Welcome

“The first thing you should know is that the world no longer exists. Not as you'd have once known it, at least, if you've enough years of memories in you with enough to spare from the before-times. If you're younger, though, perhaps you've heard stories. No record agrees entirely with another as to the beginning of the end, but most could agree by the time the contagion was first recorded, tearing its way through Eirsacean territory like it had a vengeance, that the end had most definitely begun.”

Welcome to Contagion, one of the two in-person ORPGSoc Society Games for Michaelmas and Hilary terms of the 2025/26 academic year. The other in-person Society Game is APERIS.

Contagion is a game about humanness – not quite about humanity, though the question is not far removed. In the near future of an adjacent world, where methods of truth-finding are essential parts of people's identities, a contagious disease that turns the infected into zombies has brought about the end of the world. Wherever researchers ran, the contagion outpaced them: zombies are known to possess heightened physicality and a hunger that outweighs their instinct to self-preserve. As the world you knew, or have only read about, began to dwindle, there came the cries of the faithful; voices, miasmic, churning out their convictions, whether in rallies or from podiums or in their seven o' clock evening slot, about what had gone so terribly wrong, about exactly how to fix or subvert it, and about whether, after all, this day was always going to come.

Players are members of the final Bastion of organised society: an ever-vigilant encampment, with an abandoned substation at its heart, and sequestered by the unforgiving terrain slowly reclaiming the crumbling nation of Din Talin. Members might have journeyed from far across the aging world to reach here, bringing entirely alien ways of thinking and practice with them. But there isn't enough room here for everyone, nor is there enough of anything to go around. Each member of the Bastion brings to it their specialism: a scientific, diplomatic, or survivalist skill-set that distinguishes them, and which helps to keep the camp running. It is not necessary that your skills be unique – you need only make sure they, and you, remain useful.

Contagion 'Uptime' sessions will run on Tuesday evenings on even weeks of term. These will consist of 3-hour-long parlour LARP sessions. 'Downtime' after each session will last from the end of Uptime till Friday night, consisting of emails and a Turnsheet submission.

• New to society games or roleplaying? See the Beginner to Society Games page.
  
• Have any accessibility concerns or queries? See Accessibility.
  
• All players, crew, and GMs, must have read the Conduct and Acceptable Themes Policy.
  
• For session dates and times, see When and Where.
  
• To learn more about the world of Contagion, see the pages on the sidebar under Setting.
  
• Looking for character ideas? Check out our sample characters and some ways to play.
• You can find information about the character submissions here.
  

To sign up for Contagion, you must fill out the ballot form by 23:59, Tuesday October 14th. This is separate from the character creation form, which will be due on Friday October 17th (for more information, see Character Creation.

Contagion has a preliminary player cap of 18. In the event that Contagion is oversubscribed, we will run a ballot to determine who will play. This ballot will be run jointly with APERIS and in a way to ensure as many people as possible are involved in at least one Society Game.

The order of priority in the ballot will be as follows, with players randomised within each group:

• Current University of Oxford students who have never played a Society Game
• Current University of Oxford students who have played a Society Game before
• Non-University of Oxford students

On the ballot form, you will be able to select a first choice game and (optionally) a second choice game, as well as whether you would like to play one or two games. The ballot will run so that no player will end up in two games before everyone is in at least one. We will do our best to assign as many players as possible to their first choice, but cannot guarantee this, so make sure you only put a second choice if you would be happy to play that game. You may also put no preference; this will not affect your chances of playing a game.

Additionally, Contagion is considering adding a GM to our team, so please indicate on the form if you are interested, along with any conditions (e.g. only want to GM if you don't get into Contagion in the ballot). If you have any questions about what GMing might involve, please reach out via one of the channels at the bottom of this page.

For more information about the ballot process, please visit this link for the full documentation and code.

Crew are people involved in the game alongside the players and GMs, playing only one or two NPCs at the direction of the GMs. Crewing will involve attending Uptimes or sending emails in Downtime (or both) but not completing Turnsheets. In Contagion, we will have both in-person and online Crew. Contagion is not currently looking for more Crew, but may accept people on a case-by-case basis. If you are interested in Crewing, please reach out to us and we would be happy to discuss further.

Once our Crew are finalised, more information about them and their NPCs will be available on the wiki.

• Email: gm@contagion.oxfordrpg.com
• For individual email addresses, see GMs and NPCs ¹⁾
• Discord: You can join our Discord server here. We can make you a private channel on request for any queries to the GMs.