Hello, I really enjoyed this. 5/5 stars :) the prompts are creative, the art is gorgeous, and the idea really drew me in! It feels both mythological and a new take on a hero’s journey. I hope your Senior Thesis goes well!
Devorb
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5/5
I had a lot of fun with this game! It combines the classic structure of a journey with thoughtful, themed questions to develop the player character. The choice of tarot means that every playthrough could draw different cards and look different each time. While you don’t have to write much to play through this game, I ended up taking a month and around 18k words to wind my way through the journey. When I got stuck, I did some single card draws to inspire more ideas. My character ended up deciding to go home :)
This game also seems very compatible with other systems as a side quest or even just delving deeper into a PC or NPC’s story. The option of continuing and journeying more means that it can be as short or as long as you like. I would revisit this game in the future!
reposting as a comment because I didn't realize reviews weren't actually visible lol
I highly recommend this game, especially to anyone who's already interested in games like Thirsty Sword Lesbians, Agon or Runequest. Some highlights of what I enjoyed - gorgeous and evocative artwork, really cool character abilities, building a city together that our characters loved and cared about, playing our own enemies in cutscenes, flavorful worldbuilding options to decide what the gods are or what is magic, and opportunities for dramatic reveals or vulnerable moments.
When I had the opportunity to play this game, we saw some really fun larger-than-life character abilities ("Miracles", "Spells", "Moves", etc.) like -
changing the timeline
summoning a posse of shades who are super helpful until they get hungry
making an illusion of people so real that you single-handedly change your city's demographics
communing with a mythical beast and convincing them to become a guardian spirit of the nearby river instead of eating people
disguising yourself completely as a high priestess and taking over the temple without any question from the acolytes
emanating the power of the goddess of hopeless wishes so powerfully that an enemy just decides to leap back in the Underworld
literally flying with the power of friendship
Learning the rules was pretty easy, rolls are 2d6 with a modifier if applicable. Epithets work both as sort of stats/abilities and conditions/health/durability. You write a unique phrase that talks about your character's behavior or values. You rewrite one of these epithets when your character experiences Crisis (from taking too many Wounds - which usually comes from low rolls) or Doom (from gaining too much Fire - which comes usually from high rolls). You gain XP when you roll low, or when you do certain things that match the theme of your specific character archetype (for example, communicating with otherworldly forces for one playbook, endangering yourself to seek knowledge for another.) There's definitely some fun toys on each character sheet to keep track of and challenge everyone to dive into the drama.
There's an example adventure in the back of the full book, however it seems easy to set up a simple adventure by just looking at the playbooks that people are interested in and the World Forces (the authorities in the world that hate your characters for their subversive lifestyles and adventuring ways). In fact, each player makes a character who is a World Force, which also helps with fleshing out the opposition.
We encountered a god of revenge who was angry that our Revenant didn't want to serve them, city officials who sent guards to tear down our neighborhood to make way for a "fire break", a river god spreading curses to our neighborhood who also hated the Vessel's deity for not being a traditional goddess, and Atlantean sorcerers who wanted to plant their city in the Wild and our neighborhood alike without regard for either the wild creatures or city-dwellers. The players fleshed out some ideas at the beginning of the game of what creatures served the Underworld, what were characteristics of Atlantis, and what the city government was like.
For a one session game, I would definitely recommend doing as we did and starting each player character off with 2 XP and 2 Fire, and truncating some of the world building. I could definitely see this system being compatible with a bunch of sword n sorcery adventures as long as the group made sure to create dramatic relationships with each other and the opposition (World Forces).
Anyway, 10/10, would defy the gods again! :)
10/10 I loved this game!
I have had my eye on running this game for a while. Til Then really got us talking fondly about the campaign and some strong memories. Some things I never realized left such as strong impression on my players. The first prompt I started us with was Flashback which was a great one to warm up with. My players don’t like to read much outside of the game sessions, but that was an easy fix by simply adding that on their turn, they investigate one or two prompts instead of committing to one right away. That was enough reassurance that after just one round, they were confident enough to start committing to a prompt on their turns. We did Omen as well as Passing the Torch in the first session. The questions are flavorful and helped get the creativity flowing. I expect we will take three sessions to go through all the prompts as my group likes to roleplay out the scenarios in depth. Overall we are really enjoying this game!
I really enjoyed this game. The prompts keep me writing when I struggle for inspiration, and the framework is loose enough to be compatible with other systems like Plot Unfolding Machine. I enjoyed the journey of recovering memories and thinking about identity. This is the first solo game I completed and I think the prompts were huge in keeping the momentum.
Monstrous Appetites comments · Replied to Witches Loving Witches games in Monstrous Appetites comments
We did! I ran it last night for 3 players, they chose The Devoted, The Chosen and The Spooky Witch :) they loved the twist with the monsters and caused lots of chaotic hijinks. The queen, the harpy and the sacrifice were the characters they had biggest reactions to and related to the conflict. My friends are also GMs/gaymasters so I sent them to your page to take a look too :) Completion was my favorite character personally.