Chapter 1: In Plain Sight

The style of this game is magical gothic with a twist of horror.

You

Right now, as you read this, Mysteries are thriving in and under and between the fabrics of modern life. There are accursed places we seek out in our dark moments, and places where we instinctually sense our burdens have been lifted… but at what cost? There are trinkets and practices and mindsets that can let us stretch a fingernail out into the great Mystery and scratch at it.

Most of us have had these experiences, and we write them off. We explain them. We put them aside and return to the safe fluorescence of getting by.

You, on the other hand, have fallen through the mirror, plunged down through the dark oil, crashed your way through the screen at the edge of things, and you have witnessed more of the dark and the impossible light that surround us than most. Unlike some others, you made it back. And you brought something with you: something in you that time is unfolding like a prophecy written on origami.

You didn’t get there at the end of a meditation retreat or as the result of great virtue. The real world is much too bloody for that. You were cursed, you bit, fought, cheated, lied, stole your way into something that you thought you needed, that you couldn’t live without. You did things you regret, more likely than not to people who trusted you.

The old gypsy saying fits you like a tailored suit: be careful what you wish for - you might get it.

What is it that you did? What did you find? Where did you go? Whom did you use along the way? How does it wrap around you, inform you? What secret arts have started to worm their way out of you? Maybe you were born with something that you should have let lie. Maybe you took something you were told to leave be; maybe you inherited. Maybe a friend had a windfall and you made it yours.

However it happened, there’s no stopping it now.

The World

The world is rich with a deep beauty - but you can’t bookmark it between the glossies in Better Homes and Gardens, or on the blogs of influencers. The darkness sets off the fragile beauty of things in ways inimical to the Mall of America. Change is difficult, but the engine of loveliness. Death is a great astonishment that claims us all and at last. You have no interest in hurrying such a meeting along, but you might dress up for the occasion and have a stiff drink ready for the Reaper nonetheless….

Like sand thrown over jewels, there is something about the world itself that hides what is - and more than that, it wants to scrape away all the color and difference until you are smooth and beige and not so different from everything else. There is safety in conformity. Maybe you crave fitting in, but just can’t; maybe you’re a member of rarified society which gives you a certain shield for your otherness; maybe you wear your strange with a Cheshire grin dare in the face of things but therefore live as an outcast.

Something is stirring, and it is drawn to everything outlined in color. You feel it in your dreams, or see it in the NYT Word Jumble, or in tea leaves or the static on the old tv at the pool hall or as little messages on BART departure boards that no one else seems bothered by.

You noticed the Mandela effect before it had a name. You remember the monopoly man with the monocle. You remember Jackie throwing herself in front of JFK. You remember a relative or a family friend from your childhood whom no one else does - they live on now only in your memory, or in a single black and white photo that you keep in a mylar bag or inside the family bible because when you don’t, it continues to fade.

People are disappearing. Not en masse, but in a slow Rapture that has nothing to do with Revelation. Something is claiming them. Maybe someone or something has been taken that you want back, or maybe you feel the balance shifting toward gray and some part of you cannot abide it.

How do you move in the world? Who do you seem to be? How does your uniqueness come out in the work you do?

The Accounting

However you choose, make a history, and account for yourself. For chapter 1, we will not have a game system per-se, so these things will be your “character sheet”.

These are the decisions you’ll make that shape the beginnings of your character’s story.

• Passenger: what power came into your life?
• Sin: What did you do to acquire the passenger? And to whom?
• Curse: What is the cost of having the passenger? What does it take from you, and what does it take from others?
• Secret: What is the secret that you keep, and what is the secret that you are keeping from yourself?
• Calling: What is the thing that you are called to do, and what is the thing that you are called to avoid?
• Companion: Who is the person or entity that you are closest to, and who is the person or entity that you are most afraid of?
• Place: Where is the place that you feel most at home, and where is the place that you feel most out of place?

Submitting

If you’d like to send me your character, click here.

Inspirations

Various Media and Literature that have inspired this game:

• Penny Dreadful (TV series)
• Sandman (comic series)
• The King in Yellow (book)