids on the street, 
  photographers, tourists, random people running errands or taking a stroll. Use 
  them to bring out the local feel some more!
  Think about what kinds of encounters with local NPCs might be the most 
  relevant to the story. What will highlight a character’s mood, or heal it somehow, 
  or cause more drama if needed?
  
  30
  FATE: WORLDS OF ADVENTURE
  DJ BATTLES
  A DJ battle isn’t something where DJs do any kind of physical harm to one 
  another. It’s more like a rap battle or a dance-off, where each squad is trying to 
  outperform the other. DJ squads battle with their looks, their music, their video 
  and audio projections, and their creativity and charisma.
  The two squads, one PC and one NPC, are on opposite stages—though this 
  can look different depending on the venue. Each member of each squad will take 
  a turn battling, like in a physical fight, only instead of kicking and punching, 
  they’re dancing and mixing. Really, it’s up to the GM and players how to describe 
  the battle narratively. Think of all the live concerts and rap battles and dance-offs 
  and kung-fu fights you’ve ever seen, and combine them to create the DJ battle!
  Squad Ranking
  At each venue, one DJ squad is pitted against another in a numerical ranking. 
  GMs, you can randomly assign the rankings or ask the players where they’d like 
  to be in the ranking. Have about as many DJ squads in the ranking as the number 
  of venues the group would like to play!
  As a result of a DJ battle, the DJ squads move up and down in the ranking. 
  Squads don’t get eliminated from the competition, though, unless something 
  really dramatic happens. This lets PCs and NPCs to remain in the story, but still 
  allows for some competition. Half of the tension is in moving up and down the 
  rankings, and sometimes losing in a story is fun!
  At the end of the competition, the highest-ranking DJ squad is the winner, but 
  maybe other things become more important for the PCs than winning—who 
  knows?
  
  31
  TIL DAWN
  Running a DJ Battle
  DJ battles use the venue’s map of approaches and columns to chart the audience’s 
  reactions. You’ll need some kind of token for this—a small coin or die works, but 
  if you’ve got something funkier, feel free to use it. We call this the crowd token. 
  The closer it is to your squad on the map (page 32), the more they like you. 
  At the start of the show, they’re unbiased (usually).
  At the start of the DJ battle, the higher-ranked squad chooses an approach. Place 
  the crowd token on the venue map in the row matching the chosen approach, 
  in the middle column.
  To conduct a DJ battle, follow these steps:
  1. Each squad chooses a DJ to perform with the current approach. Those DJs 
  describe what the performance looks and sounds like, then both roll the dice.
  2. The DJ who gets the higher result moves the token one column toward 
  their stage, then deals a hit to the opposing DJ, as if it were an attack.
  • If it’s a success with style, the winning DJ also gains a boost.
  • If it’s a tie, both performing DJs gain a boost and then roll again. The 
  crowd wants more from you two!
  Winning Over the Audience
  The first squad to earn 10 victory points wins the DJ battle! You can earn victory 
  points in these ways:
  • When you win an exchange, your squad earns 1 point. If winning that 
  exchange moved the crowd token adjacent to your squad’s stage, your 
  squad earns 2 points instead.
  • When you take out an opposing DJ, your squad earns 1 point.
  Also, if you take out all of the opposing DJ squad, or if they concede, you win 
  the DJ battle.
  Remember, players can take relationship conditions, in addition to 
  consequences, to mitigate hits during the battle. Maybe the DJ before 
  you set you up poorly for your performance, or upstaged you somehow.
  
  32
  FATE: WORLDS OF ADVENTURE
  Changing the Mood
  As the DJs play on stage, they might bring the audience over to their side.
  If a DJ’s performance moves the token to a column in their squad’s favor, the 
  squad can stick with the current approach, or pick a different DJ and approach.
  If they pick a new approach but the token is still in any middle column, the 
  new DJ is wrenching the music from one mood to another prematurely, and the 
  crowd isn’t quite ready for it. The DJ’s squad must pay one fate point per row of 
  difference. Technical and Dark are considered adjacent, so you can “loop” from 
  the top to the bottom (and vice versa). Any DJs on the squad can pay this cost. 
  For example, making a sudden change from Shady to Chill would cost two fate 
  points, paid by one or two DJs.
  If the token reaches the column adjacent to a squad’s stage, they have the crowd 
  in the palm of their hand. That squad must choose a new DJ and approach. Put 
  the crowd token back in the center column of the new approach.
  In this case, the approach change costs one less fate point. So here, if the new 
  approach is in an adjacent row, the music flows smoothly from one mood to the 
  next, and there is no fate point cost.
  If it’s not adjacent, the crowd doesn’t like the jarring change in mood. The squad 
  of the DJ who chose the new approach must pay the discounted rate of one fate 
  point if it’s two rows away, or two fate points if it’s three rows away. 
  Any DJs on the squad can pay this cost. For example, if the new DJ suddenly 
  takes the vibe from Fabulous to Dark, one or two DJs on their squad will have 
  to pay a total of two fate points between them, but if they go from Fabulous to 
  Shady, there’s no fate point cost.
  Once the new approach is set, the two DJs start a new round and roll as 
  described on page 31.
  Squad A
  Squad B
  Technical
  Chill
  Fabulous
  Shady
  Fierce
  Dark
  Technical
  Chill
  Fabulous
  Shady
  Fierce
  Dark
  Technical
  Chill
  Fabulous
  Shady
  Fierce
  Dark
  Technical
  Chill
  Fabulous
  Shady
  Fierce
  Dark
  Technical
  Chill
  Fabulous
  Shady
  Fierce
  Dark
  map
  
  33
  TIL DAWN
  Battle Example
  Tonight, four DJs have decided to square off against each other in order to settle 
  a score. They’re on the multilevel stages that ring the ancient Buddhist temple 
  Borobudur.
  Sasha Velvet and Le Rogue are up against Stella Clementine and Wolfe. Sasha 
  is in her best Creature from the Blue Lagoon skin except more fabulous and 
  femme, and Le Rogue has dressed to match, looking like some kind of demon 
  from a Bosch painting. Opposite them on the ring stage are Stella and Wolfe, 
  looking fierce. Stella is in all green mimicking the local floral patterns, and Wolfe 
  is a full-on human with a tiger head. They stand opposite each other, waiting for 
  the lights to come on and their battle to begin. Gorgeous 360-degree lighting 
  highlights Sasha and Le Rogue as they begin to play.
  ROUND 1
  Squad A is ranked higher than squad B, so they go first.
  • Sasha picks Dark, which is Good (+3), and rolls -1, for a total of Fair (+2). 
  She spends one of her three fate points to invoke Genuinely Nightmarish 
  Looks to reroll and gets a +2, so her total is now Great (+4).
  • Wolfe rolls +3 and adds her Average (+1) Dark for a total of +4. She spends 
  a fate point to invoke Won’t Hesitate to Prove Her Superiority to 
  add +2, for a total of +6.
  • Wolfe wins the roll by 2 shifts. Sasha takes a mild consequence of Sweating.
  • Squad B wins the exchange and moves the crowd token one column toward 
  their stage, earning 1 victory point.
  Sasha starts with an impressive lead, creeping around in her Lagoon digs and 
  sending ambient swamp sounds out into the audience. She’s not scary enough, 
  however, because Wolfe swoops in with primal growls and a vid projection of 
  a tiger walking through the audience—both thrilling and fun! The crowd loves 
  it, much to Sasha’s chagrin, and she starts sweating beneath her fishy DJ skin.
  Squad A
  Squad B
  Technical
  Chill
  Fabulous
  Shady
  Fierce
  Dark
  Technical
  Chill
  Fabulous
  Shady
  Fierce
  Dark
  Technical
  Chill
  Fabulous
  Shady
  Fierce
  Dark
  Technical
  Chill
  Fabulous
  Shady
  Fierce
  Dark
  Technical
  Chill
  Fabulous
  Shady
  Fierce
  Dark
  VP
  
  34
  FATE: WORLDS OF ADVENTURE
  ROUND 2
  • Sasha rolls -2, spends a fate point to invoke the venue aspect Remnants 
  of Ancient Spirituality for a reroll, and gets a -1 instead. Her total is 
  Fair (+2).
  • Wolfe rolls +1 and adds her Average (+1) Dark for a total of Fair (+2), then 
  invokes Sasha’s Sweating consequence for free to bring it up to Great (+4).
  • Wolfe wins the roll by 2 shifts. Sasha chooses to take the hit with her DJ 
  skin, giving it a mild consequence of Glitching.
  • Squad B wins the exchange, and moves the crowd token another column 
  toward them. That’s enough to put it adjacent to their stage, which earns 
  them two victory points.
  Still skulking in her dark lagoon, Sasha begins to mix in more sounds that 
  are local to the temple—bells, ancient Buddhist chants—and a dark vibe beat. 
  Wolfe’s tiger aesthetics are amped up to the max, a thunderous growl of lyrics 
  and a cacophony of wild forest sounds amid tribal drums. Wolfe knows she’s won 
  when Sasha’s sounds get a little glitchy and the crowd turns toward the tiger stage, 
  dancing like they’re a bunch of tigers themselves. She smiles with long fangs, and 
  the crowd goes wild.
  Squad A
  Squad B
  Technical
  Chill
  Fabulous
  Shady
  Fierce
  Dark
  Technical
  Chill
  Fabulous
  Shady
  Fierce
  Dark
  Technical
  Chill
  Fabulous
  Shady
  Fierce
  Dark
  Technical
  Chill
  Fabulous
  Shady
  Fierce
  Dark
  Technical
  Chill
  Fabulous
  Shady
  Fierce
  Dark
  VP
  VP
  VP
  
  35
  TIL DAWN
  ROUND 3
  • Now it’s squad B’s turn to pick an approach, because they managed to get 
  the crowd token adjacent to their stage.
  • Stella Clementine steps up and chooses Technical, one of the two approaches 
  next to Dark, and places the token in the middle column of that row.
  • Squad A chooses Le Rogue to defend.
  • Stella rolls -3, spends a fate point to invoke her aspect of Finely Tuned 
  Historical Fashion Sense to reroll, and gets +0. Adding her Fair (+2) 
  Technical gives her a total of Fair (+2).
  • Le Rogue rolls -1 and adds their Average (+1) Technical for a total of 
  Mediocre (+0). They invoke More Art Degrees than You for +2, for 
  a total of Fair (+2).
  • It’s a tie, so each DJ gets a boost, and neither DJ takes a consequence.
  Stella riffs off Wolfe’s successful tigress performance and starts adding in her 
  own sounds, stuff that’s more feminine and full of retro 1950s lady singers. 
  Psychedelic flowers project into the arena from her gorgeous dress, adding a 
  delicate feel to the wild tiger. Le Rogue stands firmly in opposition to her, their 
  Bosch demonesque dance seeking to turn the flowers into a slasher film, playing 
  old sound bites of scream queens from Hitchcock movies. Oddly, the styles seem 
  to mesh in this retro housewife horror movie kind of way, and the audience digs 
  both their performances equally.
  Squad A
  Squad B
  Technical
  Chill
  Fabulous
  Shady
  Fierce
  Dark
  Technical
  Chill
  Fabulous
  Shady
  Fierce
  Dark
  Technical
  Chill
  Fabulous
  Shady
  Fierce
  Dark
  Technical
  Chill
  Fabulous
  Shady
  Fierce
  Dark
  Technical
  Chill
  Fabulous
  Shady
  Fierce
  Dark
  VP
  VP
  VP
  
  36
  FATE: WORLDS OF ADVENTURE
  ROUND 4
  • Stella rolls +2 and adds her Fair (+2) Technical for a total of Great (+4), 
  then invokes her boost to make it Fantastic (+6).
  • Le Rogue rolls +0 and invokes their boost to reroll. The reroll’s also a +0, 
  though, so with their Average (+1) Technical, their total is only Average (+1). 
  Le Rogue only has one fate point remaining and is reluctant to spend it here.
  • Le Rogue’s about to take a 5-shift hit. They mark their Awkward condi-
  tion with Sasha, blaming her for setting them up poorly, which absorbs 1 
  shift, then they absorb the other 4 shifts by taking a moderate consequence, 
  Rapidly Dwindling Confidence.
  • Squad A wins the exchange and moves the crowd token one column toward 
  their stage, earning 1 victory point.
  • Because Stella succeeded with style, she gets a boost.
  Stella doesn’t hesitate a beat with that horror vibe, and redirects it into some 
  creepy jungle feels and primal sounds, and her projections turn into palm-leaf 
  shadows. It’s gorgeous. Le Rogue, caught off guard, rushes to create the illusion of 
  demons in the forest, but the images aren’t defined well enough so they get lost in 
  the arena’s lighting. Le Rogue has never had a visual fail quite like this before and 
  feels rather awkward and at a loss. The jungle vibes are now moving into a retro 
  jungle techno beat, and Stella’s imagery wows the crowd, making her the clear 
  victor for this round. Stella and Wolfe pose together fiercely as the crowd goes wild.
  Squad A
  Squad B
  Technical
  Chill
  Fabulous
  Shady
  Fierce
  Dark
  Technical
  Chill
  Fabulous
  Shady
  Fierce
  Dark
  Technical
  Chill
  Fabulous
  Shady
  Fierce
  Dark
  Technical
  Chill
  Fabulous
  Shady
  Fierce
  Dark
  Technical
  Chill
  Fabulous
  Shady
  Fierce
  Dark
  VP
  VP
  VP
  VP
  
  37
  TIL DAWN
  VENUES
  The venues in the setting are all over the world to enhance the feeling of a futur-
  istic global community. Each one mixes a location from our current year in real 
  life with complicated race or identity politics and some kind of clean futuristic 
  aesthetic. The intent here is to highlight the culture and architecture and how 
  these will affect the competition. The culture will inform the types of NPCs at 
  that venue as well as its details. Where are they, and what do they care about at 
  this venue? Take this opportunity to bring in some local flavor and episodic NPCs.
  You’ll find more discussion about this in “Depicting Cultures” (page 20).
  Each venue has these parts:
  • Two aspects reflecting what makes this venue distinctive—its architecture, 
  its history, the local culture, the character of the audience, or anything 
  that sets the venue apart from the rest.
  • A venue map. It can be as simple or decorative as you wish, but it must 
  show two distinct performance stages with the audience in the middle. The 
  audience is represented by a grid with six rows and, usually, five or seven 
  columns (see page 32). The more columns, the tougher the crowd. Each 
  row corresponds to an approach—from top to bottom: Technical, Chill, 
  Fabulous, Shady, Fierce, and Dark. In a DJ battle, this map tracks the two 
  squads’ efforts to win the crowd over to their side (literally and figuratively).
  • A few notable locations, like dressing rooms, a box office, and so on. 
  Don’t assume the players will know what’s there. Indicate them on the 
  map. Include these details not just to give the players a sense of their sur-
  roundings, but to make the scene more vibrant and alive, and to give them 
  hooks for scenes before and after the battle.
  • Two or three faces—important NPCs, like a stage manager, the owner, 
  a journalist, or a rival DJ. Generally speaking, people the DJs will likely 
  run into who have some strong connection to the venue.
  • A few cultural touchstones that set this venue apart from most others, 
  simply by virtue of where it’s located and the people who’ve made it what 
  it is.
  Some venues also have a venue stunt, which makes it easier or harder to take 
  certain actions or use certain strategies in DJ battles at that venue. Here are some 
  examples:
  • Paint It Black: This crowd likes it dark and brooding. Whenever a successful 
  Fabulous roll would score victory points, it scores one less victory point.
  • Hometown Favorite: The opposing squad is local. They start the DJ battle 
  with 1 victory point, and during the DJ battle they treat all ties as successes.
  • You Better Work: When a squad wins an exchange in the DJ battle, they 
  can move the crowd token to Fierce or Shady, in addition to moving the 
  token toward their stage.
  
  38
  FATE: WORLDS OF ADVENTURE
  Cape Town Megaplex
  A hub of mixed musical influence for the past hundred years, this amphitheater 
  emphasizes local noise and retro-millennia culture. It captures the feel of an urban, 
  Die Antwood–style South Africa rife with colonialism while attempting to speak 
  to a dirtier cyberpunk feel. The megaplex re-creates a giant mall from the turn 
  of the 21st century, but attached to a huge arena with multiple stages, and the 
  whole place has a chrome-and-graffiti warehouse feel.
  Aspects: Chrome and Graffiti; Retro-Millennial Cyberpunk Atmosphere
  Venue Stunt: By making a reference to retro millennial music or culture, you get 
  +2 to Technical in the DJ Battle.
  Notable Locations
  • Mall converted into a skatepark 
  so you can skate while listening 
  to the performing DJs
  • Multiple split stages like an 
  indoor festival
  • Public graffiti areas
  • Ledges built above the mall to 
  give the best views of all stages
  • Pavilion of retro mall-food 
  vendors
  • Rent-a-drone store
  Cultural Touchstones
  • Complicated street slang
  • Oceanside with surfing
  • A history of European colonial-
  ism and taking back their local 
  culture
  • Acceptance of mixed heritage
  • Gorgeous greens mixed with 
  dirty city
  • Building facades painted with 
  bright colors
  • Curry, Afrikaan, and Dutch 
  foods
  Sadie
  ASPECTS
  Rad Surfer Style; Access to 
  Huge Audience
  APPROACHES
  Fabulous: Good (+3)
  Fierce: Fair (+2)
  Technical: Fair (+2)
  NOTES
  Surfer and fan. She has a guerilla 
  drone vlog where she details her 
  life in Cape Town and the shows 
  she goes to. A great connection for 
  extra visibility.
  Jackson
  ASPECTS
  Connected with the Locals; 
  Wouldn’t Be Caught Dead 
  Enjoying a Festival
  APPROACHES
  Dark: Average (+1)
  Fierce: Good (+3)
  Shady: Fair (+2)
  NOTES
  Anarchist and overall bad boy. He 
  sells doses of illegal drugs to DJ fans 
  and wishes there were fewer tourists 
  in Cape Town. Secretly loves the 
  festivals, though.
  
  39
  TIL DAWN
  Bobby
  ASPECTS
  Conservative Christian Values 
  from Long Ago; Stupidly 
  Argumentative
  APPROACHES
  Fierce: Average (+1)
  Shady: Good (+3)
  Technical: Fair (+2)
  NOTES
  A conservative Christian local who 
  still holds down old-fashioned big-
  oted beliefs. He and his small group 
  of friends want to dampen people’s 
  spirits and make them feel like out-
  casts, and so have bought tickets to 
  attend the show just to do that.
  Sara
  ASPECTS
  Small Robot Merch Maker; 
  Happy-Go-Lucky Midwest Girl
  APPROACHES
  Chill: Good (+3)
  Fabulous: Fair (+2)
  Shady: Average (+1)
  NOTES
  Sara has lived here all her life, and 
  these festival grounds are her home. 
  A wandering fan, she’ll follow DJs 
  she falls in love with and make them 
  super popular with all her hippie 
  friends IRL. She makes her money 
  selling merch she constructs the 
  old-fashioned way, with small robot 
  helpers.
  Fallingwater
  Inspired by the Fallingwater architecture of Frank Lloyd Wright, this stage is 
  set amidst beautiful pines in picturesque mountains. Not far from universities 
  and the Midwest US, the sensibilities here focus on escapism and youth. There’s 
  a heavy Americana aesthetic, a combination of warm athletic vests and flannel 
  which never seem to go out of style. Much of the architecture is natural wood 
  and stone, seamlessly blending in with the mountainous landscape.
  Aspects: Clear Air and Mountainous Terrain; Heartwarming, Friendly 
  Locals
  Venue Stunt: The sound of nature here is much beloved. If you can work any of 
  it into a performance authentically, you get a +2 with Chill during the DJ Battle.
  Notable Locations
  • Multiple levels of stages going 
  up into the mountains and 
  incorporated into man-made 
  waterfalls
  • Wooden and stone platforms 
  for audiences to stand on
  • Elevators scattered throughout 
  to get people to the top quickly
  • Hover food trucks
  • Backstage dressing rooms scat-
  tered among the treetops
  • Digital gate for the festival 
  requires swipe of an implant
  Cultural Touchstones
  • A wood-and-stone look to 
  everything constructed here
  • A very Midwest-friendly culture, 
  although God country is not 
  too far away
  • Hover tech is used a lot to get 
  around the mountains
  • Lots of hearty Americana meals 
  with synth cow meat and corn
  • Heavy security compared to 
  other venues
  
  40
  FATE: WORLDS OF ADVENTURE
  
  41
  TIL DAWN
  Canyonlyfe
  Embedded within the Grand Canyon, this stage’s acoustics are like nothing expe-
  rienced before. This setting juxtaposes natural mountainous heights and high-tech 
  structures. Camping and hippie drug culture are still huge here, and making the 
  trek across the canyon by foot is still popular. Lots of tourists come here from all 
  over the world. An example of an old dream of young America.
  Aspects: Canyon-Spanning Stages; Fantastic Acoustics
  Venue Stunt: Canyons are great for festival aesthetics and a futuristic hippie 
  lifestyle. If you celebrate this style and incorporate it in your performance, you 
  can jump to any approach in a DJ battle without spending a fate point.
  Notable Locations
  • Stages inserted into the rock 
  walls
  • Various elevated platforms for 
  audience to watch from
  • A two-hour climb down into 
  the canyon from the ridge
  • A natural habitat barely 
  disturbed
  • The campgrounds where festi-
  valgoers stay
  • Natural rock caves used as dress-
  ing rooms and media centers
  Cultural Touchstones
  • Food drones that come from 
  vendors at the top of the canyon
  • Camping and drug culture
  • No locals, only tourists
  • Conservation versus exploita-
  tion of the natural habitats and 
  animals
  Auryn
  ASPECTS
  Expert Climber; Brand Manager
  APPROACHES
  Fabulous: Average (+1)
  Fierce: Fair (+2)
  Technical: Good (+3)
  NOTES
  Health nut and extreme climb-
  ing connoisseur, Auryn attends 
  the festivals in Canyonlyfe to sell 
  her lifestyle brand which includes 
  healthy food, climbing fashions, and 
  daily motivations. She’s looking for 
  another face to add to her brand and 
  wants a DJ badly.
  Montana
  ASPECTS
  Famous Cultural Painter; Down 
  to Chill
  APPROACHES
  Chill: Fair (+2)
  Fierce: Average (+1)
  Technical: Good (+3)
  NOTES
  She attends the festival at 
  Canyonlyfe every year and is a 
  megafan of the area, living not far 
  off in the idyllic and artistic Sedona. 
  Montana’s a famous painter and is 
  working to create a temporary mural 
  on the canyon walls for the festival, 
  but is meeting some resistance from 
  festival goers protesting her work 
  despite the fact that it’s 100% eco.
  
  42
  The Cancun Chain
  Not far from the famous historical party town itself, this venue is actually a series 
  of interconnected floating stages that lives on crystal blue waters. They call this 
  venue “The Chain.” In the century since this became one of the most accessible 
  boozy tourist attraction for many people in the Americas, it still maintains its 
  many fancy hotels and cheap tchotchke shops.
  Aspects: Floating Water Stages; Tourist Party Town
  Venue Stunt: Create a drink special with your DJ style or name in it, and whip 
  up enough hype to sway the audience. Get +2 to any Fabulous approaches that 
  DJ makes during the DJ battle.
  Notable Locations
  • Five floating stages and 
  audience areas in one long con-
  nected chain.
  • Lizard Island where visitors can 
  meet and pet lizards.
  • Boozewalk, a boardwalk along 
  the turquoise water that’s neon 
  and plastic and full of over-
  priced mixed drinks
  • Boat parking zones where fans 
  can watch the festival from all 
  kinds of hyped-up boats
  • Dressing rooms are floating 
  yachts and party locations 
  behind the stages
  Cultural Touchstones
  Cancun has long been a cheap tourist 
  town for young Americans and the 
  festival venue has only enhanced that. 
  Some exploited workers still try to 
  make their living here, and while booze 
  and tourist trinkets still make the best 
  money, there is a culture of local tradi-
  tional Mexican food and monuments 
  to ancient gods. The colors here are 
  gorgeous, buildings, architecture, and 
  clothes all mimicking the tropical flow-
  ers and ocean tones.
  Rosa
  ASPECTS
  Can Take You Down Easily; 
  Security Boats
  APPROACHES
  Chill: Good (+3)
  Shady: Average (+1)
  Technical: Fair (+2)
  NOTES
  Head of security here at the island 
  chains, where drunken debauchery 
  and shenanigans need to be watched 
  and contained. She’s pretty level-
  headed and won’t take any shit.
  Leticia
  ASPECTS
  Not the Real Me; Professional 
  Party Girl
  APPROACHES
  Fabulous: Good (+3)
  Shady: Fair (+2)
  Technical: Average (+1)
  NOTES
  Leticia created Party Girl Media 
  Enterprises, a business located 
  right here in Cancun. Famous for 
  her ridiculous drunken stunts and 
  tomfoolery, she makes other people 
  famous by including them in her 
  silly stories. Her party-girl attitude 
  is all a character she’s made up for 
  the streamed live show, though—the 
  real her is a media genius.
  
  43
  TIL DAWN
  Viti Crater Festival Grounds
  In the heart of Iceland is the Viti Crater, a large expanse of land with steam vents 
  and beautiful turquoise lakes. Its picturesque views of the clouds and brown 
  grasses and the constant smoke-like steam coming from the ground lend it a 
  post-apocalyptic feel. Nobody really lives here, and the venue exists exclusively 
  for the festival that happens every year.
  Aspects: Mysteriously Steamy; Out in the Wilds
  Notable Locations
  • One large festival ground with 
  stages on either side
  • Giant sculpture garden that 
  only lasts during the festival
  • Vendors of steam suits, for 
  people who want to stand in 
  the steam
  • Dressing rooms incorporated 
  into the architecture of the 
  stages
  Cultural Touchstones
  • Icelandic landscapes
  • Touristy camping in the middle 
  of nowhere
  • A history of the new film indus-
  try using the land for their 
  benefit
  • Leans toward artsy styles
  • Animal sanctuaries and connec-
  tion to the land
  Bjorn
  ASPECTS
  Creative No Matter the 
  Cost; Over-the-Top Eccentric 
  Persona
  APPROACHES
  Dark: Average (+1)
  Fabulous: Good (+3)
  Shady: Fair (+2)
  NOTES
  A renowned sculpture-garden artist 
  who creates newer, bigger, stranger 
  sculptures here every year. They’re 
  always larger than life, and nothing, 
  not even regulations, will stand in his 
  creative way.
  Drifa
  ASPECTS
  Loves Animals More than 
  Humans; Rad Icelandic Punk 
  Style
  APPROACHES
  Chill: Average (+1)
  Dark: Good (+3)
  Fierce: Fair (+2)
  NOTES
  An animal lover and caretaker, 
  she’s in charge of the sanctuaries 
  here where humans and animals can 
  interact. A gentle soul but fiercely 
  protective of her animal family.
  
  44
  FATE: WORLDS OF ADVENTURE
  Kyoto Biodome
  One of the oldest cities in Japan, Kyoto boasts a vibrant historical tradition 
  which informs their culture. The biodome creates all four seasons of the beautiful 
  city, cycling through them every few days. Visitors say the most beautiful one is 
  when the snow is melting and the cherry blossoms are in bloom. The historical 
  traditions of the tea ceremony and wearing decorative kimonos for each season 
  still feature heavily here.
  Aspects: Always-Changing Weather; Memories of the Past
  Notable Locations
  • Three pairs of stages set at the 
  edges of the biodome
  • A center square focused on 
  media interviews and cultural 
  displays
  • Dressing rooms beside the 
  stages, cleverly camouflaged as 
  beautiful trees and shrubs
  • A cafe that serves traditional tea 
  combined with hot new pastry 
  inventions
  • A stream replete with koi fish 
  and small animals alongside
  Cultural Touchstones
  • Poetic focus on combining old 
  and new aesthetics
  • Celebration of traditions and 
  where their contemporary cul-
  ture comes from
  • Gorgeous patterned nu-silk 
  reminiscent of old kimonos
  • Neat 3D tech that creates 
  imagery in tandem with the 
  biodome’s natural habitats
  • Delicious, delicate foods and 
  drinks
  Riku
  ASPECTS
  Biodome Science; Cultural 
  Traditionalist
  APPROACHES
  Chill: Average (+1)
  Dark: Fair (+2)
  Technical: Good (+3)
  NOTES
  Riku controls the weather here in 
  the biodome, monitoring its systems 
  and making sure the habitats are 
  perfect. Caretaker of the habitats, 
  they’re very careful to make sure 
  none of the performances interfere 
  with them.
  Yua
  ASPECTS
  In Over Her Head; Adorable 
  and Pure
  APPROACHES
  Chill: Average (+1)
  Fabulous: Fair (+2)
  Technical: Good (+3)
  NOTES
  She’s the youngest fan-club leader 
  in Japan, just 13 years old. She’s an 
  organizing genius and knows how 
  to lead her fellow young, mostly 
  lady-leaning fans. Often she gets 
  into trouble without realizing it.
  
  45
  TIL DAWN
  EXAMPLE DJS
  Sasha Velvet: Sasha’s developed a taste in regal, nightmarish aesthetics. She likes to 
  bank on the fact that fans are half in love with her and half terrified of her. Sasha’s 
  a somewhat traditional drag queen DJ, although genderqueer herself, dressing in 
  spectacular lady drag. Her beats match her looks, reminiscent of horror b-movies 
  and goth industrial sounds.
  Le Rogue: This DJ is well known for being a walking piece of visual art. Their 
  imagery, skins, and music all recall famous works of art throughout history. They’re 
  genderqueer and come from the Tehran Megaplex. It’s rare that someone sees Le 
  Rogue’s actual skin color or shape, since is it hidden behind their elaborate skins.
  Stella Clementine: Undeniably the reigning expert in vintage fashions, Stella 
  rocks all kinds of feminine looks on stage and in her press reviews. Her fashion 
  often outdoes her music, although it has a quaint, old-fashioned sound that 
  often uses sound bites of actual instruments. Stella’s a black trans woman from 
  the New Canadian Wilds.
  Wolfe: Wolfe prides herself in her ability to mutate into different animal forms 
  in her skins. Each skin is a combo of some wild animals, creating new monsters 
  with each combination. She’s aggressive, loud, and angry, and so is her music. 
  Wolfe is from the Pacific Waterdomes off the coast of Korea, a cis woman, and 
  predominantly Korean in heritage.
  GlitchWitch: This DJ’s skills lie in channeling a combo of tech that’s come before 
  with tech that’s on the verge. They become part human, part tech, in the most 
  stunning visual and audial ways. They’re from the UK, and their true form has 
  never before been seen in public, always covered in chrome and bits of technology. 
  They’re a walking metaphor for the DJ skins.
  
  46
  Sasha Velvet
  ASPECTS
  Knows Your Darkest Secrets, 
  Genuinely Nightmarish Looks
  APPROACHES
  Dark: Good (+3)
  Fabulous: Fair (+2)
  Fierce: Average (+1)
  Stella Clementine
  ASPECTS
  Finely Tuned Historical 
  Fashion Sense; Takes Everything 
  Personally
  APPROACHES
  Fabulous: Good (+3)
  Shady: Average (+1)
  Technical: Fair (+2)
  Le Rogue
  ASPECTS
  More Art Degrees than You; 
  Expert Posing Skills
  APPROACHES
  Chill: Good (+3)
  Shady: Fair (+2)
  Technical: Average (+1)
  Wolfe
  ASPECTS
  Won’t Hesitate to Prove Her 
  Superiority; Primal Vibes
  APPROACHES
  Dark: Average (+1)
  Fabulous: Fair (+2)
  Fierce: Good (+3)
  GlitchWitch
  ASPECTS
  Comes from the Future; Socially 
  Relevant Lyrics
  APPROACHES
  Chill: Fair (+2)
  Fabulous: Average (+1)
  Technical: Good (+3)
  
  47
  TIL DAWN
  EXAMPLE DJ SQUADS
  The Aliens
  The Aliens are a squad of DJs similar to the boy bands of yore, where their style 
  and brand are focused on romancing their fans. Instead of being boys, however, 
  they’re all genderqueer, and play up that aesthetic by wearing skins styled as alien 
  bodies that make them look beautiful and inhuman. They’re from the Mexico 
  City Sprawl, so a lot of ideas of systemic oppression and dreams of freedom are 
  present in their music and fashion. While each member has their own personal 
  alien style, they trend as a group toward androgyny.
  
  48
  “The Twins”  
  Sierra and Santiago
  ASPECTS
  Not Without My Sibling; 
  Dreadfully Gorgeous
  APPROACHES
  Chill: Fair (+2)
  Fabulous: Good (+3)
  Technical: Average (+1)
  “The Brains” Val
  ASPECTS
  A Sinister Plan; Sexy Smarts
  APPROACHES
  Dark: Average (+1)
  Shady: Good (+3)
  Technical: Fair (+2)
  “The Romeo” Lito
  ASPECTS
  Too Many Emotions; I Want You 
  to Love Me
  APPROACHES
  Dark: Fair (+2)
  Fabulous: Good (+3)
  Fierce: Average (+1)
  “The Innocent” Angel
  ASPECTS
  Oops, Did I Do That?; Such a 
  Tease
  APPROACHES
  Fabulous: Good (+3)
  Fierce: Average (+1)
  Technical: Fair (+2)
  “The Muscle” Dani
  ASPECTS
  I Can Lift You with One Hand; 
  Flexxxxxxxxxx
  APPROACHES
  Chill: Good (+3)
  Fierce: Fair (+2)
  Technical: Average (+1)
  
  49
  TIL DAWN
  Dollhouse
  Dollhouse is a group of lady DJs who investigate the female form through per-
  formance and costume. They costume as different types of dolls, all femme coded, 
  and work to deconstruct patriarchal ideas of how women should look and act. 
  Oh, and they’re all gay. They come from the Midwest Cloud Arcologies in the US.
  
  50
  “Colorful Doll” Barb
  ASPECTS
  Those Colors Couldn’t Go 
  Together on Anyone Else; 
  Chameleon Tech
  APPROACHES
  Fierce: Fair (+2)
  Shady: Good (+3)
  Technical: Average (+1)
  “Weirdo Doll” Alex
  ASPECTS
  Strange but in a Cool Way; All 
  the Remixed Synths
  APPROACHES
  Chill: Average (+1)
  Dark: Good (+3)
  Fabulous: Fair (+2)
  “Shiny Doll” Nikki
  ASPECTS
  Blinding Lens Flares Around 
  Outfits; Chrome AF Sounds
  APPROACHES
  Fabulous: Good (+3)
  Fierce: Fair (+2)
  Shady: Average (+1)
  “Pristine Doll” Taylor
  ASPECTS
  Everything in Its Right Place; 
  Clean Vibes
  APPROACHES
  Chill: Fair (+2)
  Dark: Average (+1)
  Technical: Good (+3)
  “Gorgeous Doll” Kat
  ASPECTS
  Epic Hair Toss; Lipstick Noise
  APPROACHES
  Chill: Average (+1)
  Fabulous: Good (+3)
  Shady: Fair (+2)
  
  51
  TIL DAWN
  AN EXAMPLE SESSION IN BOROBUDUR
  The Borobudur Sky Amphitheater is an ancient Buddhist temple in Indonesia 
  that is the new home to a multilayered amphitheater. Connecting to three layers 
  that rise above the temple toward the sky, it’s no longer used as a religious site. 
  It’s now the stage for music and performances at these global festivals, and many 
  of the historical elements are maintained by local Indonesian artists and cultural 
  ambassadors. Hosting the festivals is one of the ways they gather funding for 
  conservation of the ancient site. However, some local preservationists believe the 
  technology supporting the amphitheater is designed poorly and will harm the 
  temple, and they’re working to sabotage the festival to prove it.
  The amphitheater is located out in the jungles of Indonesia, with some small 
  towns and villages within a short ride. The jungles themselves still contain many 
  wild species of flora and fauna, which are conserved as carefully as the temple. 
  Some of the poorer people from towns nearby often sneak into the festivals 
  trying to sell handmade goods and designer drugs, and many of the local teens 
  try desperately to get into the festival so they can see some of their favorite idols.
  The structure of the stages and the theater still celebrate the temple’s spiritual 
  beginnings, and many of the people who come to festivals here have a spiritual 
  agenda in their celebration of music and media (and psychedelics). The stone ruins 
  that surround it in the jungle frequently double as smaller performance venues 
  or pop-up dining experiences. It’s a gorgeous fusion of ancient stone sculpture 
  and brand new glass aesthetics.
  Aspects: Remnants of Ancient Spirituality; Colorful Jungle Island 
  Culture
  Faces
  Borobudur is a culture-shock mix of indigenous peoples and cosmopolitan 
  festivals-goers from nearby countries and cities.
  • Anissa, a local conservationist who’s resorting to extreme measures to prove 
  a point—even if it means people get hurt.
  • The Hellcats, a rival DJ squad led by Eight Speed that’s terrifying, talented, 
  and…well, catty.
  • Dallas, a corporate media rep and talk-show host whose opinions can 
  make or break an up-and-coming DJ squad.
  Cultural Touchstones
  • Intricately brocaded and brightly colored nano-silk textiles in pinks, oranges, 
  and turquoises
  • Delicious fried rice, natural not synthetic! An unusual treat in a mostly 
  synthetic food world
  • Dance moves inspired by a martial art called Silat in which cloth is used 
  to manipulate limbs—the dancer’s own, or a consenting partner’s!
  
  52
  Notable Locations
  Because this venue wasn’t exactly purpose-built for life-altering musical perfor-
  mances, most of its notable locations are actually outside the venue itself.
  • On the second tier, a traditionally decorated Indonesian bar with intricate, 
  futuristic elements of etched neon and anti-grav pillow seats
  • On the top tier, one continuous circular stage that glows a white light
  • Lit walkways about the old original ruins and giant stone Buddha heads
  • A cafe surrounded by palm trees in the nearby town
  Squad A
  Squad B
  Technical
  Chill
  Fabulous
  Shady
  Fierce
  Dark
  Technical
  Chill
  Fabulous
  Shady
  Fierce
  Dark
  Technical
  Chill
  Fabulous
  Shady
  Fierce
  Dark
  Technical
  Chill
  Fabulous
  Shady
  Fierce
  Dark
  Technical
  Chill
  Fabulous
  Shady
  Fierce
  Dark
  Bar
  Cafe
  Ruins
  (Lit Walkways)
  
  53
  TIL DAWN
  Running the Session
  At the start of the session, remember to do some intro monologues! Remember, 
  throughout the session you can ask players for short confessionals whenever it 
  feels narratively appropriate or fun, and encourage them to call for their own.
  Then, create a few scenes. Here’s a few scenes that might happen in Borobudur:
  • Public Confrontation with the Hellcats (at the Indonesian Bar): The 
  PCs go to the bar for drinks, but the Hellcats are there and putting on 
  their public personas. The Hellcats are aggressive and overconfident in their 
  ability to win, throwing shade every which way. How do the PCs respond?
  • Annisa’s Protest (at the Lit Walkways): Annisa’s friends and fellow protest-
  ers are holding a protest about the festival happening here at the Borobudur 
  Amphitheater. If the PCs ask around, they can learn that Annisa raised 
  awareness of the problems with the site, but the government profited too 
  much to make any changes. The last they heard, Anissa said the issue 
  wouldn’t be acknowledged until something disastrous happens.
  • A Romantic Interlude (at the Jungle Ruins): The Jungle Ruins are abso-
  lutely gorgeous old stone amidst a wild landscape. There’s a waterfall that 
  belongs on postcards and tropical flowers of all sorts amidst the ancient 
  landscape. It’s absolutely transporting and a great place for any of the PCs 
  to have a romantic encounter.
  • Media Scandal (at the Cafe in the Nearby Town): The local cafe seems 
  like a great place to grab a coffee and chill, but it’s actually watched heavily 
  by regular cafe-goers, who record the famous people who come there and 
  sell whatever they get to the paparazzi. The media will spin the smallest 
  and most innocent encounter here as something scandalous and terrible. 
  The PCs don’t know that, though!
  All these scenes could easily lead to green room drama and contention among 
  the PCs! Do they agree with Annisa’s desire to preserve the ruins? Was it smart to 
  have a public confrontation with the Hellcats before the DJ battle? Was someone 
  jealous of someone else’s romance? What scandal leaked about the PCs to make 
  them more tense about their pending performance? All of this can fuel emotional 
  roleplay during the DJ battle, too.
  After the battle, in the debrief, how do the PCs resolve these problems? Do 
  they stop Annisa from sabotaging the stage, make up with the Hellcats, break up 
  with a lover, or use that scandal for more attention?
  Then, do one more round of monologues, and finish up the session!
  
  54
  NPCs
  Annisa
  Young, idealistic, and resourceful. Of Indonesian descent, 
  but combines traditional and futuristic fashion. She’s 
  smart and proud of her heritage.
  Anissa doesn’t believe the current technology support-
  ing the amphitheater is functioning as well as it should, 
  placing the whole site in danger, but virtually nobody 
  agrees. However, she figures if she can secretly sabotage 
  the festival, then people will start paying attention to the 
  venue’s flaws, and public opinion is bound to change. 
  Sure, that’s also going to do some damage to Borobudur 
  itself, but if left unchecked, over time these oblivious tour-
  ists will wreak far more havoc on this once-sacred temple.
  If left to her own devices, Anissa’s sabotage could take 
  many forms, all of them related to the temple’s inap-
  propriateness as a performance venue. When the story 
  begins, she could’ve tried some plans already, giving the 
  whole place a low-key paranoia vibe, or maybe her first 
  efforts just happen to coincide with the arrival of the 
  PCs. The longer she’s been trying and failing to clear the 
  place, the more desperate she is—and the more desperate 
  she is, the more extreme her sabotage attempts, such as:
  • Cutting power to the whole venue
  • Poisoning the drinks in the bar by lacing its water 
  supply (including the ice) with an herbal concoc-
  tion of local toxic plants
  • Releasing a basketful of blue pit vipers on the 
  dance floor
  • Weakening one of the column joints attaching the 
  amphitheater to the temple, leading to a massive 
  collapse
  Annisa
  ASPECTS
  Proud of My Heritage;  
  I’ve Got Friends Among the Locals
  APPROACHES
  Cool: Great (+4)
  Dark: Great (+4)
  Fierce: Good (+3)
  
  55
  TIL DAWN
  The Hellcats
  The Hellcats are a DJ squad who are terrifying, talented, and…well, catty. Inspired 
  by muscle cars, their aesthetic is reflected in their skins, their attitude, and their 
  music. They’re a mix of Asian and Latino mostly, and come from the favelas of 
  Rio de Janeiro. The Hellcats often include industrial sounds of cars being built, 
  raced, and crashed, all of which are now somewhat nostalgic, with the rise of 
  global public transit and hydro transport.
  Hover
  ASPECTS
  Hover Tech;  
  Real Particular About Details
  APPROACHES
  Chill: Fair (+2)
  Dark: Average (+1)
  Technical: Good (+3)
  Luxury
  ASPECTS
  All the Bells and Whistles; 
  Smooth Tunes
  APPROACHES
  Chill: Average (+1)
  Fabulous: Good (+3)
  Fierce: Fair (+2)
  Tokyo Drift
  ASPECTS
  Actually from Tokyo;  
  Likes It Old-School
  APPROACHES
  Chill: Good (+3)
  Shady: Average (+1)
  Technical: Fair (+2)
  Nitris
  ASPECTS
  Will Win in a Race;  
  Likes Pressing Buttons
  APPROACHES
  Fierce: Fair (+2)
  Shady: Average (+1)
  Technical: Good (+3)
  
  56
  EIGHT SPEED
  The leader of the Hellcats squad. Fierce, dramatic, and commanding. Ze wants 
  to win. Zir name is a throwback to the muscle car, and zir style matches in red 
  chrome. Eight Speed is black, genderqueer, and trends toward a femme body and 
  style. Ze wears lots of shiny red things and dangerous spike heels, but zir DJ skin 
  is kind of like a fashion version of the Dodge Hellcat, with various car-inspired 
  elements, like exhaust-pipe-shaped wings, attached to zir body like armor or 
  extensions of zir arms and legs.
  Eight Speed
  ASPECTS
  Attitude as Fierce as My Style; 
  I’ll Crush You
  APPROACHES
  Dark: Fair (+2)
  Fierce: Good (+3)
  Shady: Average (+1)
  STUNTS
  Badass Bitch: Bitchy, but somehow 
  in a way that’s both intimidat-
  ing and crush-worthy. When in a 
  crowd, you can spend a fate point 
  to make any NPC DJs in the scene 
  make an overcome roll using Chill 
  against your Fierce rating. For each 
  NPC DJ who fails this roll, you get 
  a boost that you can use until the 
  end of the scene.
  Hellcat: The hellcat skin is state of 
  the art, with historical car details 
  and interchangeable parts that 
  would outdo any transforming 
  robot. Once per DJ battle, you get 
  a free invoke on its aspect.
  Hot Rims: Those designer heels aren’t 
  wearing themselves. Get +2 when 
  creating an advantage by fabulously 
  showing off designer clothes that 
  look like car parts.
  
  57
  TIL DAWN
  Dallas
  The head TripCorp media rep, who covers the PNDJSWT as a talk show host. 
  She’s cold, clever, and opportunistic—she won’t hesitate to emotionally manipulate 
  someone for ratings. Dallas is a blonde, white corporate-styled woman, dressed in 
  all white and often a super-chic pantsuit. She’s got a future headset and a flying 
  camera always nearby.
  Dallas
  ASPECTS
  It’s All for the Ratings;  
  I Know What You Want
  APPROACHES
  Cool: Good (+3)
  Fabulous: Fair (+2)
  Shady: Fair (+2)
  
  Squad A
  Squad B
  Technical
  Chill
  Fabulous
  Shady
  Fierce
  Dark
  Technical
  Chill
  Fabulous
  Shady
  Fierce
  Dark
  Technical
  Chill
  Fabulous
  Shady
  Fierce
  Dark
  Technical
  Chill
  Fabulous
  Shady
  Fierce
  Dark
  Technical
  Chill
  Fabulous
  Shady
  Fierce
  Dark
  
  TIL DAWN
  TIL DAWN
  TIL DAWN
  TIL DAWN
  TIL DAWN
  DJ NAME:
  DJ SQUAD: 
  APPROACHES
  TECHNICAL
  CHILL
  FABULOUS
  SHADY
  FIERCE
  DARK
  +4
  +3
  +2
  +1
  +0
  +4
  +3
  +2
  +1
  +0
  +4
  +3
  +2
  +1
  +0
  +4
  +3
  +2
  +1
  +0
  +4
  +3
  +2
  +1
  +0
  +4
  +3
  +2
  +1
  +0
  ASPECTS
  PERFORMANCE
  CULTURE
  CREATIVITY
  CONNECTIONS
  CONSEQUENCES
  MILD
  MODERATE
  SEVERE
  SKINS
  SKIN ASPECT
  MILD
  MODERATE
  SKIN ASPECT
  MILD
  MODERATE
  SKIN ASPECT
  MILD
  MODERATE
  2
  2
  2
  2
  4
  4
  6
  4
  4
  RELATIONSHIPS
  AWKWARD
  STRAINED
  NOT SPEAKING
  WHO
  1
  1
  1
  1
  1
  1
  2
  2
  2
  2
  2
  2
  4
  4
  4
  4
  4
  4
  
SOURCE: textdata/thevault/FATE (fudge) [multi]/World of Adventure/WOD 42 - Til Dawn.pdf