Moréna: Session Six

Boros rolled onto the cool flagstones. He was bleeding. He was cold. All was dark. He was ready.

He heard someone else, out there, breathing. "If you're here to kill me, you're a little late." He tried to call out, choking on his own blood, into the dark. A familiar female voice chuckled.

"You're not done yet. You haven't accomplished what you set out to do. Why did you decide to do it in the first place?"

"Ungoliant. She took my family."

"No, no she didn't. You're fooling yourself. Remember what happened. Think. And then act."

Something cold was placed into his hand. It wasn't as large as Moréna, but it wasn't a dagger, either. It was sharp. Boros noticed that his bleeding began to slow, and soon he felt well enough to stand up.

It had been a long time since they had left the walls of their village. But today was the day. They were going out, even for a minute, on a picnic. 

She looked sad. 

Boros nudged her. "Is everything alright?"

She nodded hastily. "I'm just worried. There's been so many raids these days. Are you sure we're safe?" 

He laughed. "After all the ones I've killed with my sword? Yes, I'd say we're safe, at least for the moment. The children need to get out. Besides, you've got me!"

A strained smile was the only reply he received.

 They stopped in a clearing, not too far away from the walls. They heard hissing from two of them, as they vaulted out of the trees. He got her and one of the children behind him, but the other one ran away, in a panic. 

He was knocked over and bit. 

Boros charged, dragging wife and child with him. The other child was also bitten, and soon Boros was bitten as well. As he lay there, he began to black out. His wife was standing over him, crying.

That memory wasn't right. Boros could feel it. He concentrated harder.

The kids were crying. She wasn't. And, while he couldn't see anything, Boros realized that he had deliberately not heard her when she asked the spiders. "So, you'll leave the village alone then? This is all you want?"

 Someone was in the room with him. In the ever-present darkness he heard a strangely repulsive feminine voice crying and sniffling "The whips the whips the whips their whips..." The feeling, the atmosphere, of the room became something that he could barely stand. It wasn't that woman who kept showing up, whoever she was. This was someone different.

"Ungoliant?"

"The whips the whips the whips the whips... Boros... together again."

"Why? Why do this to me?"

There was a laughter, stifled by a cry of pain. "Why? The whips! What a stupid question! Ack! Why did you marry her? Why did you have children? Why do anything at all?????"

Boros gripped the hilt of the blade. He couldn't see, but he had to try.

All of a sudden he could feel that someone else was in the room. "Hold up, Boros" said a strong, masculine voice. "We have finally come."

This was followed up by the flummoxed scramblings of someone much smaller, but louder. "Oy! What's going on?? Where's Frodo??"

Boros shouted "I'm with him! What the hell's going on."

"Yes, where's Frodo? We were on the stair, and I was looking at the star. Why am I... wherever this is??"

"There's not much time to explain. The light that's keeping Boros alive is going to fade soon", said the other man, who fished the crystal out of Boros' pocket. "She's afraid of this. And we can kill her with it. Up, Samwise, with your phial, and me, with this uncut crystal's refined sister! We have to get her ready for Boros to finish her off! Quickly now!"

"Whoa, wait a minute! Why wouldn't I use this sword? It's not like dying is going to get me closer to my family, they're alive!"

"Do you really think she told you the truth? I promise, Mandos and they both await you, all in his halls."

There was a pause.

 Boros dropped the sword, grabbed the crystal, and held it aloft. She began to scream, a wretched sound not unlike a dog growling and a cat screeching. The next few minutes seemed like an eternity. But all of a sudden he could feel that the two next to him, one tall and the other no larger than a child, were gone.

"Give meeee.... Give meee that crystal..."

"No"

His hand had gone down a little bit, and all of a sudden he could feel her, physically present, in the room, with him. Her bulk and stench were overwhelming. He held the crystal back up and she screeched! And then... there was the sound of crunching stone, following by a screaming that made the previous sound like soft music in comparison. She kept begging him, between mouthfuls, to stop. But Boros kept his hand up, and began to advance, slowly, achingly. A whoosh over his head and a crash presaged the boulder that fell atop him. Still, Boros, held onto the crystal, the sounds of screaming and grinding stone fading.

He saw a pair of gates ahead of him; he heard laughter, soft and pure, a fountain in auditory form. Boros headed toward it.

Moréna: Session Five

The Umbaran/Boros: The Wanderer character, played by both Lena and I. He's just discovered that his beloved sword  Moréna had been tricking him since the beginning, but without it his undead form will crumble away. He has gone East, toward a massive darkness in the Blue Mountains.

Somewhere in the Blue Mountains a great shadow flowed out from a cave. The Umbaran found this place by periodically putting down Moréna, which allowed him to see the darkness. Sticking his head into the darkness, The Umbaran found that, if he stuck his head in the entrance way, he could see. Without Moréna The Umbaran could see etchings on the walls, in various styles, haphazrdly placed, with the words "The Devourer", with drawings of mouths and teeth liberally sprinkled across the walls. Picking Moréna up The Umbaran entered.

As he rounded the corner The Umbaran heard a noise, something decidedly not eight-legged. The Umbaran drew Mairon. Out of the shadows came two enormous wolves. The Umbaran dropped Moréna, but the wolves continued to exist, and they charged him. The Umbaran swung at one and killed it, but the other wolf bit his arm and clamped down. The Umbaran bashed the wolf against a wall, grabbed its snout with his other hand, and began to push with his arm and hand, trying to break the wolf's jaw. But he slipped, and the wolf bit his right hand off. Pinning the wolf to him with his bloody stump, The Umbaran grabbed the wolf's head with his remaining hand and broke its neck.

All that remained of Moréna began to glow, and the blade's fragments disintegrated, leaving only the hilt. All of The Umbaran's wounds began to hurt, and with each step he took the pain increased.  His human senses began to return, and he found seeing to be more difficult in the gloom.

The tunnel opened up a bit, and the crystals in his pocket began to glow strongly. He took one out, and found that the entirety of the small room he was in had, carved all over its walls, the following:

The loss of infinity creates a need for it. Therefore, we will consume infinitely. Ungoliant is the only answer. She must devour. We are Ungoliant."

There was only one exit, a small tunnel at the bottom of the opposite wall, that stunk of corpses. He dropped Moréna, but nothing changed. Wrinkling his nose, The Umbaran crawled through.

The next room was enormous, and the crystal he held blazed. There was a still pool of dark ichor nearby. There was no shrine, no mother eating a child, nothing else but  the pool. At the back of the room was a crack, with black ichor oozing out of it.

"You've come a very long way" chuckled a familiar female voice.

"Well, they took everything from me".

Her voice rang with laughter. "You've come all this way, just to kill Lona Erehd. Well, here it is!" Barely visible, she pointed at the black pool. "It's been in front of you this whole time. This thing, it itself is Lona Erehd. And your family never died! You really came all this way because you thought they were dead?"

"They are, I saw them die!" He walked up to the pool, took out one of the blazing crystals, and dropped it into the liquid darkness.

The crystal dissolved.

She laughed even harder. "Then you really are a fool. If you want to destroy Lona Erehd then you will need that hilt of yours. Whatever it's worth now, that is".

The Umbaran shrugged, walked up to the pool of ichor, and threw Moréna's hilt in. He heard a chuckle, but ignored it. The crack before him opened up, and Boros walked through it.

There was a large pool of dark ichor in the next room, which began to move as he entered. It formed into a new Umbaran, an exact replica of Boros at the height of his undeath. Walking up to him, Boros eyed him up and down "Who're you?"

"I'm me," mocked The Umbaran. "Who're you?"

The crystal began to blaze, brighter and brighter.

"You're my copy", The Umbaran told Boros. "I sent you out to kill the enemies of Our Lady, so that way nobody could stop her when she went West to suck the light out of the world."

"I will reclaim you" declared Boros. "You're not real."

"Ha!  The copy thinks he's not real!" The Umbaran laughed at him.

Boros drew Mairon, and charged The Umbaran, who pulled a fully restored Moréna out of the pool, and the two began to fight. Eventually Boros backed The Umbaran up, and then swung his blade at  The Umbaran's neck; it went straight through. The Umbaran laughed. Mairon turned into black ichor, and Boros dropped it in shock. The Umbaran caught it.

He ran Boros through with both Moréna and Mairon.

The remaining crystal screamed, a sound which resembled the tearing apart of a soul. "She did it!" The Umbaran crowed "Light has been destroyed! The trees and their light will never return!" Boros slumped on the blades that had run him through.

The crystal roared back to life, brighter than it had ever shone before. Brighter and brighter it shone, until Boros' eyes, which were streaming with tears, could no longer keep the light out, even with shut eyes. Clutching the crystal tightly he thrust it into The Umbaran. "I'll never bow to the darkness, never again!" Boros shouted.

The Umbaran exploded and the light blazed. Boros could no longer see it, because he was now blind.

To be concluded...

Moréna: Session Three

The Umbaran: The Wanderer character, controlled by Lena and I. He wield a zweihander name Moréna and a short sword named Mairon. Last time The Umbaran had killed a gigantic male spider named Lona Ered, who had turned into a shriveled male elven corpse.

The Woman: An apparition of questionable alignment and morality, who apparently is putting The Umbaran through a series of tests.

The Umbaran headed north, up the Gelion river, to where it joined with the Ascarr River. There were plains to the north, the Blue Mountains to the east, and a forest to the west. There was a multi-deck ship on the river, with piles of corpses littering the banks around it. The Umbaran smiled, and went onto the ship.

There was no one on the deck, but The Umbaran heard someone below deck. Unsheathing Mairon, The Umbaran went downstiars. He heard someone below, demanding that he not come down. Chuckling again, he walked down. The below deck was also piled high with corpses, and amidst them stood an elf standing over a human. The elf claimed that these humans served Lona Ered. The Umbaran was amused, because he had just killed Lona Ered! But Lona Ered was not just a gigantic spider; it was not possible to kill Lona Ered. The Umbaran laughed and walked up to the elf, telling him that he'd no idea what he was messing with. The elf panicked and killed the human and then tried to kill The Umbaran, who tanked every shot, laughed, and then killed the elf. He set fire to the ship and walked off, chuckling, into the woods.

The Umbaran cut through the thick underbrush of the woods After going down a hill The Umbaran found himself in a shrine, which was very similar to the one where he had killed Lona Ered. Standing on the opposite side of was a statue of The Woman, but with eight spidery legs. Her face had been messed with so it looked like it was eating the young child she was holding. There was a spring here as well, but it was filled with a black ichor that bubbled up from someplace foul, unlike the clean water that The Umbaran had used to kill the giant spider.  There was a malevolent presence in the grove, which The Umbaran taunted. No response. The Umbaran walked up to the statue and pulled out Moréna. He cut the statue in half and it fell to the ground with a crash. No response. The Umbaran puts his hand in the black ichor; the flow doesn't change, nor did it actually cover The Umbaran's hand. Shaking his head, The Umbaran went deeper into the forest.

A few miles later and The Umbaran stumbled into another shrine. This one had a properly beautiful mother statue, with uneaten child, along with a pure spring. The statue of mother and child glowed with a soft blue light, which The Umbaran found slightly painful. But he walked around, examining the area. He took out the stone. It shone extremely brightly, and The Umbaran put it away hurriedly. He found a corpse on the edge of the shrine. It was an elven woman, covered in black ichor, and she had a scroll in her hand. It read "The evil of Gelionunci has been released. Please let Elen Amille know time is of the essence." The Umbaran picked up the

A number of branches landed in front of The Umbaran. Eight legged shadows flitted from tree to tree around and above him. The Umbaran mocked the spiders for refusing to fight him. They dropped down around him in a circle; they were dead before they hit the ground, for Moréna was quicker than they. Some of the spiders got to the spring and belched a black ichor into it. The statue stopped glowing. The rest of the spiders fled. The Umbaran pulled out his stone; it barely shone now. He shrugged, and headed in the general direction the spiders went.

Even deeper into the woods stood a village. Slaughtered elves littered the walkways. Men, women, and children's blood darkened the fauna. Webs were everywhere. The Umbaran cut the webs away with growls of frustration. Walking through the silent village The Umbaran found the largest building, in the center of village. All of a sudden he was stopped: some force prevented The Umbaran from moving any closer to the building. He heard a voice telling him that he couldn't enter. The Umbaran told that voice to fuck off. The Umbaran saw The Woman not very far off, watching him. Hearing little voices begging him to help The Umbaran chucked Mairon at her, and she vanished. All of a sudden he could go nearer the building. Looking around and muttering, he entered the building.

Moréna: Session Two

The Umbaran: The Wanderer character, rotated between Lena and I. He's come from the land of Rhun with a zweihander by the name of Moréna, which glows red from time to time. He's looking for someone called Lona Ered.

The Umbaran was standing outside the tower when he heard a scream from the forest. Out came a wounded man, running and screaming at the top of his lungs. "Lona Ered is in there! Help me!" He fell at The Umbaran's impassive feet. "What are you waiting for? Please help me!" The Umbaran looked down at him with scorn, put his weapon in ready stance, and waited. The man died; The Umbaran kicked him off, filled with disgust.

The Umbaran turned around and tried to walk into the town of Gelionunci, but found himself stopped by an invisible force. Shaking his head and cursing, he tried again. He couldn't walk anywhere nearer the town. He cursed again.

The Woman appeared behind him. "You won't be able to get in that way. Lona Ered's power won't let you."

"What, you think he's that powerful?" The Umbaran sneered.

"I know he is. And he's waiting for you in there" she pointed back into the forest.

"And how do you know that's where he is? What makes you think he wishes to face me at all?"

The Woman pointed at Moréna: "What does your sword tell you?"

"What do you know of my sword?"

"Only as much as you do."

The Umbaran cursed and walked past The Woman. "Not because you tell me to. I just want to check it out." The Woman smiled as he walked back into the forest.

The forest he chose to walk back into was crowded with underbrush. Moréna was used to hack it down, and The Umbaran continued to push his way through. He found himself in a clear with many rope-thick webs. Dark shadows began to jump around him, and a spider the size of a dog jumped down on The Umbaran, who hewed it down. A web attached to his foot and Moréna. The Umbaran pulled the web loose from his sword, but the web attached to his foot went taut and he flew into the air. A branch went through his torso and The Umbaran hung upon it, sword still in hand. Coughing on the black fluid that was once his blood he croaked "Is this the best that Lona Ered can do to me?" He spat black ichor. Quick as a wink he was pulled off the branch and dragged bodily acrost the forest.

The spiders let go; The Umbaran flew in the air a good ways, hit a tree, and rolled through underbrush, coming to rest in a clearing at the bottom of the hill. He stood up slowly and looked around. He was in an area with a bubbling fountain and the statue of a female elf with a child. What little light there was vanished. The Umbaran looked up: down came a spider the size of a large temple. The Umbaran almost didn't get out of the way in time, as Lona Ered came crashing down onto the ground. Some of the water from the fountain fell on Lona Ered and burns appeared on him. He jumped back, out of range of the fountain, and then chuckled. "Back for more, are we? Weren't you satisfied with what happened the last time?"

"No, not remotely" said The Umbaran.

"I did kill your family. And you" hissed the Lona Ered. "You want to do it all over again?"

"I'd much rather just kill you this time around." The Umbaran brandished Moréna.

"I don't believe you." Lona Ered lunged at the The Umbaran and knocked Moréna from his hands. The gentle bubbling of the fountain could still be heard and The Umbaran felt calmer looking at it. He jumped for Moréna instead. The blade's dull red glowed turned into a bright scarlet, which fed into The Umbaran, making him stronger.

The Umbaran jumped forward and cut deeply into Lona Ered, killing him in one stroke. The gigantic spider shriveled into a mass of shadows. At the center was a male elf. Moréna stopped glowing. "Heh, that's a lot to do for a good night" said the Umbaran. As he walked away his blade began to glow again. The small crystal he had became a little dimmer.

Back under the banks all the web cocoons began to shudder. And then break open. Little, soft voices whispered "We're free" simultaneously.

The Woman, who was nearby, smiled. "The first test is complete."

Moréna: Session One

In the perpetual twilight, before the sun and moon, The Umbaran strode onto the shore of the shore of the Gelion river, beside the town Gelionunci. A web shot out of the water and pulled him down into the river. The Umbaran found himself in an air pocket beneath the river, he was under the bank, where a little cave wound back into it.

He was also being attacked by a spider the size of a small dog.

As he fought the spider he heard a small voice, further back. He ignored it, and continued to fight the spider. The small voice failed. He killed the spider. The Umbaran went into the back, walking past a series of webbed-up pods. They were still. At the back of the cave he found a small pod that was still swinging back and forth. He cut it open, and a small elven boy fell out. The boy looked deep into The Umbaran's dead eyes and died. The Umbaran searched the boy's body, but he didn't find what he was looking for. He searched around, and then found a stone. He pulled out a smaller crystal, which had been hewn from a similar rock, but smoothed down. The Umbaran compared them, perplexed. He walked around again, checking the room once more. He came back to the crystal rock, broke off a part of it, and pocketed both the smoothed down crystal and the new one.

The Umbaran went back to the river, swam back up to the bank, and pulled himself out. To his right was a forest, to his left was the town of Gelionunci. The Umbaran held up his crystals, and they both glowed equally. He headed for the forest. The underbrush in the forest was uncommonly thick, so out came Moréna and down went the underbrush. The Umbaran found a a clearing, with a gigantic tree. In the tree was an arrow. The Umbaran became frustrated and called out for Lona Ered, demanding that he come out and face The Umbaran. There was no answer, only a dark chuckle, coming from somewhere in the forest. Moréna's edges began to glow red.

All of a sudden the trees began to sway, back and forth, back and forth. Yells and screams heralded the arrival of men wielding swords. The Umbaran cut them all down in astonishingly brutal fashion. One of them reached up and grabbed The Umbaran's ankle, calling him "Boros" and that the men were bewitched and he could still be saved! The man was killed; The Umbaran didn't care. The trees began to sway back and forth again. A black liquid began to bulge out of their roots. Black liquid came from the the men and crawled towards the nearest tree. The Umbaran cut down the tree, and the black liquid went to another one. The Umbaran examined the men, and sighed deeply as he recognized each and every one of them.

The Umbaran headed towards Gelionunci. As he walked he saw a watchtower, which was situated in front of the wall. A gleam from the West hit the white stones of it, and it shone, briefly, in the twilight. The watchtower itself was immaculately clean, but there were dark webs in the windows. The Umbaran stared at the tower, gleaming there in the twilight, and eventually walked inside.

The entire place was covered in dust. Quivers arrows, weapons, the worn floor, all covered in dust. The ground floor was a single room, with windows facing the town and forest. The forest window had a magnifying lens in it. A stone stairway led up to a second story. It was simple stone, but polished. The Umbaran climbed these stairs cautiously, sword ready. There were no webs inside the windows, but on the outside, contrary to what he had seen outside. There were many more weapons up here, especially bows, which were without strings. He cut through the webbing on the windows and the twilight shone through. He looked through, at the clearing he had just been in. There was a creak in the floorboards behind him and he whirled around. There was an elven woman standing there. The Umbaran told her she had one minute before he attacked her. She disappeared. A blade fell down, behind from where she was. The Umbaran picked it up and read the inscription on it: "Mairon", it read. It glowed red, just like Moréna. The Umbaran chuckled drly and sheathed it in his belt.

The Umbaran left the tower and heard a little voice cry out. It was the boy from earlier. The Umbaran went behind the tower and found the boy. He turned around and found himself facing The Woman from before, with hundreds of other elves, begging for release from Lona Ered. They vanished in a blink.

Moréna: Session Zero

Lena is someone that I knew from my time at Benedictine College. She and I had played in a few games together, particularly one of the best games I've ever been in, a World of Darkness campaign called "Unspent", GM'd by Andy. Her family and mine had met up at a park so the kids could play together, and we got into talking about RPG campaigns and whatnot. I told her about my late-night games and how much I wished others would be up at 10 PM and on so I could play with them. Lena said she was a night owl and she missed playing! After a few logistical hoops were jumped through we decided that we wanted to eventually get to a 2nd Age Middle Earth Burning Wheel game. I flat out refused to do it as of now, mostly because I'm already GMing two Burning Wheel games already and the strain would probably kill me.

So I suggested Bleak Spirit, which is so intensive it might kill me anyway!

So this is what we've drawn up. Lena, being a huge LOTR nerd (there is no "k" in Evlish) wanted to play in the First Age of Middle Earth. We decided it would when the Trees were bringing light into the world, before the sun and moon, so everything is in a perpetual twilight. Melkor, enemy of the world, is still grabbing random elves, who haven't gone West yet and are terrified of the darkness that is their world. We're putting the game on the Gelion River, near the area that eventually becomes river, in a town named Gelionunci, a mostly abandoned town.

The Wanderer we made is The Umbaran, a revenant human from what eventually became the mysterious land of Rhûn. An undead on a special mission that only he knows about, The Umbaran dresses in worn fine elvish clothes he probably picked off an elven corpse from somewhere, and wields an enormous zweihander called Moréna. This blade is the source of his power. It increases his physical strength, anger and focus. For his part The Umbaran is a very focused personality, chasing his goal with uncompromising vigor. Distracting him is a bad idea, for The Umbaran has a bad temper and will not stop until he gets what he has been chasing this whole time.

The War: Sessions Zero and One

Session Zero

Bleak Spirit advises that you get as specific as you need to when creating the world, because, once the gameplay starts, players cannot discuss the setting anymore. So Kyle and I decided to make setting building for this game its own session. And, while we didn't get into too much detail, we did set up a solid framework to run the first session on.

The setting revolves around the conflict between the God of Light, Ahura Mazda, and the God of Dark, Ahriman. Their conflict was so destructive that the world sealed itself away from them as much as they could, offering sacrifice to the two gods so that they would stay away just far enough so that the world could continue on. The sacrifices were conducted at The Castle of Twilight, a two-keep castle situated over Twilight Gorge, a bottomless window into the abyss, where you could see Ahura Mazda and Ahriman fight. Straddling this abyss is The Bridge of Vigilance, where the sacrifices were cast in to drive away the conflicting gods.

The main character, we decided would be an armored man called Orpheus, with cut vocal cords. He wielded an ornamental sword with a blue stone in the pommel. The blue stone allowed Orpheus to sing spell songs, of undetermined power and scope. The sapphire, when activated, covered the affected area in a strong blue light.

Session One

The Twilight Gorge had a bottom, contrary to popular myth, a swamp that goes on and on and on. But somewhere in this morass is an awful and nasty hole, which leads to the World of Night. It stands unguarded. No one goes in, and no one goes out; who would want to enter and who could leave? And, for untold aeons, no one did. Until one day, when Orpheus crawled out, into the Twilight Gorge Swamp. Lumbering through the swamp in his heavy armor, Orpheus heard a hissing behind him, calling out to him by name.

"Orpheuuuuuuuuussssssssss...... Ooooooooooooooooorpheusssssssssssssssssssssss...."

Orpheus ignored the call, and climbed up the cliff, onto the The Bridge of Vigilance. At the top of the bridge stood a figure in full armor, identical to what Orpheus was wearing. Staring at him for a moment Orpheus sang a song that required all that heard it to give him their true name. Nothing happened. A song of abjuring all Nameless things followed. Orpheus doubled over in pain, and the armored figure collapsed.  After a moment of rest Orpheus entered the Keep of Darkness, pain slowly fading. 

The gate doors swung wide onto a scene of absolute carnage. Desiccated corpses of drakes lay upon desiccated corpses of drakes. Draconic heads on plaques adorned the walls of the courtyard. There was one blank plaque on the wall, with an inscription: Arthkurn the Relentless. Orpheus looked at the main entrance to the keep, alone in his thoughts. He looked to his left and saw the stairs to the nearby tower. He took the stairs.

All of a sudden Orpheus was pushing his way through the keep gates again. The corpses were on fire, and the the plaques were all empty, except for the bleached skull on the wall; it was Arthkurn the Relentless's skull. Orpheus came to, slumped against the wall, next to the stairway. He got up and trudged up the stairs.

As he climbed Orpheus saw winged monstrosities, in the form of twisted dragons, wheeling about above him. The song that followed set these aberrations on fire and brought one of them crashing into the stairwell in front of Orpheus. The stairs began to slowly retract into the wall. Orpheus tried to freeze the flaming form, but nothing happened. He tried to superheat the flaming form with a Song of Light, but the song wouldn't come to him, dying on his lips. Finally a song of heaving cut through the blue light. The burning corpse flung Orpheus over him, into the tower, as the stairs finally retracted into the wall.

As Orpheus got to the top of the tower he looked out at the world around him; the world was one vast, grey fog. There was nothing beyond The Castle of Twilight, nothing at all. Orpheus was not surprised at this and barely paid it any heed. There was a slot in the wall. Orpheus put his sword in the slot. The whole castle shook as the stairs in the walls began to slide back out; Orpheus's sword was being sucked into the slot. Orpheus just barely managed to retrieve his sword, and the stairs slid back into the wall. 

Orpheus looked around. The Keep of Darkness had a few holes in the roof, and Orpheus looked through, into the darkness. In the back of the Keep of Darkness Orpheus saw a desiccated corpse of an enormous dragon, staked down. To the right of the Keep was a small courtyard with a shining fountain.  Orpheus lay down and crafted a song of longing, of loneliness. Something cold and long dead appeared, in Orpheus' peripheral vision. Orpheus did not look at it. A few seconds later he heard the SNAP of the slot taking a sword, and the stairs slid back out. Orpheus got back out; he was alone. He walked back down the stairs the way he came. 

The courtyard was completely clear of everything as Orpheus came back down the stairs. The perpetual twilight of the the world had become a hot and humid high noon. A purple light was shining through the gates that led back to the Bridge of Vigilance. Orpheus looked between that gate and the doors that led into the Keep. In his mind Orpheus made up his mind: he had to stop his past self, he needed to! He threw the gates back open, rust flying off of the hinges and, bathed in that purple light, Orpheus strode out to meet himself, swearing an oath through a now-intact throat that he would would stop himself before it was too late.

Orpheus saw himself on the bridge. There was still a world at this point. He called out to himself, begging him to stop it. The war needed to go on, the world needed to continue, it wasn't too late to stop what he was up to! His past self replied that  it was too late. Orpheus commanded himself to give up the gems, which his past self found confusing. Orpheus wrenched his foe's hands open: there was a blue gem and a red gem. Orpheus told him it could stop. His past self responded back that he would never stop. Orpheus drew his ceremonial blade and cut his foe's throat. Both of them fell back as a huge cut appeared on their throats. His foe grabbed Orpheus and pitched them over the side, into the roiling chaos that was the battle of Ahura Mazda and Ahriman. As they fell Orpheus sang one last song: he broke the red and blue gem his foe wielded, and protected his enemy's fall. The swamp snapped into existence suddenly. Orpheus's  neck broke in the fall. His foe crawled away as the valley coalesced into the swamp. 

Up above the grey fog broke and the world came back into existence, and the swamp broke open, welcoming the return of the slumbering Ahura Mazda and Ahriman. Far away, in the Keep of Darkness, the lone dracolich Arthkurn broke free from his constraints and flew away into the newly renewed world.

Bleak Spirit

In explaining the system Chris Longhurst, the creator of  Bleak Spirit, states: "Bleak Spirit is a tabletop roleplaying game inspired by the empty, haunted worlds of video games like Dark Souls, Hollow Knight, and Salt and Sanctuary." Now, I totally watch VaatiVidya, so for me this meant a whole heck of a lot... and literally every single person I tell that to as a selling point gives me the same blank, confused, look, including fans of Dark Souls and Bloodborne! Turns out that people, when they think of Dark Souls, do not think of the incredible lore and stories that are buried into the code of the game. Which is quite unfortunate. Of course I called my brother-in-law Kyle, who had introduced me to Dark Souls in the first place, and that's where I found out that by saying "stories like Dark Souls" means absolutely nothing.

So I described the basics of the game to him: there's one Player Character, the Wanderer, who walks into an area and attempts to take out the Big Bad of said area, all in one session. No dice are used, and there is no randomization beyond an *optional* set of cards. Nobody owns the Wanderer, and nobody stays as the GM. The three roles, Wanderer (the lone PC), the World (kinda like the GM of other games), and the Chorus (not available for two player games, helps the World), rotate each scene. The scene economy is relatively strict, allowing everyone to lean onto the structure and be as creative as they like.

But the key of the whole game is that you're not allowed to talk about what you think is happening and no explanations are allowed of any action. This absolute lack of information, which I'd normally abhor, makes the game incredibly tense. You are supposed to Leap to Conclusions, which is where you follow a series of prompts after every scene to write out what you think happened during that scene. These Leaps to Conclusions are meant to be wild, speculative, and utterly unsubstantiated. Well, unsubstantiated yet, at least. Because you then take what you think is going on and play it out against what everyone else thinks is going on.

And, since the roles switch every scene, that means that this almost baffling narrative unfolds, as the other players block your moves and you adapt your fiction, pushing your point with the narrative as it has played out.  This is where the *optional* cards fit in, because they break the rules in unexpected ways. For instance, in the game where Kyle and I played, he introduced a card that let him get two scenes in a row! I was completely floored, as he attempted to take even more control of the narrative and push his ideas as hard as he could. The joke was on him, though, because my plan was completely different than he'd thought it was, and so the extra push on his part was wasted. And this creates a unique tension, unlike any dice game I've ever played where, because everything is canon, you are not wondering if something is going to be successful, but what you're going to do about it.

I plan on making Bleak Spirit a part of my regular rotation, joining Burning Wheel, The Marvel Universe RPG, and Hearts of Wulin. It's fun to not have to GM, but to be involved in a struggle to make a story about one person trying to make a difference in a world that has forgotten itself. If you love having mystery and intrigue and shadow wars in your RPGs I really suggest backing Bleak Spirit. It's been a brilliant time for me. Even my brother-in-law, who normally doesn't like rules-lite games, found himself having a lot of fun.

Praise the sun indeed! And yes, that's the name of one of the cards. Dead serious. It's an awesome card too.