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Lifepaths
Come with me to a little town surround-

ed by the multicolored void. It sits in
the middle of no true place, or noth-
ingness, and it is circled by its sun. It is a
peaceful town. It’s sleepy. It’s practically bucolic. It’s
not involved in the carnival of great dreams and bloody
events that Creation so frequently becomes.
Come and be... ŭŭ The Child of the Sun, Jasper Irinka, if

you want...
ŭŭ The Wishing Boy, Chuubo, if you want... • ...to be a confused alien visitor to the human world.
• ...to make precious memories with your friends. • ...to be sweet and sunny.
• ...to be central and important. • ...to have weird alien limbs and tendrils sometimes.
• ...to be a little laid-back, ordinary, and passive. • ...to be at the center of a lot of drama and spiri-
(or are you the girl variant, Shokyou, the tual stuff.
Wishing Girl?) (or are you the boy variant Raven Irinka, instead?)
ŭŭ The Best Friend, Seizhi Schwan, if you want... ŭŭ The Angel of Fortitude, Entropy II, if you want...
• ...to stress out a lot. • ...to be comparatively mature and established.
• ...to see the wishes in a person’s heart. • ...to be freaky and scary.
• ...to have weird powers that practically ignore • ...to be a sorrowful and numinous being.
most defenses. (or are you the girl variant, Attaris II, instead?)
(or are you the girl variant Suzy Schwan, instead?)
ŭŭ The Dream-Witch, Miramie Mesmer, if
ŭŭ Nightmares’ Angel, Leonardo de Montreal, if you want...
you want... • ...to be a central figure in the campaign, but not
• ...to be arrogant and morally ambiguous. the world.
• ...to have a lot of backstory. • ...to run a little shop.
• ...to practice extraordinary Science! • ...to be extremely dangerous when provoked.
(or are you the girl variant Dulcinea de Montreal, • ...to have taken over your life from someone
instead?) else—someone evil.
(or are you the boy variant, Reynard Mesmer,
ŭŭ The Troublemaker, Rinley Yatskaya, if instead?)
you want...
• ...to tell stories and be goofy.
• ...to talk to cats.
• ...to be a creature out of fable and tall tales.
(or are you the boy variant, also named Rinley?)
ŭŭ The Prodigy, Natalia Koutolika, if you want...

• ...to be emo, yet heroic.
• ...to have “mad skills.”
• ...to be new in Town.
(or are you the boy variant Antony Yuryevich,
instead?)
4 Lifepaths
Or come and be...
ŭŭ The HG, or “Hollyhock God,” if you want...

• ...to focus on describing the world rather than
being attached to any particular character.
• ...to play the game, and nobody else is being the
HG so you’d better.
• ...to be able to just say things happen and they do.
• ...to help pull together a story from the things the
characters do.
Lifepaths
If you’re the HG, you’re basically ready to go. Help
the other players with anything they need; or, read/
re-read this book; or, read the notes for you on pg. XX;
or, think about stuff!
Otherwise, you can move on to character building in
the appropriate section below!
Shake It Up!
If you have access to Fortitude: by the Docks of Big
Lake, you can also build your own character using
one of the options in that book, playing...
ŭŭ ...the Shop Fox, a fox-eared person,
ŭŭ ...the Vampire, one of the rare
Fortitude vampires,
ŭŭ ...the Other One, someone or other random
from Town,
ŭŭ ...the Immigrant From Earth, having come to
Town by boat,
ŭŭ ...the Shrine Maiden, from one of the spiritual
families of Fortitude,
ŭŭ ...or the boy variant, the (Shrine) Priest.
By the Docks of Big Lake also talks about the

Fortitude rats, but I wouldn’t recommend them for
this campaign—they’re just too energetic!
Lifepaths 5
6 Lifepaths
Lifepaths
The Wishing Boy
Campaign: The Glass-Maker’s Dragon
Academics Skill: Ordinary
Sports Skill: Ordinary
Favorite Foods: Teriyaki, Ice Cream
Blood Type: A
Animal: Snake
Age: Campaign Default (You will usually be 15, but the game may play out age
5-14 at an accelerated pace.)
Genres: Pastoral, maybe Techno (Chuubo/Shokyou are present in all genres, but this
version of the character is optimized for Pastoral gaming.)
Lifepaths 7
Step 1: Choose Your Name I mean, well, probably not. You’re not sure. You think
Good morning! Welcome to the world of the Marvelous you’re human, but sometimes you imagine those other
Wish-Granting Engine. possibilities. And maybe they’re even true!
You are a simple, ordinary kid. You live in Horizon,
a foggy gothic ruin not far from Fortitude where this Step 3: Choose Your
campaign is set. You’re not particularly smart or fast or Favorite Scenes
strong or anything, but even ordinary kids like you can Are you most often seen...
get a good idea now and then. Your idea was building a
wish-granting engine that actually works. ŭŭ ...doing chores?
So you did! ŭŭ ...fishing?
Don’t believe me? Go look! It’s right there! Built ŭŭ ...helping out?
1
exactly to your plans, with your name on that plaque in ŭŭ ...talking with friends about stuff that’s
the bottom right corner. But does that make you... going on?
ŭŭ ...hanging out in the world and experi-
ŭŭ ...Chuubo, the Wishing Boy? encing stuff?
ŭŭ ...Shokyou, the Wishing Girl? ŭŭ ...wandering Fortitude with a snack?
ŭŭ ...something else? ŭŭ ...daydreaming?
ŭŭ ...listening, wide-eyed, to traditional stories?
Sorry, Shokyou! This book is going to assume that ŭŭ ...giving a monologue, and then taking
you’re Chuubo, the Wishing Boy. But swap the gender decisive action?
and name and you should find this a useful document ŭŭ ...stressing out over simple things, like
about yourself! whether you’re flossing enough?
ŭŭ ...getting in over your head when doing
Step 2: Choose Your Nature things that really should be simple?
Where did you come from? How much do you know
about your own nature? Pick 2-3 favorites to help you figure out what you
Are you... might be doing at any given time.
It’s OK if the little icons don’t make sense yet, and
ŭŭ ...just an ordinary kid? you don’t have to memorize them—they’re just coding
ŭŭ ...just an ordinary kid, with cool glasses? the various parts of the game that “feel” a certain way.
Or is there a deeper truth? Are you... The first icon, for instance, marks the pastoral parts of
ŭŭ ...a river dragon who turned human in order to the game that are all about a simple, honest life and
enjoy things like bagel bites & comics? connecting to people!
ŭŭ ...a dragon forged from glass and evil, who turned
human for similar reasons?
ŭŭ ...a god of dreams and wishes, hiding from
your past?
ŭŭ ...the child of the tree of worlds, unknowingly
taking human form?
ŭŭ ...the child of an evil tree, unknowingly taking
human form?
ŭŭ ...a human shell that someone made to hold the
fate-defining “tablets of destiny?”
ŭŭ ...or something else?
Nah!
8 Lifepaths
Step 4: Review Your Goals
Sometimes “the dust of the Outside” blows in off of
Big Lake. It gets into people’s houses and into people’s
dreams. It’s psychoactive if you breathe too much of it.
It can make things rust, even ordinary things that aren’t
made of metal, if you leave it to collect.
It’s really only a problem for people who live in the
Fortitude area, down by Big Lake.
...and for you.
One day you discovered that some of your most pre-
Lifepaths
cious comics had rusted, along with most of that corner
of your bookshelf. Ever since then, you’ve realized that
the dust is regularly blowing all the way up and over
the hill and down into your home in Horizon—it’s like
it’s hunting you!
You keep dreaming of a masked woman. She’s
strangely interesting or attractive, depending on your
age, and definitely menacing. She feels like a real
person using magic and not just a dream image.
So you’ve started visiting Fortitude on the weekends
and other opportunities.
It’s a sleepy, peaceful kind of place. You like it there.
ŭŭ Quest 1: You’ve always wanted to... Figure 1- Example Wishing Map

• ...live your life, and make precious memories (You’ll use this to make wishes that come true!)
with your friends.
ŭŭ Quest 2: And now you definitely want to... Step 5: Build Your Wishing Map
• ...find someone in Fortitude who can help you or Your power of wishes is based on your Wishing Map.
teach you how to help yourself. It starts by giving you the raw power of being a peaceful
• ...find out who the woman is, and become her kid who enjoys life and is a little lonely sometimes. The
friend, enemy, ally, rival, or SO. rest is built on your relationship to the other PCs.
ŭŭ Quest 3: And you’re probably looking to... Either now or after the first session, you need to talk
• ...learn the ways of Fortitude life. to the other players.
Get a single phrase from each of them to summarize
Unless you want to replace that last one with some what they think of Chuubo or what their character’s
variation, like... relationship with him is.
That’s the basis for your wishing map!
ŭŭ ...learning magic from one of the shrine families Each wish that you make will flow from something
that live there? on the Map. For instance, you have “enjoys life” written
ŭŭ ...spending time out sailing on Big Lake? up there near the top. A nice, sunny day would help
ŭŭ ...focusing on getting good grades in school? you do that, so you could go up to the Wish-Granting
ŭŭ ...taking care of a shrine or park? Engine and wish for a nice, sunny day. But becoming
ŭŭ ...studying something else? the Mayor of Town wouldn’t, necessarily, so that wish
might be a little rougher.
Lifepaths 9
Step 6: Choose Your Connections Step 7: Review Your Powers
Connections are basically a measure of how well you You have the following specific abilities. Maybe
know and get somebody. They’re also a measure of how they’re because of past wishes. Maybe they’re because
good you are at living somewhere or with someone. of someone else’s magic. Maybe they’re just a part of
You’ll always have a couple of starting Connections— who you are.
ŭŭ The Best Friend 2. You have a best friend. ŭŭ You basically never get hurt. Stuff that would kill
ŭŭ The Dream-Witch 1. You have a mysterious most people just dazes you.
connection to the dream-witch. ŭŭ Your daydreams are often visible to others.
ŭŭ Your daydreams are sometimes tangible in
You can discard these Connections later if you don’t harmless but useful ways.
1
want them or they just don’t seem to fit. ŭŭ You’re good at calming things down.
Talk to the players of the other characters, either now You have two alternate forms:
or after the couple of sessions. If someone agrees that ŭŭ You think you might be able to turn into a giant
you should be close to or comfortable with their PC, snake. It... probably wouldn’t help.
you can get a free level 1 Connection to their character ŭŭ You can take your tie off and tie it around your
as well! head, becoming Dark Chuubo.
You can improve your character’s Connections later • (Shokyou instead becomes Dark Shokyou or
as the reward from an appropriate quest. “Shokyou Rock and Roll.”)
• This removes your ability to calm things down,
but gives you the power to stir things up and make
them more rocking instead!
Most importantly of all...

Once per week, after each Sunday’s dawn, you can
go down to your Marvelous Wish-Granting Engine and
make a wish.
The wheels and cogs in the Engine will turn. The
sparkers will spark. The creaking component of your
Engine will creak, and the portion that’s intended for
honking will honk, and there will be a silvery shimmer
from the bells, and that make-a-joyful-noise compo-
nent that you built will give a joyful shout; and then the
whole thing will shudder and burn with its power and
the shining beacon at the top will fire off a lance of light
to Heaven; and your wish—
Whatever wish you make!—
Comes true.
If it fits your Wishing Map, it probably comes true in
a pretty sane and sensible way. If not, then wacky hijinx
are more likely to ensue. But either way, it happens.
That’s what you do. That’s who you are.
You’re the one with the power to make real all the
dreams in your wishing heart.
10 Lifepaths
Step 8: Props
Before play, you’ll want to:
ŭŭ Copy, download and print, or open your book to

your character sheet.
ŭŭ Draw up your wishing map, possibly starting with
the blank version on pg. XX.
ŭŭ Make sure the group has a bowl of tokens to serve
as XP.
Lifepaths
Optionally:
ŭŭ Gather 5+ tokens to serve as MP, different from

the XP tokens.
ŭŭ Gather 8 tokens to serve as Will, different from
the XP/MP tokens.
ŭŭ Copy or download and print quest cards for
your quests.
ŭŭ Look around the table to identify the other PCs.
Then warm up for play by practicing...
• ...head-desking at your own goofiness,
• ...and, if present...
►► ...giving thumbs-ups to the Best Friend.
►► ...pointing and gaping speech-
lessly at Nightmares’ Angel.

►► ...groaning or rolling your eyes
at the Troublemaker.
►► ...wincing or saying aww! at the Prodigy.
►► ...bowing gratefully, hand over
fist, to the Child of the Sun.

►► ...shivering at the weirdness of
the Angel of Fortitude.

►► ...sighing and offering an XP token
to comfort the Dream-Witch.

►► ...whatever turns out to be appro-
priate for any other PCs.

[[CHARACTER SHEET, including spaces for
Name, Nature, Favorite Scenes, Changed Quests,
Connections, Current MP, and Will. I’ll try and put
together a vague sketch to give you an idea of how
to space it all out. Every character gets one of these.]]
Lifepaths 11
your name
catchphrase
emotion xp
bond
affliction
skills campaign information
name
genre
in-genre action names
perks
shrine maiden/priest — the vasili
your element
honoring your element
family status
quest information
arc traits
miscellaneous notes and powers wounds health levels
divine
tough
normal
PERMISSION IS GRANTED TO PHOTOCOPY THIS PAGE FOR PERSONAL USE

Lifepaths
The Best Friend
Academics Skill: Good
Favorite Foods: Teriyaki, Ice Cream
Blood Type: A
Animal: Ox
Genres: Pastoral, Adventure Fantasy, maybe Techno (The Best Friend is present in
all genres, but this version of the character is optimized for Pastoral gaming.)
Lifepaths 13
Step 1: Choose Your Name So, are you...
Oh, sweet, you’re real! Welcome to the world of the
Marvelous Wish-Granting Engine. ŭŭ ...a boy named Seizhi Schwan?
Listen. This is going to be rough. You’re honestly not ŭŭ ...a girl named Suzy Schwan?
the best candidate for being real. You are, to be blunt, ŭŭ ...or possibly a girl still named Seizhi Schwan?
kind of improbable. ŭŭ ...something else?
But...
When you didn’t exist, that was the worst thing ever. ...sorry, Suzy! This book is going to assume that
Remember? It was terrifying. It was awful. You were you’re Seizhi Schwan, a boy. But swap the gender
part of this... terrible... thing. You were a tendril of the and name and you should find this a useful document
Bleak Academy and you did not like it one bit. about yourself!
1
Then one day Chuubo wished for a best friend. Bam!
That’s you. Well, now. That’s you now: Step 2: Choose Your Nature
The Best Friend. This is probably your first shot at life, but I figure I
You live in Horizon, near Chuubo’s house. Horizon should ask!
is terrifying. You are pretty sure it is just crawling with What were you before Chuubo’s wish?
walking dead and vampires and monsters and stuff.
The fog and the gargoyles and the tombstones and the ŭŭ ...just a shard of dream adrift in chaos
people mysteriously vanishing and the clip-clip-clop of and nothingness?
horse hooves on the cobblestones—aagh! Scary! ŭŭ ...part of the structure of death, the Outside, or the
But it is better than not existing. inimical “Bleak Academy?”
You have a family. They are awesome but they
stress you out because they totally do not respect your Or is this actually your second time around, and you
desire for normalcy. Your parents are Mortimer and were something that existed before?
Melancholy Schwan, morticians. You are not sure why
your Chinese-looking dad has a name like Mortimer or ŭŭ ...a legendary hero of Town?
where your mother’s red hair came from in a Town like ŭŭ ...a horrible demon?
this and one night when you were a kid you think you ŭŭ ...a sandpiper or other animal?
saw your Mom float through a wall, but that is just the ŭŭ ...one of the Fortitude talking rats?
way they are. ŭŭ ...an ordinary human?
They are like that. ŭŭ ...a magical wish spirit?
Big brother Laodemus is almost as bad. He is always ŭŭ ...something else?
staring soulfully off into the distance and monologuing
about justice or manliness, or staggering into the house Step 3: Choose Your Power
late at night bleeding and covered in mud, or wrestling Born of a wish, you can see into others’ hearts! You can
with his partner Aidan out among the tombstones in the read the hearts of humans, human-like creatures, and
back, or carefully flossing the teeth of the family bat,1 or also either...
offering to make your problems “go away.” Laodemus
is very strong and has a closet full of masks. You assume ŭŭ ...animals?
this all means that he’s gay, an underground tournament ŭŭ ...the dead?
luchador, or both, but he just teases you and refuses to ŭŭ ...the clouds, the wind, and the weather?
answer when you ask. ŭŭ ...machines?
You love your family but would a tiny bit of predict- ŭŭ ...or something else?
ability and a few fewer corpses on the dinner table be
too much to ask? Choose one, and you can see right into the relevant
...apparently. kind of heart. Normally in a Fortitude-based campaign
Apparently it would. you’ll choose animals, but it’s totally up to you!
1 O
14 Lifepaths
Step 4: Name Your Fear Step 5: Choose Your
Ever since you found out that you weren’t real—ever Favorite Scenes
since you first saw the Wish-Granting Engine and Are you most often seen...
remembered being created—you’ve been terrified.
Absolutely... terrified. ŭŭ ...cleaning?
But why? Is it because you’re afraid... ŭŭ ...practicing on a musical instrument?
ŭŭ ...sorting out your head by talking
ŭŭ ...that one day, everyone will point at you and about stuff?
says, “Oh my God, that boy over there: he’s just ŭŭ ...helping Chuubo out?
an imaginary person! Fake person! Fake person! ŭŭ ...woodworking or some other craft?
Lifepaths
Kill him!?” ŭŭ ...hanging out with Chuubo?
ŭŭ ...that one morning, you’ll wake up, try to clear ŭŭ ...goofing off?
the last bit of dream from your head, and you’ll ŭŭ ...exploring the world and your
realize that you can’t? That you’ll try to move own existence?
your arms and legs and head and mind and ŭŭ ...talking about nothing at all?
you’ll realize that you’re not able to? And you’ll ŭŭ ...listening, wide-eyed, to traditional stories?
panic and flail harder and harder, only you won’t ŭŭ ...declaring that you have FOUND
actually flail at all, and you’ll realize that it’s not your DESTINY?
working, that waking up isn’t working, because ŭŭ ...getting way too worked up over an
you don’t exist? upcoming test, date, purchase, or chore?
• ...or even, because you never existed? ŭŭ ...throwing yourself all-out into some,
• ...or are you afraid that you’re using up a life that possibly ridiculous, “duty?”
was supposed to go to a real person? ŭŭ ...getting into scary trouble?
• ...or that you don’t deserve reality?
ŭŭ ...that you weren’t “allowed” to come to life, and Pick 2-3 favorites to help you figure out what you
something unreal will come from Outside the might be doing at any given time.
world to hunt you down? It’s OK if the little icons don’t make sense yet, and
ŭŭ ...that your family will find out that they’re you don’t have to memorize them—they’re just coding
probably not real and they’ll have to suffer the the various parts of the game that “feel” a certain way.
same existential anxieties as you? The first icon, for instance, marks the pastoral parts of
ŭŭ ...or is it something else? the game that are all about a simple, honest life and
connecting to people!
Lifepaths 15
Step 6: Review Your Goals Step 7: Choose Your Connections
Once upon a time, but not all that long ago, the Connections are basically a measure of how well you
Headmaster of the Bleak Academy rode up into the sky know and get somebody. They’re also a measure of how
of Fortitude and he drew back his great black bow and good you are at living somewhere or with someone.
he fired an arrow and he killed the sun. You’ll always have a couple of starting Connections—
She used to be a woman named Jade Irinka. And also
the sun. She died. ŭŭ The Wishing Boy (or Girl) 4. You’re Chuubo (or
It wasn’t just an eclipse. Maybe some people on Shokyou)’s best friend, by universal law.
Earth, they saw it, they thought it was an eclipse, but it ŭŭ Wish Spirits 1. You like the wish spirits of Town.
wasn’t. The sun died. It’s more than just any ordinary
miracle that a new sun was born to replace it in the sky. You can discard these Connections later if you don’t
1
You’ve been dreaming about that. You keep dreaming want them or they just don’t seem to fit.
about that and you don’t know why. Talk to the players of the other characters, either now
But you’re hoping— or after the couple of sessions. If someone agrees that
You’re hoping that it’s destiny. You’re hoping that it you should be close to or comfortable with their PC,
means... something is going to happen, and it’s going you can get a free level 1 Connection to their character
to have to do with you, because you know what? If you as well!
have a destiny, that means you’re really real. You can improve your character’s Connections later
as the reward from an appropriate quest.
ŭŭ Quest 1: You’ve always spent a lot of time...
• ...covering up the evidence of your non-existence
and inventing a history for yourself.
ŭŭ Quest 2: And now you definitely want to...
• ...find out why you’ve been dreaming about Jade
Irinka’s death;
• ...find a place for yourself in Fortitude that
somehow connects to or relates to that, or to death
and rebirth or the sky in general.
ŭŭ Quest 3: And you’re probably looking to...
• ...help out the animals of Fortitude, since you can
see their wishes and all...
Unless you want to replace that with some variation,

like:
ŭŭ ...helping fulfill the post-ultimate wishes of

the dead.
ŭŭ ...helping one of Fortitude’s “shrine families” tend
Fortitude’s spiritual health.
ŭŭ ...helping random people around Fortitude/Town
in general.
ŭŭ ...doing some important work, like...
• ...collecting bodies for transportation to your
family funeral home?
• ...investigating something for Chuubo?
• ...helping out at a PC or important NPC’s store
or cafe?
ŭŭ ...something else?
16 Lifepaths
Step 8: Review Your Powers Step 9: Props
You have the following specific abilities: Before play, you’ll want to:
ŭŭ You’re really good at being the Wishing Boy’s ŭŭ Copy, download and print, or open your book to
best friend. your character sheet.
ŭŭ You’re really good at reading people’s ŭŭ Make sure the group has a bowl of tokens to serve
hearts—you can see through even a miraculous as XP.
or wish-powered poker face and know what Optionally:
people really want. You can also read the ŭŭ Copy or download and print a sign reading “Over
hearts of animals and learn to read the hearts of the Top.”
Lifepaths
other things. ŭŭ Gather 5+ tokens to serve as MP, different from
ŭŭ You’re an incredible social and environmental the XP tokens.
chameleon. You’re the one who decides ŭŭ Gather 8 tokens to serve as Will, different from
how Seizhi Schwan fits into the world—not the XP/MP tokens.
anybody else! ŭŭ Copy or download and print quest cards for
• Some parts of your history are hard for even your quests.
wishes to change. ŭŭ Look around the table to identify the other PCs.
• You can fit in basically anywhere. Then warm up for play by practicing (for those
• You can spontaneously connect to anyone or any- that are present)...
thing, making it easy to work together with them • ...head-desking at the goofiness of the
or impersonate them. Wishing Boy.
• You’re good at communicating, even in noisy • ...gaping speechlessly at Nightmares’ Angel.
environments, across language barriers, and with • ...groaning or rolling your eyes at
people who don’t want to listen. In fact, you can the Troublemaker.
optionally communicate so well that your target • ...wincing or saying aww! at the Prodigy.
starts turning into you... • ...bowing gratefully to the Child of the Sun.
• ...or reject something so thoroughly that it • ...shivering at the weirdness of the Angel
becomes less you—even stuff like your ex-re- of Fortitude.
flection, your ex-photograph, or “that person who • ...sighing and offering an XP token to comfort the
spilled the soup on the evil god” who is now defi- Dream-Witch.
nitely not you in any way whatsoever. • ...and whatever turns out to be appropriate for any
other PCs.
Your powers aren’t very strong but they’re sturdy—
most of them will just cut right through and ignore [[CHARACTER SHEET, with spaces for Name,
everyone else’s abilities unless those people spend Nature, Power (talking to...):, Fear, Favorite Scenes,
MP or have a relevant Bond (a rare and specific char- Changed Quests, Connections, Current MP, and
acter trait). Current Will.]]
Lifepaths 17
your name
catchphrase
emotion xp
bond
affliction
name
genre
perks
your element
family status
quest information
arc traits
divine
tough
normal

Lifepaths
Nightmares’ Angel
Academics Skill: Variable
Favorite Foods: Ramen, Hot Chocolate, Schadenfreude
Blood Type: B
Animal: Tiger
Age: Campaign Default + 1 (You will usually be 16, but the game may play out age
Genres: Pastoral, Epic Fantasy, maybe Immersive Fantasy (de Montreal is present
in all genres, but this version of the character is optimized for Pastoral gaming.)
Lifepaths 19
Step 1: Choose Your Name and maybe a few of the other details and you should
Oh, good. It’s about time we got someone qualified to find this a useful reference document for yourself!
play this game.
So... you grew up in an evil orphanage. Everyone (OPTIONAL) Step 2:
hated you. People were awful to you. And then the sun In Which We Consider the
went out. Application of Dark Sorcery
Surprise! Now it is scarcely to be disputed that “sorcery” is simply
Welcome to the world of “Chuubo’s” Marvelous science badly performed or performed in a disreputable
Wish-Granting Engine, where they don’t appreciate hat and cloak, while “science” conversely is simply
you. Where everything would have been awful forever: sorcery done right—with a frisson of peer review, that
pointless, useless, bitterly and agonizingly cold, and is; a dash or two of respectability; a handful of gears
1
lightless too, if it hadn’t been for you and you alone. and steam valves; and the scientist’s traditional, quix-
You, who ripped out your own living heart and used it otic, and frankly rather unfortunate vulnerability to the
and Science! to recreate the sun. rigors of cruel physics’ laws.
And yet they still think you’re a snot. But even so there is a difference between a Nightmares’
Later, you met a few people in Town who were Angel who is fundamentally a natural scientist and
almost worthy of you. You tried to relate to them. You one who is fundamentally an occultist—simply put,
“talked” and “played” and “hung out” with them, like a scientist worships at the altar of experience, while
some pathetic muck-crawling slime-beggar, and you an occultist revels in the numinous, the ecstatic, the
tried to hide your light. But in the end it was too much ambiguous, and the profound. To a scientist, moral and
for you. It was too hard. You couldn’t relate to the sniv- emotional life are layered separately onto a world of
eling sheeple that trod and traipse through Town. things; to a sorcerer, they are its very fabric.
So you left. So...
You went out into the wild dark beyond the world. You may, if you like, give up your normal fixation on
You walked through chaos and dissolution. You reached the natural world and plummet instead into the dizzying
the gates of the Bleak Academy, you argued with its world of magic. Such a Leonardo or Dulcinea would
Headmaster there, and he took you in. He taught you attend to the stars and to the spirits of nature; to the diz-
all the secrets of death and nightmare. Then he cracked zying details of human psychology and its mindscapes;
you open and he poured a blasphemy into your hollow to spiritual energies; and to such opportunities as they
chest. could find to cavort with interesting if potentially
That was even worse than hanging out with Chuubo, ungodly occult entities of various sorts.
so you came back. What do you think?
You came home, and you built your Incomparable Would you like to...
Nightmare Engine, and you mastered the science of
the far realms; it has doomed you, but it has also made ŭŭ ...skip this step, remaining a scientist?
you great. ŭŭ ...declare yourself the unparalleled sorcerer
And who are you, Nightmares’ Angel? Are you... Leonardo d’Avignon?
ŭŭ ...declare yourself the legendary sorceress
ŭŭ ...the incomparable boy scientist, Leonardo Dulcinea d’Avignon?
de Montreal? ŭŭ ...or something else?
ŭŭ ...the incomparable girl scientist, Dulcinea
de Montreal?
ŭŭ ...someone else?
...sorry, Dulcinea! This book is going to assume

that you are the Nightmares’ Angel, the incomparable
Leonardo de Montreal. But swap the gender and name
20 Lifepaths
(OPTIONAL) Step 3: Step 4: Choose Your
The Mechanical Man, or, Favorite Scenes
the Brass-Wrought Girl Are you most often seen...
As a final option, you may discard being the original
Nightmares’ Angel entirely. ŭŭ ...proposing a theory, and then trying
That person— an experiment?
It is regrettable, but they died. Perhaps it was at the ŭŭ ...giving a monologue, and then taking
Bleak Academy. Perhaps it was later. decisive action?
You are not they. You are—instead—an astonishing ŭŭ ...working with nightmare science?
mechanical man, or a woman made from brass, con- ŭŭ ...ranting incoherently?
Lifepaths
structed so realistically as to be indistinguishable from ŭŭ ...pushing yourself to extremes in the name of
a human. In fact, if someone were to try to distinguish excellence, duty, or hubris?
you from a human you could point them at your oper- ŭŭ ...glaring at chores that you should be but are
ating manual; it says quite clearly, on page 17 and again not actually doing?
on page 32, that this can not be done! ŭŭ ...getting involved with the PCs against your
What do you think? better judgment?
Would you like to... ŭŭ ...letting them get involved with you, against
your better judgment?
ŭŭ ...skip this step, remaining the original ŭŭ ...doing things that are, apparently, “wrong”
Nightmares’ Angel? or “bad?”
ŭŭ ...declare yourself the astonishing mechanical ŭŭ ...taking measurements?
man, Leonardo VII? ŭŭ ...offering sympathy and aid to other outcasts,
ŭŭ ...recognize yourself as the brass-wrought girl, freaks, the wicked and the wrong?
Dulcinea VII? ŭŭ ...discussing threats to the world?
ŭŭ ...play Alvin RIMM, the long-suffering Ritually ŭŭ ...discussing what someone’s night-
Impure Manservant Machine (and Leonardo’s mares mean?
former butler), who received a last-minute ŭŭ ...showing up in someone’s nightmares?
mock-transplant of the dying Leonardo de ŭŭ ...soaking up the ambience?
Montreal’s heartlessness and hence became, in ŭŭ ...suffering?
some key spiritual respects, he? 1
ŭŭ ...or something else? Pick 2-3 favorites to help you figure out what you
might be doing at any given time.
you don’t have to memorize them—they’re just coding
the various parts of the game that “feel” a certain way.
The first icon, for instance, marks decisive action,
risk-taking, and proposing and testing your theories
in general.
1 This is not recommended outside of one-shot games or if you’ve

already been in a game or two with the original Leonardo or
Dulcinea de Montreal.
Lifepaths 21
Step 5: Review Your Goals ŭŭ Quest 3: Face your destiny and follow your
Something has stirred up the Outside—the chaos instincts as they lead you to...
beyond the world. There are more storms than usual • ...your miserable end, or...
coming in from the Outside lately. People are having • ...some unexpected, eucatastrophic happy ending...
more nightmares. The level of particulate Outside con- ...in the waters of Big Lake.
tamination in the groundwater has increased.
You have this suspicion that it’s because of you. Step 6: Choose Your Connections
Because you went to the Bleak Academy—and Connections are basically a measure of how well you
came back. know and get somebody. They’re also a measure of how
But it might not be you. It might be... that glass good you are at living somewhere or with someone.
dragon thing that someone told you about. Or that You’ll always have a couple of starting Connections—
1
“Angel of Fortitude” character and his weird stuff. Or
something else! ŭŭ The Child of the Sun 1. It is oddly easy to get
along with the Child of the Sun.
ŭŭ Quest 1: You’re a student of the natural world, ŭŭ The Wishing Boy [[STRIKE]]2[[END
the Outside, and people’s nightmares. STRIKE]] 0. No! No no no! You are not con-
• Take measurements, make observations, come up nected to him in any way!
with theories.
ŭŭ Quest 2: Investigate the current and historical You can discard these Connections later if you don’t
threat of the Outside. want them or they just don’t seem to fit.
• Get someone to show you the ropes of Professor Talk to the players of the other characters, either now
Hayashi’s archive, since that’s got the best or after the couple of sessions. If someone agrees that
records of things like historical storm frequency you should be close to or comfortable with their PC,
and local legend. you can get a free level 1 Connection to their character
• Find the hidden part of the archive, where it fades as well!
into a portion of the Outside. You can improve your character’s Connections later
Or would you rather be investigating something else:
ŭŭ ...the troubles of the Wishing Boy?

ŭŭ ...some esoteric quality of local Fortitude
nightmares?
ŭŭ ...the possibility that the Headmaster of the Bleak
Academy has agents infiltrating the Fortitude
area?
ŭŭ ...the lost records of your own birth and youth?
You dreamed once of your death. It wore the face of

the dead sun.
It’s the destiny of wicked things, you think, to drown
in Big Lake’s waters—and you are wicked, and you
have a wicked blasphemy inside you. You’ve been
feeling called to those waters, lately.
You think your death is on its way.
22 Lifepaths
You have the following specific abilities. Before play, you’ll want to:
ŭŭ Heartless: You cut out your heart, so when you ŭŭ Copy, download and print, or open your book to
lurk in the dark (or at least, when you’re not in your character sheet.
sunlight) you can act with a heartless perfection. ŭŭ Make sure the group has a bowl of tokens to serve
ŭŭ Friendless: You have rejected friendship and love as XP.
and vowed to live alone—yet, and possibly for Optionally:
that very reason, there are few better at defending ŭŭ Gather 5+ tokens to serve as MP, different from
the innocent, helping the helpless, and saving the XP tokens.
Lifepaths
those that ordinary science cannot save. The ŭŭ Gather 8 tokens to serve as Will, different from
supreme invocation of this power can free Town the XP/MP tokens.
from a painful memory. ŭŭ Copy or download and print quest cards for
ŭŭ Corrupted: The Headmaster of the Bleak your quests.
Academy poured blasphemy and power into you. ŭŭ Practice giving enlightening explanations of
Thus you are a master of nightmare technology, various ephemera, sure to render the other players
but sometimes your nightmares leak horror into speechless with understanding and delight!
the world. ŭŭ Look around the table to identify the other PCs.
ŭŭ Glorious: The glorious Leonardo de Montreal can Then warm up for play by practicing (for those
see through the pathetic scheming and posturing that are present)...
of lesser men. • ...head-desking at the goofiness of the
ŭŭ Empowered Wounds: You can turn new Wishing Boy.
wounds—e.g. if somebody dismembers you or • ...giving thumbs-ups to the Best Friend.
sets you on fire—into potent new power sources. • ...groaning or rolling your eyes at
Then, when you’re tired of having your new the Troublemaker.
being-on-fire or being-in-pieces power, you can • ...wincing or saying aww! at the Prodigy.
set aside that power and use one of your healing • ...bowing gratefully to the Child of the Sun.
abilities to recover. • ...shivering at the weirdness of the Angel
ŭŭ Nightmare Technology: You use parts fished of Fortitude.
out from nightmare, techniques learned at the • ...sighing and offering an XP token to comfort the
Bleak Academy, and occasionally the supreme Dream-Witch.
power of your Incomparable Nightmare Engine • ...whatever turns out to be appropriate for any
to make unusual and useful things. Will you other PCs.
make a minute glass to suspend time? Candy that [[CHARACTER SHEET, with spaces for Name,
tastes of anything? Dogs to seethe through stone Special Notes, Favorite Scenes, Changed Quests,
and wood? Or will you just graft extra legs onto Connections, Current MP, and Current Will.]]
kittens and watchful eyes to the back of your hat?
You have an alternate form:
ŭŭ You believe—it hasn’t precisely been tested—that
you can sprout wings of blood and feathers and
fire and learn to fly. You don’t really want to,
though, because it would say unsettling things
about who and what you are. 2
2 (The problem with being able to remove memories from the world
is that you can never be too sure just what kind of memories of
yourself you might have already removed.)
Lifepaths 23
your name
catchphrase
emotion xp
bond
affliction
name
genre
perks
your element
family status
quest information
arc traits
divine
tough
normal

Lifepaths
The Prodigy
Academics Skill: Legendary
Sports Skill: Legendary
Favorite Foods: Borscht, Iced Coffee, Baguettes
Blood Type: B
Animal: Dragon
Genres: Pastoral, Adventure Fantasy, maybe Immersive Fantasy (The Prodigy
is present in all genres, but this version of the character is optimized for
Pastoral gaming.)
Lifepaths 25
Step 1: Choose your Step 2: Arriving in Town
Name and Nation Figure out when in the game’s timeline you’ll arrive
Dobroye Utro, Vunderkind! Welcome to the world of in Town.
the Marvelous Wish-Granting Engine. If the HG is starting the game in the “present day,”
I will remind you of your history. this is really easy. You arrived recently—maybe 3-36
You lived in Russia and you were cold. You were weeks ago. Now it’s up to you to face your new life
cold and hard and bitter and you were just a child. You in Town!
were smart and you were street-smart. You were fierce On the other hand...
and you were strong. You were truly incomparable— If the HG says that you’re playing through the PCs’
one of the best, perhaps the best, in an entire mortal early years, then the game will start when you’re 5 years
generation—and you were in despair; for no matter old. It’s hard to arrive in Town with a dark past at age 5,
1
how strong or smart or clever a little Russian girl was, so you’ll want to choose one of the following options:
no matter how many math problems you could solve or
black belts you could beat up, there wasn’t any way that ŭŭ ...whatever! I arrived in Town when I was 5. I
you could change the world. already had a dark past.
Your heart froze over. You gave in to despair. But ŭŭ ...I’m not going to show up in Town immediately,
then you came to Town. but I will show up in people’s dreams and play out
Things are different now—but you are still a child of bits of Russian backstory on the side.
Russia, yes? ŭŭ ...when the game begins, I want to play the heroic
talking rat Prince Eduard Fujimoto or his sister
ŭŭ ...da. I am Natalia Koutolika. Princess Aelfthryth Fujimoto. Then after this rat
ŭŭ ...da. I am Antony Koutolika (a boy). loses a major battle against the monstrous snake
ŭŭ ...¡claro que no! Call me Natalia Cordova, or “Typhon,” my human character will show up to
“Masked Justice”: of Spain! pick up the pieces.
ŭŭ ...mais non, chéri. Je suis la princesse vampire ŭŭ ...for some mysterious reason probably having to
sophistiquée Natalie Coutourier of France. do with a wish, I show up in Town in age 5 but
ŭŭ ...ni, ko, nikeji. I am Zeinaba Kiros, from a certain my backstory in Russia or wherever just keeps
place. It is not far from Ghana. going anyway!
ŭŭ ...none of these. I am someone you have not ŭŭ ...don’t be silly, I’m Natalie Coutourier, darling,
named, or from a place you have not said. I’m more than a century old. No, the problem is
explaining why I hang out with kids—and that’s,
...this book will assume that you are Natalia simply put, that:
Koutolika, with apologies for the deviation from • ...I’m someone’s au pair.
reality if this is not so. • ...I lost too much blood and de-aged to 5, but I’ll
be back to my normal eternally broody teenaged
self in a decade or so!
ŭŭ ...or do you refuse all of these options and instead
choose something else?
26 Lifepaths
Step 3: Choose Your Step 4: Review Your Goals
Favorite Scenes You were not always this way. You were always dili-
Are you most often seen: gent and precise but once you were a hopeful child too.
Then something terrible happened.
ŭŭ ...doing household chores? You were betrayed by a role model. Or somebody
ŭŭ ...helping out in the neighborhood? you cared about died. Or somebody sacrificed them-
ŭŭ ...helping out at the bakery where your selves for you. Or you failed and somebody got hurt.
mother works? You’ve been broken ever since; and that’s a big part
ŭŭ ...helping out at the bait store where your of why your family came to Town.
father sometimes works?
Lifepaths
ŭŭ ...babysitting your younger brother? ŭŭ Quest 1: You’ve always wanted to...
ŭŭ ...out on the water with your Dad? • ...enjoy the simple, peaceful moments in life—the
ŭŭ ...practicing martial arts? calms between the storms.
ŭŭ ...studying advanced mathematics?
ŭŭ ...studying in general? ŭŭ Quest 2: And the arc of your life is, and must be,
ŭŭ ...prowling the rooftops looking for trouble towards...
to confront? • ...thawing the ice around your heart—learning to
ŭŭ ...helping someone who is in trouble? trust people, and be open to them, once again.
ŭŭ ...reminiscing about your past in a
distant land? ...but right now you probably have a different problem.
ŭŭ ...enjoying a peaceful moment, staring at the Deep inside you is a core of rage; and it’s gotten
water or the sky? loose. It escaped you when your boat sailed in to Town.
ŭŭ ...exploring Town and more specifi- You don’t know how you know that. But you know.
cally Fortitude? It took some of your memories, some of your rage,
ŭŭ ...figuring out the way life works here? some of your grief, and now it is a great gold-scaled
ŭŭ ...being teased by your older cousins? python, poisonous and strong, that lives on the rooftops
ŭŭ ...watching something interesting go down? of Fortitude.
ŭŭ ...going way too far to fulfill a responsibility
or duty? ŭŭ Quest 3: That means that it is now incumbent
ŭŭ ...suffering in silence? upon you to hunt it down.
• Prowl Fortitude and its rooftops...
Pick 2-3 favorites to help you figure out what you ►► ...acting a bit suspiciously.
might be doing at any given time. ►► ...meeting the other PCs.
It’s OK if the little icons don’t make sense yet, and ►► ...thinking of yourself as a hero
you don’t have to memorize them—they’re just coding of justice as you do it.
the various parts of the game that “feel” a certain way. ►► ...ultimately tracking the snake to its
The first icon, for instance, marks the pastoral parts of lair at “Madcaps’ Nave,” atop Professor
the game that are all about a simple, honest life and Hayashi’s archive, where it nests with
connecting to people! bits and pieces of your memories.
• Talk and think about what happened in your past,
because that might be relevant to understanding
the golden snake.
Lifepaths 27
Unless you want to replace that with some variation, Step 5: Choose Your Connections
like... Connections are basically a measure of how well you
know and get somebody. They’re also a measure of how
ŭŭ ...tracking down a doppelganger (flesh or glass)? good you are at living somewhere or with someone.
ŭŭ ...hunting your emancipated shadow? You’ll start with four Connections:
ŭŭ ...hunting a shapeless evil?
ŭŭ ...hunting a vast and wicked bird? ŭŭ [PC of your Choice] 2. They remind you of
ŭŭ ...something else? someone you’ve lost.
ŭŭ The Koutolika Family 1. You’re comfortable
Or a variation which isn’t about hunting anything with your family.
down at all, like... ŭŭ Fortitude Rats 1. You don’t know what it is, but
1
you get along with them.3
ŭŭ ...investigating stories of the Headmaster of the ŭŭ The Child of the Sun -1. You don’t know how to
Bleak Academy? deal with someone like this.
ŭŭ ...investigating stories of the glass dragon?
ŭŭ ...something else? You can discard these Connections later if you don’t
want them or they just don’t seem to fit.
Often these investigations come about because you’re If you’re in a 1-player game, or a 2-player game
listening to a story of Town, about how the Headmaster where the Child of the Sun is the other PC, you can
killed the old sun, or the glass dragon threatened choose an NPC for the free level 2 Connection. You can
Fortitude and the world, or whatever, and you realize also leave it as “[PC of your Choice]” for a session or
that somehow this connects to your own backstory and two if you’re not sure whom to choose.
what happened to you before. You can improve your character’s Connections later
3 They can talk! They’re also pretty heroic.
28 Lifepaths
You have the following specific abilities: Before play, you’ll want to:
ŭŭ You’re really efficient and get a lot done ŭŭ Copy, download and print, or open your book to
each week. your character sheet.
ŭŭ You’re hard to trick, mess up, or oppose with ŭŭ Make sure the group has a bowl of tokens to serve
mundane actions. as XP.
ŭŭ Your level 3+ Skills become extraordinarily effec- Optionally:
tive when your (being a) Hero Issue is high. ŭŭ Copy or download and print your “At Peace” sign.
ŭŭ You have strong “Chi” or “wish power.” ŭŭ Copy or download and print your “Touched” sign.
Lifepaths
• You can frequently perform amazing mental and ŭŭ Copy or download and print your sad-face/cry-
physical feats. ing-face sign.
• With effort, you can scale this up to outright ŭŭ Gather 5+ tokens to serve as MP, different from
mythic feats. the XP tokens
ŭŭ Your heart is frozen, which can protect you from ŭŭ Gather 11 tokens to serve as Will, different from
certain effects. the XP/MP tokens
The general pattern for your abilities is this. If your quests
you’re conserving MP, then you’ll get to sneak in a ŭŭ Practice being doleful and tragic to tug at the
few amazing but fundamentally mundane feats every other players’ heartstrings
scene—things you’d expect the best of humanity to be ŭŭ Look around the table to identify the other PCs.
able to achieve. If you’re willing to spend 1-2 Miracle Then warm up for play by practicing (for those
Points, you can do a little more than that, displaying that are present)...
inhuman strength, speed, and precision or using your • ...head-desking at the goofiness of the
basic abilities more frequently. For 4 MP, you can go Wishing Boy.
all out, doing something truly amazing or tossing off an • ...giving thumbs-ups to the Best Friend.
endless chain of heroic feats. • ...gaping speechlessly at Nightmares’ Angel.
• ...groaning or rolling your eyes at
the Troublemaker.
• ...bowing gratefully to the Child of the Sun.
• ...shivering at the weirdness of the Angel
of Fortitude.
• ...sighing and offering an XP token to comfort the
Dream-Witch.
• ...and whatever turns out to be appropriate for any
other PCs.
[[CHARACTER SHEET, including spaces for
Name, Country of Origin, Arrived in Town at Age,
(Explanation for any weirdness involved here:),
Favorite Scenes, Changed Quests, Connections,
Current MP, and Current Will.)
Lifepaths 29
your name
catchphrase
emotion xp
bond
affliction
name
genre
perks
your element
family status
quest information
arc traits
divine
tough
normal

Lifepaths
The Troublemaker
Sports Skill: Exceptional
Favorite Foods: Fish! Sea monsters! Crabs! Sometimes dumplings.
Blood Type: B
Animal: Cat
Age: Campaign Default -1 (You will usually be 14, but the game may play out age
Genres: Pastoral, maybe Immersive Fantasy (Rinley is present in all genres, but this
version of the character is optimized for Pastoral gaming.)
Lifepaths 31
Step 1: Choose Your I was young—probably...“...the hearth,” letting
Name and Gender me work miracles with cooking and sewing?
Good morning, Rinley! (Or is it already afternoon?) • ...or was it “steam power” or “electricity” I was
Welcome to the world of Chuubo’s Marvelous bound to?
Wish-Granting Engine.
May I call you Rinley? (The very last option there might step on the toes of
the (spirit of the) Wish-Granting Engine, but only if
ŭŭ ......sure. It’s a great name for a girl. the HG adds her to this campaign.)
ŭŭ ......sure. It’s a great name for a boy.
ŭŭ ......no way! I’ll pick my own name! Stay out of it, ŭŭ No, no, I’m from another family entirely.
mysterious questionnaire!
(OPTIONAL) Step 3: Freaky Options!
1 Step 2: Choose Your Family
As Rinley, you are the youngest child of one of
Do you want to choose any of these weird,
freaky options?
Fortitude’s “shrine families”—one of the usually-mys-
tical families who have learned to take “the dust of the ŭŭ ...you’re the same age as the other PCs, instead of
Outside” (particulate chaos) and use or purify it in some a year younger?
way. That dust is both magical and a problematic pol- ŭŭ ...you were kicked out of your family after an...
lutant in Fortitude, so your family probably has powers incident?
and certainly has an important role to play. ŭŭ ...you’re not the youngest child in your family, or
In particular, you’re probably a child of the Yatskaya, even in your nuclear family?
which means you grew up in a temple shrouded in
drugged incense and have the power to talk to cats. Be careful with that last one! Being an older sibling
Right? is a lot of responsibility and it might distract you from
adventures. Unless you tend to drag the kid along?
ŭŭ ......that’s right! I’m Rinley Yatskaya.
ŭŭ ......no way! I’m Rinley “Valentine” Kichi! I help
tend the sacred Kichi pools, where people go to
make offerings for the safety of their loved ones.
If I work hard and stay pure I can use those waters
to see visions of the past, present, and future.
ŭŭ ......ah, no. This unworthy individual is Rinley
Sosunov. I practice meditation and empty-mind
techniques while trying hard not to accidentally
become enlightened and suspire from the world
into nirvana. My teacher says I am very good at
both of these things.
ŭŭ A Yatskaya? I wish. No, I had to be born Rinley
Titov, summoned up straight from the earth by
Pa Iskander and Ma Nirmala to help keep that
thing under the shrine from breaking out. And
then, get this, it turns out it’s not even in danger
of breaking out yet. All my siblings just tease
me and tell me that that’s what I get for being... I
don’t even know. Born?
ŭŭ Haha, I look like a Yatskaya? Goofy. I’m actually
Rinley Nicholas Vasili or Rinley Nicoletta
Vasili. I was ritually bound to an “element” when
32 Lifepaths
Favorite Scenes All right!
Are you most often seen... This is the start of a new era in your life. You used to
be pretty shy and cautious. But you’re starting to realize
ŭŭ ...getting into mischief? just how much adventure is out there waiting for you—
ŭŭ s ...spying on people? and how much you love it!
ŭŭ ...listening wide-eyed to people’s stories? No sooner do you meet the other PCs than you can
ŭŭ ...being shocked and overcome by stuff see it.
you’ve just heard or seen? These people are part of your destiny and you are
ŭŭ ...soaking up ambience on a lazy day? part of theirs. They are going places. Interesting places.
Lifepaths
ŭŭ ...poking around, exploring somewhere new? They are going to do things. Interesting things. Don’t
ŭŭ ...talking about nothing in particular with a let them shut you out! You want to be involved!
new friend?
ŭŭ ...talking about life and stuff that’s happening ŭŭ Quest 1: You’ve always wanted to......tell and
with a new friend? listen to goofy and serious stories. Yay storytime!
ŭŭ ...doing temple chores? ŭŭ Quest 2: And now you definitely also want to......
ŭŭ ...fishing, probably by hand? investigate one of the mysteries of Fortitude!
ŭŭ ...weird tall tale stuff like cooking in ŭŭ Quest 3: And you’re probably looking to......get
an eggshell? to know all the other PCs....face any troubles that
they have, at their side....grow up in general and
Pick 2-3 favorites to help you figure out what you learn to be a cool hero.
might be doing at any given time.
It’s OK if the little icons don’t make sense yet, and But maybe you have a more specific goal. What
you don’t have to memorize them—they’re just coding would that specific goal be?
The first icon, for instance, is a poisoned apple that
indicates unhealthy things like wickedness, mischief,
and the flu.
Lifepaths 33
Step 6: Choose Your Connections Step 7: Review Your Powers
Connections are basically a measure of how well you You have the following specific abilities.
good you are at living somewhere or with someone. ŭŭ You have the special mundane abilities of your
You’ll always have a couple of starting Connections: shrine family. Normally, that means you have the
The [Family Name] 2. You’re at home at the family special abilities of the Yatskaya, which means......
shrine. (e.g. “The Yatskaya 2.”) the distant sea calls to you.
• ...you’re good at coping with surreal environ-
ŭŭ Prince Eduard 2. You recently rescued this rat ments and dreams.
prince from a golden snake. • ...you can talk to cats.
ŭŭ [Each PC] 1. You’re drawn to each other
1
PC individually. ŭŭ You’re a figure of tall tales and folk tales.
Between scenes you can travel and either......
You can discard these Connections later if you don’t repair clothes and things made of fabric or
want them, they just don’t seem to fit, or if you don’t (your choice)......
have room in your heart4 to keep them all. Conversely, • ...make money...
at the beginning of the game5 if someone agrees that ...in frankly implausible ways. Your traditional
you should be close to or comfortable with their PC, sailboat is a thimble, and your traditional
you can upgrade your Connection to them to level 2! “allowance” is old coins you find under rocks.
You can improve your character’s Connections later
as the reward from an appropriate quest. ŭŭ You understand that there’s a wishing power in a
person’s heart that can change what’s possible.
• Your own wishing heart is very strong.
• You can see and talk to the wishing power in other
people’s hearts.
• You can change what’s possible, including......
making things easy or hard for others.
►► ...doing things with inadequate tools
(e.g., breakfast for 10 from an egg).

►► ...changing people’s destinies.
ŭŭ You’ve learned some weird tricks:

• You tend to know a little more than most about
any given story.
• An old cat taught you how to swap people’s
bodies around.
4 by which I actually mean “collection of Perks on your character

sheet”
5 (before or after the first couple of sessions)
34 Lifepaths
Step 8: Props

as XP.
Optionally:
Lifepaths
the XP tokens.
the XP/MP tokens.
your quests.
Then warm up for play by practicing......telling
goofy stories and bad jokes for people to roll their
eyes at.
• ...and, if present......head-desking at the antics of
the Wishing Boy.
►► ...giving thumbs-ups to the Best Friend.
►► ...gaping speechlessly at
Nightmares’ Angel.
►► ...wincing or saying aww! at the Prodigy.
►► ...bowing gratefully to the Child of the Sun.
►► ...shivering at the weirdness of

►► ...sighing and offering an XP token

►► ...and whatever turns out to be
appropriate for any other PCs.

[[CHARACTER SHEET, including Name, Family,
Replacements for Yatskaya Skills (if not a Yatskaya;
see pg. XX-XX of your character packet), Favorite
Scenes, Changed Quests, Connections, Current MP,
and Current Will.)
Lifepaths 35
your name
catchphrase
emotion xp
bond
affliction
name
genre
perks
your element
family status
quest information
arc traits
divine
tough
normal

Lifepaths
The Child of the Sun
Academics Skill: Ordinary
Favorite Foods: Evildoers (edible), taiyaki
Blood Type: AB
Animal: Hen
5-14 at an accelerated pace. Your age may also be ambiguous.)
Genres: Pastoral, Fairy Tales (The Child of the Sun is present in all genres, but this
version of the character is optimized for Pastoral and Fairy-Tale gaming.)
Lifepaths 37
Step 1: Choose your Name Step 2: The Death of the Sun
Good morning! Welcome to the world of the Marvelous And it came to pass, in a certain year, in a certain time,
Wish-Granting Engine. that the sun was slain—
Once upon a time, you lived in the sky. You were the That that man, whom you once named “father,” rode
child of the sun. You played with the bird-faced spirits up onto the clouds on his pale horse; drew back his
and the stars. You rode the horses of the sun. great black twisted bow; and fired a barbed black arrow
Your mom, who was arguably bad at gender-appro- into the heart of the living sun.
priate naming, christened you... She died.
He was your father, and she was your mother, and
ŭŭ ...Jasper Irinka (a girl). she was the sun; and she went out, and in that breath
ŭŭ ...Raven Irinka (a boy). you fell.
1
ŭŭ ...something else? ...did you fall?
...sorry, Raven! This book is going to assume that ŭŭ ...yes. She shoved me from the sky before the
you’re Jasper Irinka, a girl. But swap the gender and arrow hit. Down, down, down, I fell, to Fortitude
name and you should find this a useful document below.
about yourself! • It was fast and it was brutal and it hurt.
Jasper, you may be tempted to rename yourself • It was slow and dreamlike. I fell for...
Jasmine, but be aware that by doing so you risk ►► ...weeks?
becoming a lost face or aspect of the Ideologue, ►► ...months?
Jasmine Apocynum, or possibly vice versa. She lives ►► ...years?
in Horizon and doesn’t otherwise have much to do with ŭŭ ...no. I didn’t fall. I was summering in Fortitude. I
this particular campaign. looked up. I had to look up. And see it.
ŭŭ ...I don’t remember.
ŭŭ ...no, it was more like...
38 Lifepaths
Step 3: Choose Your Nature Step 4: Choose Your Anti-Nature
Psst! You’re a kid, of course, an ordinary kid. But— I will name your father now.
even though you don’t realize this yourself—you’re In Fortitude: the Glass-Maker’s Dragon, his name
also the new sun. You’re the sun that was kindled into is as the name of Death: the Headmaster of the Bleak
being in the sky after your mother died and the reason Academy and the lord of Death’s dominion is he named.
that the world’s still light. He it is, the lord of Death’s dominion, who took up his
Or are you? bow and who slew the sun...
Are you... ...though in some rare games it is not so.
It’s possible that the murder was done by someone
ŭŭ ...the new sun, like I said? else’s hands, whether you still blame the Headmaster
Lifepaths
ŭŭ ...closer to being the firebird that kindles the sun or not; it’s even possible that your real father, or your
than to being the sun itself? known father, was someone else. But... whomever it
ŭŭ ...closer to being the hope/love that keeps the was, even if they are in this one matter innocent, they
world alive than to being the literal sun? are something bad.
And sometimes you’ll be bad, yourself.
Or do you have a different heritage and meaning Sometimes you’ll get into a funk of sadness and despair
completely? and maybe a little self-hate and you’ll do something to
Are you... show the other half of your heritage upon your face.
What exactly happens here?
ŭŭ ...the new North Wind? Do you...
ŭŭ ...the new rainbow?
ŭŭ ...something else? ŭŭ ...paint black face-paint under your eyes?
ŭŭ ...powder your whole face, conversely, pale as
And if so, do we assume that your mother was the old a corpse?
North Wind/rainbow/whatever? ŭŭ ...or rub it down with ashes?
Or was she still the sun? ŭŭ ...put on your black cap of scholarship and spin it
around to evil?
I’m pretty sure that you’re the sun. So, what do I ŭŭ ...take out your eyes, turn them around to the
mean by that? “night” side, and then put them back in?
From a magical perspective, I mean that you and the ŭŭ ...let down your hair?
sun have the same “soul” or “heart.” From a scientific ŭŭ ...put on or take off a pair of glasses or
perspective, I mean that there are high-density infor- a headband?
mational connections between you and the sun, even ŭŭ ...draw a tear in makeup underneath one eye?
though you currently understand them only about as ŭŭ ...blindfold yourself?
well as a toddler understands their emotions. Basically, ŭŭ ...put a prayer strip over your face?
the sun is a bit less a part of you than your hands and ŭŭ ...pull a golden “good” brain-rod out of your
feet are, but much more a part of you than your shoes, head and slot in a silver “evil” one?...or some-
and a lot of the distinction that does exist owes itself to thing else?
mental blocks and atrophied connections rather than a
meaningful and permanent separation. When that happens, you normally stop being a
creature of hope and become a creature of resignation
and disillusionment—or do you go to a scarier place
than that?
ŭŭ ...no, resignation/disillusionment is about right.

ŭŭ ...I become a creature of despair.
ŭŭ ...I become a creature of death itself, and endings.
Lifepaths 39
Favorite Scenes You fell from the sky.
Are you most often seen... You don’t really know who and what you are now.
You’re the child of the sun (and, for that matter, of the
ŭŭ ...exploring Fortitude and the lower world? person who killed her) but what does that mean? I’ve
ŭŭ ...sitting out by the water and watching the mentioned that you’re the sun, and maybe you know
clouds go by? that, and probably you don’t know that, but even when
ŭŭ s ...talking with people about their feelings you’ve figured it out—what does that mean?
about the weather? What are you supposed to do now?
ŭŭ ...doing odd jobs for food and shelter money? The sky kingdom is gone. You can’t see it up there.
ŭŭ ...looking for lost things and treasure? Nobody’s come down to claim you. Your mom is dead.
1
ŭŭ ...helping some random person? Your dad rode back out into the darkness beyond the
ŭŭ ...taking care of a stray cat or dog? world and he’s gone. There’s a new sun and every year
ŭŭ ...putting on a little play with a collection of there’s a mourning and a celebration in honor of your
dolls or puppets? mother but—
ŭŭ ...playing around with the sunlight? What are you supposed to do?
ŭŭ ...talking to people about their dreams?
ŭŭ ...getting confused about who and where ŭŭ Quest 1: With your mom gone, it’s up to you to...
you are? • ...be the light of hope, and shine in
ŭŭ ...experiencing weird miracles? the darkness of people’s lives.
ŭŭ ...listening, wide-eyed, to old stories about ŭŭ Quest 2: And you definitely need to...
the sun and the Bleak Academy? • ...figure out what you are and what
ŭŭ ...giving a monologue, and then taking you’re supposed to do from here.
decisive action? • ...figure out what it means that
ŭŭ ...expressing your faith in someone? the old sun is gone.
ŭŭ s ...transforming in some unexpected and ŭŭ Quest 3: And now that you’re stuck in the lower
unplanned way? world, you probably ought to...
• ...find a place—a home, a purpose,
Pick 2-3 favorites to help you figure out what you and a lifestyle—in Fortitude.
might be doing at any given time. • ...participate in the holidays and cer-
It’s OK if the little icons don’t make sense yet, and emonies in honor of the sun.
you don’t have to memorize them—they’re just coding • ...work through your feelings about your Mom.
The first icon, for instance, represents scenes where you Normally this third quest is the story of a goofy alien
explore, hang out in, or just experience the world! who doesn’t understand human affairs, but you could
reframe it a little—focus on...
ŭŭ ...explaining how the lower world works to a

bird-spirit sidekick.
ŭŭ ...emotional acceptance of the change in your
life circumstances.
ŭŭ ...life as a street urchin.
ŭŭ ...learning to fish.
ŭŭ ...learning a trade.
ŭŭ ...becoming a legendary hero.
ŭŭ ...learning or becoming something else?
40 Lifepaths
Step 7: Consider Your Aesthetic Step 8: Choose Your Connections
The powers of the Child of the Sun often involve picking Connections are basically a measure of how well you
up new “limbs”—physical modifications tied to your know and get somebody. They’re also a measure of how
powers. You’ll mark yourself with a few symbols; you’ll good you are at living somewhere or with someone.
pick up a pair of small tendrils, wild hairs, or antennae on You’ll start the game with three free Connections:
your forehead; you’ll have something go a little strange
with your eyes; and if you’re willing to let people see you ŭŭ The Prodigy 2. She fascinates you. You’re not
as a freak, you’ll pick up a couple of extra arms or tendrils sure why!
or something with special powers in them. ŭŭ Little Island 1. You love Little Island, although
So when you’re connecting to someone, and your you don’t feel ready to live there.
Lifepaths
powers mark you with a symbol of them, does that ŭŭ Nightmares’ Angel 1. ...he’s a freak, but
usually mean... somehow you kind of get him.
ŭŭ ...a tattoo that appears on your skin? For clarity, Little Island is a little island in the middle
ŭŭ ...jewelry with that symbol (e.g., a dangling of Big Lake where Town’s main temple to your mother
earring, a charm bracelet, and a hair pin)? is—it’s a rustic, comfortable kind of place and you love
ŭŭ ...clothing marked with that logo? it but it’s also kind of a dead end backwater which could
ŭŭ ...floating holographic symbols orbiting easily stall out your journey of self-discovery and it’s...
your head? uncomfortable to be reminded, at the regular ceremo-
ŭŭ ...something else? nies in honor of your mother, that she’s dead. I mean,
you get that reminder regularly anyway! Every time
Are you prone... you look up! It’s just... a bit too common, you know?
There? On Little Island? Too much in the foreground.
ŭŭ ...to develop distinct and obvious extra limbs, or... So you love the life there but you don’t want to stay.
ŭŭ ...to manifest subtle environmental effects? Anyway. You can discard these Connections later if
you don’t want them or they just don’t seem to fit.
Are you more likely... Talk to the players of the other characters, either now
or after the couple of sessions. If someone agrees that
ŭŭ ...to have a pair of flexible tendrils growing out of you should be close to or comfortable with their PC,
your back, or... you can get a free level 1 Connection to their character
ŭŭ ...a pair of extra arms? as well!
You can improve your character’s Connections later
Are you more likely to go for... as the reward from an appropriate quest.
ŭŭ ...the “pretty alien” look?

ŭŭ ...the “shy trying to look human” look?
ŭŭ ...the imposing but embarrassing “sorry, this is
going to be a bit freaky now” look?
Also, do you tend towards...
ŭŭ ...traditional costume?
ŭŭ ...casual?
ŭŭ ...punk?
ŭŭ ...sophisticated Western clothing?
ŭŭ ...a geeky look?
ŭŭ ...waifish?
Lifepaths 41
Step 9: Review Your Powers Step 10: Timeline
You are the sun. You are the light of hope in the mortal Figure out when in the game’s timeline your mother died.
world. That means: This is ultimately your call, but it’s also relevant to
the HG and to anyone playing Nightmares’ Angel or
ŭŭ You are functionally immortal. the Angel of Fortitude. In theory they should respect
ŭŭ You can influence the weather and the sky with your having the final call here but if they’re unhappy
your mundane actions. with your choice you need to work with them!
ŭŭ You can radiate hope. If the HG is starting the game in the present...
ŭŭ If you’re ever sufficiently broken to show the
other side of your nature, you can radiate disillu- ŭŭ ...did your mom die about two years ago?
sionment or despair instead. ŭŭ ...closer to five years ago?
1
ŭŭ You can send out your consciousness in ŭŭ ...closer to ten years ago?
a sunbeam.
ŭŭ The nuclear furnace of your stomach can digest Did your fall to Fortitude afterwards...
basically anything.
ŭŭ You can in theory turn into a gigantic sun- ŭŭ ...take minutes?
kaiju thing. ŭŭ ...take days?
ŭŭ ...did you fall in a dreamlike state until just a
When someone talks to you about their hopes and couple of months ago?
dreams, you can connect to them and gain special ŭŭ ...are you just landing now?
powers for yourself by “holding” that dream for them...
If the HG is playing through your childhood...
ŭŭ ...marking you with a symbol or physical feature
that represents them or their dream. ŭŭ ...would you rather start with your mom
ŭŭ ...giving you a relevant power or Skill. already dead?
ŭŭ ...or would you rather play through the early years
Lastly, you have a kind of generic power to put with her alive, and have her die in play?
together new limbs and physical features with special
abilities associated with them—you can learn to see If you start the game with her alive, make sure
love or magnetism or bits and pieces of the future, grow everyone is on the same page as to whether the sun’s
a tendril tipped with fire and a tendril tipped with ice, death is inevitable, near-inevitable, or flexible—but
and maybe shield yourself with a constant sunlight remember, this is a really important event in the
glow. Basically, at the cost of making yourself look history of Town and everywhere else, the Headmaster
a little weird, you can pick up new powers a la carte of the Bleak Academy (or whomever) shooting down
to resolve the troubles you find yourself facing—to the sun, and it has extremely big implications if it
bring hope, to devour evil, and to express the dreams doesn’t happen!
you hold.
42 Lifepaths
Step 11: Props

as XP.
Optionally:
the XP tokens.
Lifepaths
the XP/MP tokens.
your quests.
ŭŭ Practice a mindset of helpfulness and interest in
others’ hopes and dreams.6
Then warm up for play by practicing (for those
that are present)...
• ...head-desking at the goofi-
ness of the Wishing Boy.
• ...giving thumbs-ups to the Best Friend.
• ...pointing and gaping speech-
• ...groaning or rolling your eyes
• ...wincing or saying aww! at the Prodigy.
• ...shivering at the weirdness of
• ...sighing and offering an XP token
to comfort the Dream-Witch .
• ...and whatever turns out to be appro-
[[CHARACTER SHEET, including Name, Fall
From Grace, Nature, Favorite Scenes, Changed Quests,
Notes on Your Aesthetic, General Style, Connections,
Current MP, and Current Will]]
6 Not to be nice! This is how you can munchkin out! Although I guess
it is also sort of like being nice
Lifepaths 43
your name
catchphrase
emotion xp
bond
affliction
name
genre
perks
your element
family status
quest information
arc traits
divine
tough
normal

Lifepaths
The Angel of Fortitude
Academics Skill: Scholarly
Sports Skill: Hit-and-Miss
Favorite Foods: Sandwiches, French fries, chicken wings, ribs, apples, pomegran-
ates, pudding
Blood Type: Varies
Animal: Rabbit
Age: Campaign Default + 7 (You will usually be 22, but the game may play out age
12-21 at an accelerated pace. Your age may also be ambiguous.)
Genres: Pastoral, maybe Gothic (The Angel of Fortitude is present in all genres, but
this version of the character is optimized for Pastoral gaming.)
Lifepaths 45
Step 1: Choose Your Step 2: Choose Your Relationship
Name and Gender with Your Father
Good evening! Welcome to the world of Chuubo’s Your father was the King of Evil—almost literally;
Marvelous Wish-Granting Engine. it was one of his formal titles and pretty close to his
You’re a mysterious biker. You live on an evil island, actual nature. He was a monstrous and unsavory being,
circling the sun, but sometimes during the days you’ll an enemy of love and kindness, and he ruled over an
come down to Fortitude and you’ll drink tea or sake in evil island full of horrors that flies on the back of a great
its various shops and you’ll eat cakes and look out at the beast around the sun.
lake. Sometimes at night you’ll come down and drive But he did one good thing, and it killed him.
through Fortitude on your motorcycle, and where you ...well, that’s one theory. He did one good thing. He
go, the roads move and twist behind you. made one good choice. He decided to save the world
1
They call you the Angel of Fortitude—but that’s not rather than let it get destroyed, evil and all. And it
the name on your keyfob, or emblazoned in awesome killed him.
letters on a brass plate inside the wheel-guard of That’s where you came from.
your motorbike. The moment he broke with his evil destiny, the
That name is... moment he tore the nature of wickedness in him, the
moment his doom became inevitable, you were there.
ŭŭ ...Entropy II, Magister (a boy’s name). You, his replacement. You, his successor; his cancer;
ŭŭ ...Attaris II, Magister (a girl’s name). his poison; his child.
ŭŭ ...something else? That’s when he could have turned back, changed
things, and you would have stopped existing.
And you are... He taught you what he wanted you to know, to be the
new him, instead.
ŭŭ ...a young man? And one day—around the time the sun went out, and a
ŭŭ ...a young woman in disguise as a man? new sun inexplicably was born—he passed on every-
ŭŭ ...a young woman, not in disguise? thing he was to you, and left. Or maybe—some people
ŭŭ ...an ambiguous, genderless creature? think—you killed him.
So...
...This book is going to assume that you’re Entropy
II, Magister, King of the Evil World and the Principal ŭŭ ...do you want to believe in him, even though he
of Horizon’s School, by the Grace of Heaven and the was awful to you? To pretend that he was worth
Light. And a young man. But you should be able to use saving, that there was something redeemable
almost all of this content even if you’re something else! there, that he cared about you? That you had an
OK dad?
ŭŭ ...do you hate him with every fiber of your being?
ŭŭ ...did you have an eerily, freakily good rela-
tionship? Was the King of Evil actually nice to
you? Did he, who was the enemy of love, show
you love?
ŭŭ ...did you have a tense relationship of near-equals?
ŭŭ ...do you barely remember the whole thing except
as a fog of trauma and possible brainwashing?
ŭŭ ...did he objectify you so thoroughly—as if you
were a robe, a weapon, a diary—that he didn’t
even bother being cruel?
46 Lifepaths
Step 3: Choose Your Relationship Step 4: Choose Your Curse
with Your Mother You aren’t human. You have some creepy, trouble-
Long ago the Riders came from beyond existence to some special effect that emphasizes this. This is almost
make an end to worlds and Time. always blood—you have blood dripping from your
They cut to the heart of the Seal of Time, and there hands, like your father did before you. It just appears
they met Attaris. She showed her face to them; she from the underarm above the wrist, from the palm, from
turned them back; she threw off her shroud and revealed the fingertips, sometimes with stigmata and sometimes
herself to them as Attaris Ebrôt Appêkā, tutelary spirit just oozing through the skin. It doesn’t stop. It doesn’t
of the war itself: the goddess of the struggle between ever stop. And the blood isn’t ordinary blood, either. It’s
the that which is and the endless Not. magical. It’s a theological and spiritual contaminant.
To kill her would be to end their war; so they turned,
Lifepaths
It’s change-blood, a metamorphogen, a “blank toxin,”
and abandoned the siege of Time. a thing that in sufficient concentration or with a suitable
She was half-devil, the stories said. A thousand-armed primer corrupts, transforms, or eats through the things
witch, malevolent and kind; grand and base, glorious of the mortal world.
and vile she, as changeable as the moon. She might This probably only really started after you took over
devour you or give you endless blessings. She took her as King of Evil.
last names from the devil Ebrôt Appêkā, who turned to You probably had something different and creepy
dust when she put them on. when you were comparatively young.
Only— And you could have it still; or something new, orig-
She is nowhere to be found in all the world or any- inal, and distinctive now; or some creepy special effect
where Outside. She did not die, no one saw her die, but you inherited from your mom; or something coming
she is gone, as is the Seal of Time. She has disappa- from an accident or adventure on the evil island, instead.
rated, dissolved into the air. So what is it? Is your curse...
If you had a mother it would be her; there is the
smallest bit of her essence in you. ŭŭ ...the change-blood, always dripping from
Did you ever meet her? Does she haunt your dreams? your hands?
ŭŭ ...a cutting, twisting crown of thorns, and change-
ŭŭ ...I met her once, when I was ten. It was an blood trickling past your eyes?
uncomfortable occasion. ŭŭ ...an imperfectly-controlled wheel of swords
ŭŭ ...I see her sometimes, in my dreams. spinning in the air near you?
ŭŭ ...I have no mother. I am my father’s heir. ŭŭ ...snakes for your hair?
ŭŭ ...something else? ŭŭ ...half your face is cybernetic? Maybe even half
your body?
ŭŭ ...you are a soft-spoken, unaging child wearing
white, surrounded by a halo, and giving everyone
around you a sense of visceral horror and unease?
ŭŭ ...you are a werewolf? a wereghost? a weresnake?7
7 Note: turning into a giant snake will not help.
Lifepaths 47
Step 5: Choose Your Vehicle Step 7: Choose Your
The standard ride for the Angel of Fortitude is your Favorite Scenes
mysterious motorcycle, Jenkins. (It’s like an ordinary Are you most often seen...
motorcycle, but more mysterious.)
As for you, you ride... ŭŭ ...drinking tea or sake while admiring the
views of Fortitude?
ŭŭ ...a mysterious motorcycle, exactly as stated? ŭŭ ...talking to someone who needs your help?
ŭŭ ...a mysterious flatbed truck? ŭŭ ...offering someone your trust?
ŭŭ ...a mysterious horse? ŭŭ ...riding mysteriously through the streets at
ŭŭ ...a mysterious bicycle? night?
ŭŭ ...something else? ŭŭ ...talking with strange monsters?
1
ŭŭ ...poring over the meaning of
And its name is strange phenomena?
ŭŭ ...helping someone?
ŭŭ “...Jenkins.” ŭŭ ...talking about your goals, history, and
ŭŭ “...Blake.” dreams? (Possibly over cake?)
ŭŭ “...Blythe.” ŭŭ ...working on the feng shui of Fortitude?
ŭŭ “...Annie.” ŭŭ ...talking about purity, impurity, and evil?
ŭŭ “...Bennett.” ŭŭ ...admiring the potential of the other PCs?
ŭŭ “...Styx.” ŭŭ ...suffering miserably because your hands are
ŭŭ ...or, something else? always bleeding on everything?
ŭŭ ...worrying about some omen or
(Optional) Step 6: impending problem?
Miscellaneous Options ŭŭ ...doing something you probably shouldn’t?
Here’s a couple of miscellaneous options that you ŭŭ ...defending/protecting creatures of the evil
could pick: island (even though they’re bad?)
ŭŭ ...are you the same age as the other PCs, instead Pick 2-3 favorites to help you figure out what you
of ~7 years older? might be doing at any given time.
ŭŭ ...are you called “the Bloody Ghost” or “the It’s OK if the little icons don’t make sense yet, and
Awful Angel” or something instead of “the Angel you don’t have to memorize them—they’re just coding
of Fortitude?” the various parts of the game that “feel” a certain way.
ŭŭ ...do you rule a “Halloween kingdom” instead of The first icon, for instance, marks a basic slice of
an evil world? life experience!
ŭŭ ...in Horizon, your usual title is Principal. But
would you rather use...
• ...Headmaster?
• ...Headmistress?
• ...Magister?
48 Lifepaths
Step 8: Review Your Goals ŭŭ Quest 3: But the real reason you’re in Fortitude?
You’re a teacher. You’re a mentor. The core thing you’re doing here? The reason for
That’s your father’s legacy, bizarrely enough. He was “the Angel?” It’s to...
never much for kids or, well, for people, but one day • ...get away from all the burdens
he realized that the world was in danger of ceasing to for a little while, and
exist, of ceasing to ever have existed, of drowning in • ...build a spiritual drainage system so you can
the Outside, in the multicolored void that is Outside stop the blood flowing from your hands.
of Town—of the Bleak Academy raising up such a Even if it’s only for a day.
wave of the substance of the void that ideas like “life,”
“existence,” and “world” would cease to mean anything Step 9: Choose Your Connections
Lifepaths
at all. Connections are basically a measure of how well you
So he thought of training up people who’d be able know and get somebody. They’re also a measure of how
to stand against that. Students to become the new good you are at living somewhere or with someone.
axis mundi, the new focal point for existence, and its You’ll always have a free starting Connection:
guardians, its living walls and cultivators. That’s what
his School in Horizon was for. That’s what you inher- ŭŭ The Child of the Sun 1. What a charming child!
ited—a belief that the young people of Town can be
the future. You can discard it later, though, if you don’t want it
And more than that. You believe in people in general. or it just doesn’t seem to fit.
You were born to misery and evil, but the longer you go Talk to the players of the other characters, either now
on, the more you think that maybe there is hope. or after the couple of sessions. If someone agrees that
Your eyes are set on the future. You can tell that you should be close to or comfortable with their PC,
you’re living in amazing, unprecedented times. you can get a free level 1 Connection to their character
as well!8
ŭŭ Quest 1: You’re going to spend most of You can improve your character’s Connections later
your life... as the reward from an appropriate quest.
• ...delighted, amazed, and horrified by these
kids (the PCs) and the trouble they get in.
ŭŭ Quest 2: And maybe you can help them and the

people of Fortitude out by...
• ...developing interesting weapons,
tools, and environments for them.
Unless you want to replace that with some variation,

some other way of helping, like...
ŭŭ ...being a great handyman or matchmaker?

ŭŭ ...improving the feng shui of people’s homes
and workplaces?
ŭŭ ...tutoring the PCs?
ŭŭ ...inducting them into School and giving them
regular assignments in Fortitude?
ŭŭ ...being a support structure/source of order in
some other way?
8 Warning! Each such Connection is a Perk, and you can only have 8
total Perks, and you’re a little unusual in that you start with 6. This
isn’t a big deal since you can always discard and replace Perks,
but you’ll still want to choose your Connections carefully if there
are a lot of PCs around!
Lifepaths 49
You have the following specific abilities. Before play, you’ll want to:
ŭŭ You’re an accursed demigod, an ŭŭ Copy, download and print, or open your book to
inhuman creature: your character sheet.
• You have an inhuman vitality that gives ŭŭ Make sure the group has a bowl of tokens to serve
you a lot of energy to face each new day. as XP.
• You’re mostly immune to harm. Optionally:
• You have mildly toxic blood drip- ŭŭ Gather 5+ tokens to serve as MP, different from
ping from your hands. the XP tokens.
ŭŭ You’re kind of dramatic and imposing: ŭŭ Gather 11 tokens to serve as Will, different from
1
• You’ll tend to find yourself in the XP/MP tokens.
the spotlight, literally. ŭŭ Copy or download and print quest cards for
• You’ll sometimes show up for dramatic/ your quests.
emotional rather than causal reasons. ŭŭ Look around the table to identify the other PCs.
• You can take actions so inexorable and Then warm up for play by practicing...
awful that even miracles can’t stop them. • ...being eerie and resonant, to better earn XP.
• You can transfix others, obsess them, or dis- • ...and, if present...
orient them with the impact of your actions; ►► ...head-desking at the goofi-
or do something that reminds someone of... ness of the Wishing Boy.

►► ...home. ►► ...giving thumbs-ups to the Best Friend.
►► ...their worst nightmare. ►► ...pointing and gaping speech-
►► ...fireworks and candy. lessly at Nightmares’ Angel.

►► ...or whatever else you name. ►► ...groaning or rolling your eyes
ŭŭ You’ve claimed the paved streets of Fortitude, at the Troublemaker.

and the space between the residential streets ►► ...wincing or saying aww! at the Prodigy.
and houses, as your “Garden;” you can mold its ►► ...bowing gratefully, hand over
mortal substance with your hands like clay. fist, to the Child of the Sun.
ŭŭ You’re the Principal of School, and rule ►► ...sighing and offering an XP token
it likewise. to comfort the Dream-Witch.

ŭŭ You’re the King of Evil, and you rule it likewise, ►► ...and whatever turns out to be
and may command the hosts of creatures of the appropriate for any other PCs.
evil world.
You have an alternate form:
ŭŭ Remove your false nose, strip the gloves
from your hands, and stop slouching and it
will instantly become obvious that you are no
normal human.
50 Lifepaths
[[CHARACTER SHEET, with spaces for Name,
Gender, Relationship w/ Father, Relationship
w/ Mother, Curse, Vehicle, Options,
Titles, Favorite Scenes, Changed Quests,
Connections, Current MP, and Current Will]]
Lifepaths
Lifepaths 51
your name
catchphrase
emotion xp
bond
affliction
name
genre
perks
your element
family status
quest information
arc traits
divine
tough
normal

Lifepaths
The Dream-Witch
Academics Skill: Above Average
Sports Skill: Above Average
Favorite Foods: Strawberries, apricots, sweet rice dumplings, stew, salt mackerel,
yakitori, red tea
Blood Type: A
Animal: Boar
Age: Ageless/Indeterminate (You look 1-2 years older than the campaign default.)
Genres: Pastoral, maybe Gothic (Miramie is present in all genres, but this version of
the character is optimized for Pastoral gaming.)
Lifepaths 53
Step 1: Choose Your Name (Part 1) (Optional) Step 2:
Hey, there. G’morning, you. Welcome to the world of Choose Your Family
Chuubo’s Marvelous Wish-Granting Engine. Maybe you didn’t wind up at the archive. You’re a
I know you, right? You’re one of those strays special kid, in more ways than one, right?
who hangs out around Professor Hideo Hayashi at So maybe you wound up adopted into one of the
his archive? shrine families? They took you in so that you could
learn their magic, find peace in their routines and spiri-
ŭŭ ...that’s right. I’m Miramie Mesmer, the tual practices, and be welcome in their home?
Dream-Witch.
ŭŭ ...that’s right. I’m Reynard Mesmer, the ŭŭ ...that’s right. The Vasili family took me in. They
Dream-Ghost. bound me to the earth, to help keep it stable, and
1
ŭŭ ...no way. I’m going to be adopted into a proper to the winds of the high places. My name is...
family in step 2! • ...Mayu Vasili, the Dream-Witch.
• ...Reynard Vasili, the Dream-Lord.
Anyway, you’re trying to get your life back together ŭŭ ...where else could I have gone but to the Kichi?
again, make things make sense again, after everything Simple purity. Simple practice. Water magic and
fell apart. divination in their pools. I am...
And you’re trying to be a good kid, too! You want to • ...Morgan Kichi, the Dream-Witch.
work hard and make the world a better place and build • ...Reynard Kichi, the Dream-Witch.
a good life for yourself. But you didn’t used to be good. ŭŭ ...I was given more than I deserved; the Sosunov
You used to be a prodigy of despair and hatred and you took me in and trained me in their dream magic.
came to Town to destroy it. I am...
Just—that person? Melanie Malakh (or was it • ...Miramie Sosunov, the Dream-Witch.
Reginald Malakh?) • ...Reynard Sosunov, the Guardian.
That person broke. ŭŭ ...I was taken in by the Titovs, and the shards of
whom I used to be were imprisoned under their
...by the way, we’re going to assume it was Melanie shrine. I must live here; I must suffer the love and
Malakh and that your name is Miramie Mesmer, but if hatred of these people. It is my penance for who I
you’re not, just switch the names and maybe pronouns was. I am...
and life circumstances and such and I’m sure that this • ...Miramie Titov, the Dream-Witch.
document will work out! • ...Reynard Titov, the Guardian.
...somehow? ŭŭ ...no. No. That’s not right. It was something else...
54 Lifepaths
Step 3: Choose Your Nature Step 4: Choose Your Stressor
You spent a long time asleep or maybe even dead. You You’re not a good fit for the world. There’s some peeve
trudged through stacks of books and records like a or problem which turns into the beachhead, the spear-
ghost or a dream. You wore a grey and white kimono head, and the figurehead of this for you—something
and a mask. all the little misfit elements of your life flow into to
Over time you hid the bits of yourself that you didn’t produce a single psychological or practical stress.
like, scattered them through a place of chaos, and you Usually it’s money.
built a room from the sweetest memories and keepsakes I’m going to be honest—Fortitude isn’t the kind of
that remained to you and you played among them there. place where money actually matters much. You can’t
Then one day you came out of your fog and every- make enough money that other people won’t judge
Lifepaths
thing had fallen apart. you, and conversely, there’s no kid your apparent age
But you’re still Melanie Malakh, right? who’s going to starve on the streets. The best you can
hope for is to earn enough that it helps people respect
ŭŭ ...I am. I guess. I mean, I’m what’s left of her. you; the worst you can do is depend on charity and be
ŭŭ ...I went to a lot of work to make myself into a uncomfortable, low-status, and take some knocks to
new person. I don’t think I count as the prodigy your pride.
Malakh any longer. But I’m what’s left. I’m what But I guess that’s probably why you’re concerned
took her place. about money and accounting. It’s a status thing. It’s a
ŭŭ ...this body wasn’t her. I think. It was someone pride thing. You want money so that you can believe
else. Then a glass shard of her flew into this body you’re worthy. You want money so you can feel you
through its eye and killed the brain and I was have the right to exist.
reborn as the Dream-Witch. So am I me, or am I ...or maybe you don’t.
her? Or is she me? Which me am I? Maybe that’s not what bugs you. Maybe that’s not
ŭŭ ...I don’t think so? I wasn’t. Then a shard of what you obsess over.
her flew into me through my eye and I was sort Your problem is:
of her? But I didn’t die, so I must still be me.
Mustn’t I? ŭŭ Financial Insecurity: ...it is, in fact, money!
ŭŭ ...I was practically a ghost for years. I built myself You’ve got to earn a living in this world.
out of a nest of memories. How would I know? ŭŭ Romanticism: The problem is this world itself!
For all I know: It’s this modern age! People don’t respect tradi-
• ...I’m a doppelganger, golden snake in human tion! Everything is run-down and degenerate!
form, or some kind of freak library accident. ŭŭ Hypochondria: Germs. Disease. Sickness. It’s
• ...I could be anything. everywhere. What if I get polio or the black
• ...I’m some tool or plan of hers, plague and I die? I mean, I’m fine. Don’t worry
or even the glass dragon’s. about me. It’s just a rash. A bit of a cough. Do you
• ...I’m probably her, but I might be someone else. think I left my lunch out too long before eating it?
What if I get bugs in my eyes? 9
ŭŭ Otaku-ness: ...why must I live in this back-
water without good access to the geeky stuff I
care about?
• ...manga?
• ...movies?
• ...television?
• ...light novels?
• ...action figures?
9 Hypochondria exaggerated for comic effect
Lifepaths 55
All the people who live in the real Earth have it so Step 6: Choose your
much better! They’re, like, rolling around in giant piles Favorite Scenes
of awesome modern culture all the time! Are you most often seen...
ŭŭ Popularity Obsession: I deserve to be known ŭŭ ...working on or at the art shop/café you’re

everywhere! Loved everywhere! So does the putting together?
archive! And Hideo’s work!10 But are we? Are ŭŭ ...painting or doing chalk paintings?
we? Why can’t we be more popular? How can we ŭŭ ...crafting or selling masks?
be more popular? ŭŭ ...showing people around the archive of
ŭŭ Haunted by the Past: Magical dust blown in Professor Hideo Hayashi?
from the Outside is always getting into every- ŭŭ ...cleaning?
1
thing. It rusts the weirdest stuff. It rusted my ŭŭ ...helping out?
pajamas. Sometimes inexplicable mementoes ŭŭ ...sharing a snack with some friends?
of my former self show up at random too. Why ŭŭ ...swapping stories with people?
can’t this stuff just leave me alone to live my ŭŭ ...hanging out in the world and experi-
life normally? I don’t want to be a “prodigy of encing stuff?
despair and hatred” any longer! I just want to ŭŭ ...getting worked up about your pet peeve/
have a normal life! issue?
ŭŭ Insomnia/Nightmares:... I keep having awful ŭŭ ...having, or peeking in on, a troubled dream?
nightmares every time I sleep. So I don’t sleep. I ŭŭ ...being haunted by the person you used
drink caffeine. But then I’m jittery and half-dead to be?
from lack of sleep all the time! ŭŭ ...being pleasantly/seductively haunted by the
ŭŭ ...something else? person you used to be?
ŭŭ ...retreating to the “hidden room” of your
Step 5: Special Options memories?
Your greatest power is something called the World-
Breaker’s Hand, which can destroy almost anything, Pick 2-3 favorites to help you figure out what you
even the hum from a streetlight or the shadow of a shoe. might be doing at any given time.
Normally it actually unmakes the target... It’s OK if the little icons don’t make sense yet, and
you don’t have to memorize them—they’re just coding
ŭŭ ...which is why I never use it on people. the various parts of the game that “feel” a certain way.
ŭŭ ...except that my version actually just banishes The first icon, for instance, marks the pastoral parts of
things to the Outside. I still never use it on the game that are all about a simple, honest life and
parts of people, though, since maiming people connecting to people!
is wrong, and it’s not clear whether that’d be a
temporary or permanent problem.
10 Or maybe your family’s, if you’ve been adopted into a shrine family?
56 Lifepaths
Step 7: Choose your Craft But you can’t do too much of that, or the world will
You have the power to create minor wonders— slip away.
magical things.
This isn’t necessarily a big feature of your life. ŭŭ Quest 1: You’ve always...
It’s time-consuming and not very powerful and the • ...felt besieged by the world, worn down by
effort-reward ratio is probably better for most of your your current peeves and their unfairness
other magic. But it is a thing that you can do, and it
probably relates to something you’re good at in the ŭŭ Quest 2: And lately you’ve felt like...
mundane realm. • ...you can’t keep hiding in your hidden room;
Do you... you need to either embrace it as a good
Lifepaths
place, a good and normal part of your life,
ŭŭ ...work with glass? and stop feeling afraid that the world will
ŭŭ ...make traditional masks? slip away from you while you’re in there,
ŭŭ ...paint? or you need to find some other source of
ŭŭ ...make clothing? strength and stop going there all the time.
ŭŭ ...act as a magical Archivist, finding and curating
wonders rather than creating them? ŭŭ Quest 3: And you’ve probably decided to...
ŭŭ ...interact with people, strengthening their wishing • ...set up a little art shop, garden, and
hearts and teaching them what they’re capable of? maybe café near the archive, while...
ŭŭ ...or something else? • ...information about your dark past
You can also... leaks out to the other PCs
ŭŭ ...choose several different Crafts, though it’s
better not to; or Unless you want to replace that with some variation,
ŭŭ ...punt on the choice, with a plan to... like...
• ...decide later?
• ...develop this power after the start of play? or ŭŭ ...restoring and organizing the archive itself?
• ...ignore this side of your nature entirely? ŭŭ ...setting up a place of your own?
ŭŭ ...earning money through odd jobs?
Step 8: Review your Goals ŭŭ (Otaku Version) ...setting up a local con?
Your life feels like it’s always falling apart. Like every- ŭŭ (Romanticist Version) ...restoring an old church?
thing is in a state of decay. This world! Being in this ŭŭ (Romanticist Version) ...reviving some forgotten
world is rough. It hurts. tradition?
No matter how hard you try, it all falls apart eventu- ŭŭ ...or something else?
ally. Things always get worse and worse, messier and
messier, and the world gets crazier and stormier around Regardless of the variation you choose, you probably
you, and you start finding bits of glass and the dust of still have your dark past leaking out to the other PCs
the Outside everywhere, and masks start appearing on over the course of this quest, because your secrets are
the walls even though nobody hung them there and you the kind of secrets that are the most fun when they come
can hear the voice of Melanie Malakh whispering in out into the open early on but not immediately.
your mind, Destroy. Destroy. Destroy:
O hate the world!
But at least you have an escape—a single escape—
when it gets to be too much. You can go up to your
hidden room, high in Hideo’s archives, near where the
books become a labyrinth and then fade off into the
senseless chaos beyond the world. You can relax and
play there in the room of your treasured recollections
and the bits of yourself—
Lifepaths 57
Step 9: Choose Your Connections Are you still connected to Professor Hideo Hayashi
Connections are basically a measure of how well you and his archive?
good you are at living somewhere or with someone. ŭŭ ...yes.
You’ll always have a handful of starting Connections: ŭŭ ...no. My Connection is not to the Archive but
to the Vasili Family, and whatever I’m doing to
ŭŭ The Wishing Boy 3. You have a mysterious make money is also for the Vasili family. This
connection to the wishing boy. is because...
ŭŭ Nightmares’ Angel 1. You just feel like he’s a • ...it was Herakleides Teófilo Vasili that
good person under the attitude. worked with the strategist Malakh.
ŭŭ The Archive 1. You’re familiar with Professor • ...it was Nikhil Vasili, may he rest in peace.
1
Hideo Hayashi’s archive.. • ...the Vasili are the ones who took
ŭŭ Fortitude 1. You’re a Fortitude girl. me in; Professor Hayashi is just a
good memory from a bad time.
You can discard these Connections later if you don’t
want them or they just don’t seem to fit. Are your friends from the archive actually members
Talk to the players of the other characters, either now of the Vasili family instead?
or after the couple of sessions. If someone agrees that
you should be close to or comfortable with their PC, you ŭŭ ...no. I have family, like Asuka and Gorou, and I
can get a free level 1 Connection to their character too. have friends. Isn’t that normal?
If you’ve been adopted into a shrine family, you can ŭŭ ...no. I don’t know anyone from the archive.
swap out your Connection to the Archive or to Fortitude ŭŭ ...yes, at least some of them:
in general for a Connection to that family. For instance, • Kirin Vasili, bound to the elemental
you could give up your Connection to the Archive for processes of disease and health; oddly
a Connection to the Sosunov Family, instead. Don’t do hypochondriac for someone who can
this yet, though; read the appropriate section 10 first! sneeze out a cold in a single try.
You can improve your character’s Connections later • Sakura Anastasia Vasili, whose elemental
as the reward from an appropriate quest. connection to cherry blossoms is pretty
useless and who shares your conviction
(Optional) Step 10a: the that the modern world is falling apart.
Dream-Witch of the Vasili • Daniel Vasili, bound to the constella-
Are you Mayu or Reynard Vasili? Then some of the tions, who claims that they’re living
details of your story might change. creatures herded by star-shepherds.
• That practically feral girl living
Do you still have a hidden room that you retreat to? on the Vasili lands.
ŭŭ ...yes.
ŭŭ ...no. I have a high place where no one goes. I sit
and I feel the wind and it restores me.
• ...I still get there through the archive, though.
• ...the path there goes through Vasili-owned
wildlands. The memories of the Strategist
Malakh are scattered there, blowing in the wind.
58 Lifepaths
(Optional) Step 10b: the (Optional) Step 10d: the
Dream-Witch of the Kichi Dream-Witch of the Titov
Are you Morgan or Reynard Kichi? Then some of the Are you Miramie or Reynard Titov? Then some of
details of your story might change. the details of your story might change.
Are you still connected to Professor Hideo Hayashi Do you still have a hidden room that you retreat to?
and his archive?
ŭŭ ...yes, in the depths underneath the Titov shrine.
ŭŭ ...yes. ŭŭ ...yes, in Hideo’s archive.
ŭŭ ...yes, but—the work I’m doing is to support the
Lifepaths
Kichi family and their ways. Are you still connected to Professor Hideo Hayashi
ŭŭ ...it’s not his archive. It’s a Kichi family archive. and his archive?
He just does a lot of the on-site management,
because the Kichi spend so much time up the hill ŭŭ ...yes. I am working for the Titov family, but I still
by the pools. care about Professor Hayashi.
ŭŭ ...no. My Connection is not to the Archive but
(Optional) Step 10c: the to the Titov Family, and whatever I’m doing to
Dream-Witch of the Sosunov make money is also for the Titov family. This
Are you Miramie or Reynard Sosunov? Then some of is because...
the details of your story might change. • ...no one else will have me.
• ...it was Iskandar Titov that worked
You’re still connected to Professor Hideo Hayashi with the strategist Malakh.
and his archive, but is it the archive that’s important to • ...it was Nirmala Titov that worked
you and the story? with the strategist Malakh.
• ...I am held beneath the shrine—well,
ŭŭ ...yes. Melanie Malakh is. I must stay.
ŭŭ ...sort of? I still have strong connections to • ...I wounded many, but the Titovs have taken me
Professor Hayashi’s “lower/worldly” archive, but in. I should not bother Professor Hayashi further.
my usual path to the hidden room and most of
the important records are in the “upper/heavenly” Are your friends from the archive actually members
archive at the Sosunov main family house. of the Titov family?
ŭŭ ...no. I don’t know that I can even call

them friends.
ŭŭ ...no. I don’t associate with anyone from
the archive.
ŭŭ ...yes, at least some of them:
• Kiri Titov, hiding in her books, cruel because
she understands weakness so very well.
• Sakura Anastasia Titov, who left
and toured the world for three years
before they dragged her back.
• Danny Titov, who is unnaturally fascinated
with the shards of Melanie Malakh.
Lifepaths 59
Step 11: Review Your
Powers and Weaknesses
You have two supernatural weaknesses: Also...
ŭŭ The wishing power of your heart (your “Miracle ŭŭ You’re very good at dreaming (except possibly at
Points”) seeps away any time you’re hurt and the not-having-nightmares part):
does not replenish itself at the normal rate. • You’re good at handling surreal,
ŭŭ You’re haunted by Melanie Malakh and the dream-like environments.
power of the Outside. When you’re sick, your • You understand how to get into
work, your simple honest work, attracts the dust someone else’s dreams.
of the Outside and the remnants of your past. If • You can send your dreaming and some-
1
your Sickness Issue gets high, this becomes times even your waking spirit out to visit
actively supernatural—things like waking up to people and things you care a lot about.
see a mask leering down at you from the ceiling, ŭŭ You have some sort of magical Skill...
or everyone turning to look at you and whisper • ...by default, something to help you fit in among
“Kill them. Kill them.” as you walk through a fish humans, but it could be something else.
market. (And deny it, explaining that they were ŭŭ You have a hidden room that can replenish the
trying to sell “kilthim cod,” or whatever, if you wishing power of your heart. You’ll emerge from
confront them on it.) Stuff like that. it with new treasures and afterwards the world
around you will be orderly and exceptionally sane
That’s the price you pay for being the remnant of for a little while.
Melanie Malakh. On the other hand: ŭŭ You have one alternate form...
• ...in dreams, you wear a mask and a grey and
ŭŭ Here’s the big win: you can destroy things, white kimono. If you stretch out you have an
including intangibles and qualities, just by amorphous, ghostly lower body. Either way
focusing on them and declaring them unworthy of you trail off into shadow and you don’t have
existence. It’s not the most cheerful power but its proper feet. Sometimes you fade into this
practical breadth is staggering. shape in the real world when traumatized,
shortly before rushing off to the hidden room.
60 Lifepaths
Step 12: Props
Before play, you’ll want to...

as XP.
Optionally:
ŭŭ Consider obtaining a cheap party mask for verisi-
militude on those occasions when your character
Lifepaths
is masked.
Optionally:
the XP tokens.
the XP/MP tokens.
your quests.
ŭŭ Copy or download and print your “Twitch.
Twitch.” sign.
ŭŭ Copy or download and print your “Innocent/
Suspicious” sign.
Then warm up for play by practicing (for those
that are present)...
• ...gaping speechlessly at Nightmares’ Angel.
• ...bowing gratefully to the Child of the Sun.
• ...and whatever turns out to be appro-
[[CHARACTER SHEET, with spaces for Name,
Nature, Details, Stressor, Does your World-Breaker’s
Hand destroy things?, Or send them Outside?, Favorite
Scenes, Changed Quests, Connections, Current MP,
and Current Will.]]
Lifepaths 61
your name
catchphrase
emotion xp
bond
affliction
name
genre
perks
your element
family status
quest information
arc traits
divine
tough
normal

Lifepaths
Fortitude PCs
Lifepaths 63
Step 1: Choose Your Archetype Step 2: Choose Your Character Type
Oh, hello! Welcome to the world of the Marvelous Now it’s time to pick one of the character options from
Wish-Granting Engine. Fortitude: by the Docks of Big Lake!
You don’t look like one of the usual protagonists, Who are you?
do you? You can choose...
Well, that’s OK! Come and be someone special, then.
Someone new. Someone who wasn’t supposed to be ŭŭ The Shop Fox, maybe named Kaho or
part of this story, until a shard of dream-glass, mag- Hideki Kanda:
ic-glass, dragon-glass got stuck into your body, brain, • ...to be glamorous and magical.
mind, heart, or soul— • ...to be earnest, innocent, and teasable.
If you have access to Fortitude: by the Docks of Big • ...to be slippery, subtle, and clever.
1
Lake, you can be... ŭŭ The Vampire, maybe named Kolya (Nikolai)
Mikhaylov or Sessily Mikhaylova:
ŭŭ Tempted. You sit at the edge of the world • ...to be a brooding avatar of teen-
sometimes and you listen to the Outside’s voice. aged romantic angst.
ŭŭ Dreaming of the Sun. You’re struggling • ...to be terrifyingly strong and vital.
with the stuff that holds you back and dreaming of • ...to have comical incidents
Jade Irinka—lost, murdered angel of the Houses involving crosses and the sun.
of the Sun. ŭŭ The Immigrant from Earth, maybe named
ŭŭ A Dying Scientist or Magician. Your death Harmonica James, Anastasia Furlough, John
is coming and you won’t accept it! Sakuragi Custer, or Dynamite Murai:
ŭŭ Someone Fascinated with Death. Do you • ...to be an all-out badass action hero
have Death’s portrait on your wall? with a job to do in Town.
ŭŭ Someone at your Limit. You’re old, tired, • ...to be the outsider who doesn’t
sick, or maybe just plain mortal—this is as know what’s going on.
good as you get. This is as far as you can go. • ...to be a refugee from the normal world.
You’re done. • ...to play yourself, or someone like yourself.
ŭŭ A Troubled Kid Desperately Fighting to ŭŭ The Other One (aka “the Citizen of
Save Others. You don’t even realize that after a Fortitude”), maybe named Polly Niktina or
brief prologue you’re the one who’s going to die. Kenji Shibai:
ŭŭ Someone who can feel their Death Coming. • ...to be an ordinary Fortitude girl or boy.
or • ...to be a completely unexpected hero(ine).
ŭŭ Someone Messed Up. You’re living a bleak • ...to have some completely weird, unique,
and broken life. You might not even know why. and unexpected talent or skill.
• ...to be a magician without being
Each of these is going to point you towards one or two tied to the shrine families.
appropriate Advancement Arcs. Each has an in-built • ...to epitomize the slice-of-life
gateway and story Arc building to miraculous powers. elements of the game.
But first, along the way, you’re going to die. ŭŭ The Shrine Maiden (or the Priest), maybe
That’s your ticket, as a miscellaneous Fortitude named Yui Sosunov or Stephen Yatskaya:
PC, to becoming involved in great events and earning • ...to have an important role in the culture
miraculous powers comparable to your peers. You’re and spiritual life of Fortitude.
going to die. • ...to be a shrine maiden or priest.
Then— • ...to be magical and powerful in a kind
You’re going to come back. of normal, everyday fashion.
• ...if you’ve read the setting material
and really like a shrine family!
64 Lifepaths
Step 3: Some Basics
Just like in Fortitude: by the Docks of Big Lake, you’ll Recommended XP Emotions
choose a basic quest and an XP emotion. Technically I
think I really should copy all of that here, but honestly, The four standard bonus XP emotions that I’m not
since you must have just finished looking at character using for the main 8 characters for this campaign—
creation in that book, I’m not going to bother. emotions that you’d be trying to evoke in the other
Go to Character Creation (part 2) in that book. players through your character’s play—are:
Choose a basic quest. Choose an XP emotion!
ŭŭ Fist-Shaking XP:
• ...if you want to be totally convinced
you’re the center of the universe.
Lifepaths
• ...if you like being a lovable jerk.
• ...if you have an impulse control problem.
• ...if your name is a good one to
shout while shaking one’s fist.
ŭŭ “Oh no! (Name) is in Trouble!” XP:

• ...if you plan to get in way over
your head all the time.
• ...if you’re irrationally convinced of:
►► ...your own personal immortality.
►► ...everyone else’s good intentions.
►► ...the fundamental justice of the universe.
• ...if you’re cute, underaged and/or undersized.
ŭŭ Fist-Pump/Salute XP:
• ...if you have a ton of catchphrases.
• ...if you’re bombastic, larger-
than-life, and dramatic.
• ...if you have a genre.
• ...if you don’t really act like (or think)
the world around you is real.
ŭŭ Putting my Faith in You (with this XP token)

XP:
• ...if you’re a big brother/big sister archetype.
• ...if you’re sincere and diligent.
• ...if you’re earnest and heroic.
• ...if you’re a lot skilled and just a little bit lucky.
So my recommendation is that you choose one of

those. You could also try a variant on the Prodigy’s
Aww! XP, where people say “aww” not because of
your terrible burdens but because of your cute/shy
reactions to trouble or romance... or invent your own!
Lifepaths 65
Step 4: Review Your Second What if Everyone Has This Quest?
and Third Quest So I was thinking about what happens if most of your
You’ve chosen your first quest—your “basic” quest. group plays characters like yours—characters not
You’re also going to have two other quests, both mostly directly involved in the main plot—and thus almost
shared among all the Fortitude PC variants. everybody has this quest.
One of them is A Far and Sunless Land. Now, the truth is, in most ways it’s a good thing if
That’s the quest where you die. You get ripped you have a bunch of people getting XP from strength-
untimely away from everyone! It’s so sad! You don’t ening the bonds between the PCs. But it may also feel a
actually have to take it—you can find a different story little funny, like it’s replacing the whole game premise
to start working on and get miraculous powers for no and the idea of organic connections with “and we’re all
particular reason—but it’s the typical path. desperate to meet and connect with one another!”
1
The other quest is Meet the Other PCs. It’s meant to So...
give you some general direction in the first few sessions If there are already two other people with “Meet the
of the game. Normally, it’s fixed: your job is to tangle Other PCs” or the Troublemaker quest “The World is
yourself in the affairs of the other PCs. It’s a quest that Changing,” or some variant thereof—
says: right now, before you die (and even after you die), You can and probably should pick some other quest
something in your life is kind of driving you to get to start you out. I’d suggest one of these quests from
involved with them. Fortitude: by the Docks of Big Lake:
If you happen to know that there’s something that ŭŭ Generic Project (Fortitude Style)
at least a couple of other PCs are interested in, you ŭŭ Trying to Fix some Social Problem
can replace this with a variation that focuses on your (Fortitude Style)
involvement with that. For instance, if the Prodigy is ŭŭ Dependable Person (Fortitude Style)
investigating the legend of the Angel of Fortitude, and ŭŭ Exile
they’re both PCs, then you could work on becoming ŭŭ Sacred Child
the Angel’s sidekick or joining the investigation. Or if ŭŭ Friend to the Birds
the other players’ interests are focused pretty tightly on ŭŭ Friend of the Beaches
the Yatskaya household or on the archive of Professor ŭŭ Shrine Duties
Hideo Hayashi, then you could be working on some- ŭŭ Good Catch
thing to do with that! ŭŭ Ship’s Friend
ŭŭ Little Ship or
ŭŭ one of the Connection quests, based on your
starting Connection to someone;
So...
What quest did you wind up with here?
ŭŭ ...the standard “Meet the other PCs” quest?

66 Lifepaths
Step 5: Pick a Virtue Step 6: Pick a Shard Power
Your character has a unique virtue, which will manifest
itself as a Bond. Once upon a time, a witch and a glass-maker made a
It’s something like: dragon out of glass and taught it to hate the world. It
raged and it would have destroyed everything; only,
ŭŭ “...honesty.” it shattered, instead.
ŭŭ “...good-heartedness.” — Campaign Premise
ŭŭ “...organized.”
ŭŭ “...humility.” At some point in your life—I don’t know when—a
ŭŭ “...courage.” shard of the glass dragon lodged in you. It may very
Lifepaths
ŭŭ “...thrift.” well have happened long after the glass dragon broke.
ŭŭ “...creativity.” Most of the PCs are younger than the story of the glass
ŭŭ ...or whatever! dragon, after all. In a lot of cases it’s going to be kind of
mysterious how it actually happened.
This is in good part what’s going to save you from But in you—in your kidneys, your brain, your
death—the thing that’s going to sustain you long liver, your dreams, your mind, your ego, your id, your
enough to make it back. superego, your soul, your heart, your right arm, your
Figure out in advance how to show this when it hand, your eye, your throat, your chakras, your destiny,
isn’t necessary and how to practice this when you’re somewhere in you—
alone. (For instance, a “courageous” person might dress There is a shard of the glass dragon.
according to their own sense of style to show courage And recently it’s started to empower you. Vaguely!
even when there’s no danger. A “good-hearted” person Unreliably! (Given the fact that you’re going to die
can practice that virtue when alone by thinking good soon) Dangerously! But, well, empower you it has.
wishes towards others or thinking about how to better It’s something that should make sense but leave lots
support them.) of questions about specifics unanswered, like:
What’s your special virtue?
Besides the obvious, how will you demonstrate it ŭŭ “Nothing can catch me.”
in play? ŭŭ “I punish the unworthy.”
ŭŭ “I never let go of what is mine.”
ŭŭ “No lock can hold me out.”
ŭŭ “You have always known me.”
ŭŭ “Animals are my friends.”
ŭŭ “I speak the language of the storms.”
This isn’t a replacement for your normal archetype

abilities. If you’re a vampire or shop fox or whatever,
you still have that power. This? This is something else.
This is something new.
What is it?
Lifepaths 67
Step 7: Choose your Step 8: Review Your
Favorite Scenes Powers and Goals
Are you most often seen... All told, you have the following specific abilities:
ŭŭ ...hanging out in the world and experi- ŭŭ ...any particularly special Skills. What were
encing stuff? they again?
ŭŭ ...wandering Fortitude with a snack? ŭŭ ...your character-type Bond.
ŭŭ ...playing games? ŭŭ ...your character-type Affliction.
ŭŭ ...doing chores? ŭŭ ...your virtue.
ŭŭ ...fishing? ŭŭ ...your shard power.
ŭŭ ...helping out?
1
ŭŭ ...talking with friends about stuff that’s Take a moment to think about how all that
going on? works together.
ŭŭ ...standing up for what you believe in? You have five XP-earning methods to keep in mind—
ŭŭ ...getting in way over your head, but refusing
to back down? ŭŭ At more or less any time,11 you can earn XP...
ŭŭ ...getting into scary trouble? • ...from your bonus XP emotion.
ŭŭ ...being lost and overwhelmed? • ...from the bonus XP condition for your
ŭŭ ...expressing your faith in someone? first quest, which you’ve designed.
ŭŭ ...listening, wide-eyed, to traditional stories? • ...from the bonus XP condition for your second
ŭŭ ...encountering omens of your forth- quest (usually, proposing a theory about the
coming death? other PCs, or how you relate to them).
ŭŭ ...admiring the beauty of the sun and ŭŭ In each IC week...
the lake? • ...you can earn a couple of XP a week
through appropriate scenes.
Pick 2-3 favorites to help you figure out what you • ...you can earn 1 XP/week for your third
might be doing at any given time. quest from an appropriate scene.
you certainly don’t have to memorize them—they’re Take a moment to think about how all that
just coding the various parts of the game that “feel” works together.
a certain way. The first icon, for instance, represents
scenes where you explore, hang out in, or just experi-
ence the world!
11 up to ~1 quest XP and ~1 emotion XP per 15 minutes of play
68 Lifepaths
Step 9: Props [[CHARACTER SHEET, including spaces for
Before play, you’ll want to: Name; What kind of story is the story of your death?;
Are you a shop fox, vampire, shrine maiden or priest,
ŭŭ Copy, download and print, or open your book to ordinary person, immigrant, or what?; Basic Quest
your character sheet. and its XP Condition; Bonus XP Emotion; Did you
ŭŭ Make sure the group has a bowl of tokens to serve replace “Meet the Other PCs”?; With what?; What’s
as XP. your Virtue; What’s your Shard Power?; Current Will;
and Current MP.]]
Optionally:
Lifepaths
the XP tokens.
the XP/MP tokens. If you chose “A Fading
Flower,” above—that is, if you’re dying of being
old and at the end of your life—you’re going to
want 11 soon.
your quests.
ŭŭ Copy or download and print any signs that
you’ll need.
Then warm up for play by practicing (for all that
are present)...
• ...doing whatever you need to do to
earn your own bonus XP emotion.
• ...pointing and gaping speech-
• ...bowing gratefully, hand over fist,
to the Child of the Sun.
• ...sighing and offering an XP token
• ...and whatever turns out to be appropriate
for any other unique PCs like yourself.
Lifepaths 69
your name
catchphrase
emotion xp
bond
affliction
name
genre
perks
your element
family status
quest information
arc traits
divine
tough
normal

Playbooks
Let’s switch gears, now. Keep the character sheet, if
you filled it out, but you can set the lifepath aside:
Your playbook is meant as your character’s core ref-
erence in play.
It’s the owner’s manual to your character. It’s your
guide to their operation. Inside it, you’ll find...
ŭŭ ...a slightly more in-depth character description.

ŭŭ ...a detailed description of your powers
and abilities.
ŭŭ ...cards and descriptions for your starting quests.
2
ŭŭ ...suggested actions to take when you don’t have
any better ideas.
ŭŭ ...a timeline.
Your quests include an “Arc” quest that restates or

reiterates one of the quests from the main storyline sec-
tion on pg. XX-XX—
Once you finish it, you’ll move on to the next quest
in that Arc. Once you finish the Arc (which should take
you a while), your first story will end and your powerset
will grow beyond the starting playbook... but you’ll
find everything you need to understand your expanded
powers in the Chuubo’s Marvelous Wish-Granting
Engine RPG, and there’s three more stories focused on
your character on pg. XX-XX.
If you’re the HG, you don’t have a playbook; instead,
it pays to skim them all and get a superficial knowledge
of each.
74 Playbooks
The Wishing Boy
[[NOTE: This chapter needs at least one illustration with Dark Chuubo and
Shokyou Rock-and-Roll. A sort of tarot card type image near the Dark Chuubo
power would be pretty ideal.]]
[[CHARACTER SPLASH — largely identical to the one in the lifepath and prob-
ably exactly identical.]
Playbooks 75
Fact Sheet Character Description
As Chuubo, you’ll be playing a pretty ordinary guy.
Summary You’re kind of goofy and hapless. You try to do right
You are Chuubo, the Wishing Boy. You are a simple, by people. You have a good smile. But you aren’t any-
ordinary boy. Your Marvelous Wish-Granting Engine thing special.
grants one wish every week. You don’t want to be anything special.
The world isn’t about grand dreams and heroic
Primary Quests adventures. They’re out there but they’re not what
ŭŭ Make precious memories with your friends. matters. What matters is an ordinary life, right?
ŭŭ Learn the ways of Fortitude. Friendship, and doing goofy things with your friends.
ŭŭ Deal with the power and the person haunting Love. Experiences. Precious memories. Sailing out on
2
your dreams. the water and dreaming of crazy things.
Laughter.
Bonus XP When... So when you built a wishing machine—when you
Players slap their forehead (more in amusement than went down to the vacant house at the end of your cul-
irritation) as a result of... de-sac and snuck in and closed the door and unrolled
your plans and got out your saw and hammer and nails
ŭŭ ...the unintended consequences of your powers. and wood and built your Marvelous Wish-Granting
ŭŭ ...your character’s haplessness. Engine that grants wishes—it didn’t change that much
about your life.
Powers You just, you know. Get an ice cream now and then.
Your daydreams and your peaceful nature bleed out into Wish for a friend or two. One time you stained your
the world around you. Trouble washes off your back. school uniform—you like to wear your school uniform,
You control the Marvelous Wish-Granting Engine. even the tie, even when you don’t have to—and you
used wish power to get that right out.
Common Variations In “The Glass-Maker’s Dragon” you also have a
Shake it up! For an atypical Wishing Boy experience, shard of strange power stuck, like a thorn or a bit of
pick 0-3 of the following: glass, into your dreams.
ŭŭ You are Shokyou, the Wishing Girl, a simple, Home and Family
ordinary girl. As Chuubo, you live over the hills in the modern part
ŭŭ You are not completely ordinary—you of Town—in Horizon, or School Region, built around
have glasses. Principal Entropy’s School.
ŭŭ You are not completely ordinary—you are Now, Horizon has a rep as some sort of gothic,
secretly a river dragon. brooding ruin with lots of walking dead and monsters
ŭŭ You are not completely ordinary—you are and such... but you’ll cheerfully inform people that
secretly a glass dragon brought to life. that’s an exaggeration. It’s not always foggy, and the
vampires and ogres are actually pretty nice when you
get to know them, and the mortality rate is definitely
less per capita than in almost all of those towns you see
in cop shows or zombie movies or whatever. You have
lots of good times in Horizon, in fact, exploring creepy
graveyards or sitting out on your sidewalk and petting
the neighborhood cat or playing jacks with ghosts or
talking about nothing important with your best friend.
Or whatever!
You have parents and a younger brother or sister—
maybe. They’re never around when anyone else is.
76 Playbooks
This could be a completely innocent coincidence,
particularly since this campaign is set in Fortitude so
you’re not going to be home all that often anyhow. Or
you could be covering up some completely mundane
secret like a divorce or time warp or something... or
there could be something sinister going on.
Your friends have never met them, and sometimes
people’ll tease you, saying, “Chuubo, I wonder if your
family even exists!” 12
Playbooks
Hobbies and Diversions
Your favorite (book and) comic shop is Eclectic, run by
Yulia Rozhkova. There are chairs by the entrance where
you can sit and read in the sunlight and she doesn’t even
make too big a fuss about your doing that if you don’t
have cash on you that week!
Your favorite pier to sit and dangle your feet off is
probably the one at Kokoryov Harbor. It’s so noisy! But
something in the place just gives you peace.
You’re resisting the siren song of Fighting Fantasy
Wizard Cards. You know it would just suck up all
your cash.
Hints Figure 1- Example Wishing Map

“Once upon a time, a witch and a glass-maker made (You’ll use this to make wishes that come true!)
a dragon out of glass and taught it to hate the world.
It raged and it would have destroyed everything; The “Wishing Map”
only, it shattered, instead.” Your power of wishes is based on your Wishing Map,
— Campaign Premise which is in turn built on your relationship to the other
PCs. You’ll start, as shown above, with the raw power
I think a key piece of that glass is stuck in your head or of being a peaceful kid who enjoys life and is a little
in your dreams. lonely sometimes.
I think the Dream-Witch is haunting you. I think For anything more, talk to each of the other players
she’s a real person, and one of the residents of Hideo either before or after the first session. Get a single
Hayashi’s halfway house in Fortitude—probably phrase from each of them to summarize what they think
Miramie Mesmer, although maybe it’s one of the of Chuubo or what their relationship with him is.
others, instead. This is the basis for your Wishing Map.
I think you’re going to go to Fortitude, and study Every wish you make flows from something on your
Fortitude magic or glassmaking, and meet her. Map. For instance, you have “enjoys life” written up
I don’t think she’s going to be your enemy. I think there near the top. A nice, sunny day would help you do
you’re going to wind up trying to redeem her, or help that, so you could go up to the Wish-Granting Engine
her, or work together against something else, instead. and wish for a nice, sunny day. Bringing Picasso back
But... I could be wrong. The HG could take things in from the grave—that would be harder for you, because
a different direction. You could take things in a different by the time you’ve come up with a justification like
direction. Or the story could grab its own reins, just like “I’m a little lonely, so I wish Picasso back from the
the glass dragon itself, quite possibly, did. grave” you’re on very thin ice with the wishing power
of the heart that allows the Engine to work at all.
12 But they must, mustn’t they? I mean, somebody had to buy the
little pizza bagels that are in the freezer, right?
Playbooks 77
That said, if nobody but undead Picasso will do, you Suggested Phrases
do have two things in your favor: Here are some possible descriptions of Chuubo in “The
Glass-Maker’s Dragon.” Note that these are just my
ŭŭ An extremely tenuous wish will probably still guesses! The other PCs, and even the NPCs, could have
work—it’s just that it’s more likely to go horribly very different ideas about who Chuubo is and what you
wrong instead of just entertainingly wrong. are about.
ŭŭ You have the power to add phrases to the Wishing
Map in play. ŭŭ The Best Friend thinks Chuubo:
• ...is Seizhi’s best friend.
• ...needs someone to watch over him.
• ...is kind of goofy.
2
• ...is fun to talk to.
ŭŭ Nightmares’ Angel thinks Chuubo:
• ...is frustratingly simple-minded.
• ...does not grasp the seriousness of this situation.
• ...is secretly everything Leonardo
wishes he could be.
ŭŭ The Troublemaker thinks Chuubo:
• ...has a grand destiny.
• ...has a good smile.
• ...is fun to play tricks on.
ŭŭ The Prodigy thinks Chuubo:
• ...is a pretty ordinary kid.
• ...is a good guide to Town.
• ...is deeply suspicious.
ŭŭ The Child of the Sun thinks Chuubo:
• ...is very down-to-earth.
• ...needs help with this whole dream-witch thing.
• ...reminds her of herself.
ŭŭ The Angel of Fortitude thinks Chuubo:
• ...should be planted and turned into
a tree of worlds one day.
• ...is making pretty improbable claims with
Once you’ve gotten one phrase from each other PC, this whole “Wish-Granting Engine” thing.
additional phrases usually come from the “Precious • ...is an admirable child.
Memories” quest on pg. XX. Specifically, “Precious ŭŭ The Dream-Witch thinks Chuubo:
Memories” and quests like it can earn you something • ...holds the key to her lost memories.
called a Recharge Token; this, you can later spend • ...is part of the glass dragon.
either to replenish your reservoirs of cope and magic or • ...is honest, good, and kind.
to add a new phrase to your Wishing Map.
78 Playbooks
101 Example Wishes 36. “I wish that that fire had never started!”
1. “I wish we didn’t have to worry about schoolwork 37. “I wish teriyaki grew on trees.”
for a while.” 38. “I wish I both had, and could eat, an ice cream.”
2. “I wish this headache would go away.” 39. “I wish an ice cream would appear, and then
3. “I wish I had all the newest manga.” events would proceed naturally.”
4. “I wish I could laser away rust with eye lasers.” 40. “I wish an ice cream would appear in a context
5. “I wish everybody could just be friends.” such as to allow me to eat it, and then events
6. “I wish my bicycle could talk.” would proceed naturally.”
7. “I wish I knew why this masked girl was 41. “I wish that I were better at making wishes
haunting me.” involving ice cream.”
Playbooks
8. “I wish everybody would get their flu shots 42. “I wish I were a twin.”
this season.” 43. “I wish that my gardening project would
9. “I wish this rain would go away.” go better.”
10. “I wish I had a better tree house.” 44. “I wish my friends and I would be superheroes
11. “I wish I could find some pirate treasure.” with an awesome superhero base.”
12. “I wish I could meet the phoenix.” 45. “I wish I had a band.”
13. “I wish I were better-looking.” 46. “I wish someone interesting would become my
14. “I wish I were better at science.” pen pal.”
15. “I wish I were an awesome vampire.” 47. “I wish Arkady Sosunov were more confident.”
16. “I wish I had a magic washcloth that could 48. “I wish I could help the Titovs somehow.”
clean anything.” 49. “I wish I could turn into a seagull and soar
17. “I wish I had a magic feather that could give my peacefully in the skies.”
best friend confidence.” 50. “I wish seagulls were cooler.”
18. “I wish I ran a newspaper.” 51. “I wish I had a telescope that could see all the
19. “I wish I were sick enough to skip school way to Eris.”
this week.” 52. “I wish that I’d have a really good excuse to wish
20. “I wish that someone would be my heroic mentor for something cool next week.”
to show me how turning into a giant snake could 53. “I wish it were Christmas already.”
be useful after all.” 54. “I wish Narnia were real.”
21. “I wish that the Star Wars prequel trilogy 55. “I wish I had a famous blog.”
was good.” 56. “I wish I had a space station.”
22. “I wish I could talk to cats like Rinley.” 57. “I wish every time people said nice things about
23. “I wish I could play laser tag with my friends.” me, they’d get a cookie.”
24. “I wish eel were in season.” 58. “I wish our school trip would be to somewhere
25. “I wish that nobody had to die.” more interesting than the recycling center under
26. “I wish the old sun would come back for a day.” the campus.”
27. “I wish for a soapbox derby!” 59. “I wish I knew how to apologize to Leonardo
28. “I wish people were more sincere.” about this.”
29. “I wish my friends would find what they’re 60. “I wish pedal-powered ornithopters didn’t need
looking for.” quite so much athletic ability to handle.”
30. “I wish the Principal’s evil world would become 61. “I wish the laundry were already done.”
the good world.” 62. “I wish the laundry would always be
31. “I wish there were a giant wall around Town so already done.”
that the Outside couldn’t get in.” 63. “I wish I could snap my fingers and say, ‘cold
32. “I wish I could meet an elf.” drink!’ and bam, I’d have a cold drink.”
33. “I wish I had a better gaming console.” 64. “I wish that mean dogs that were going to bite
34. “I wish I had the best shoes ever.” people would always drink pillow-teeth tea first.”
35. “I wish people would be better about recycling.”
Playbooks 79
65. “I wish that the public transportation between 95. “I wish I knew how to fix radios and stuff.”
Horizon and Fortitude kept more conve- 96. “I wish that I would be clearer-headed.”
nient hours.” 97. “I wish this summer would cool off a bit.”
66. “I wish that Town had a better DVD store.” 98. “I wish the winter queen would be our friend.”
67. “I wish people would pay more attention to how 99. “I wish that I could heal sick people.”
cool my tie looks.” 100. “I wish for everybody to return home safely.”
68. “I wish somebody would invent a cheap jetpack.” 101. “I wish I hadn’t wished that.”
69. “I wish I had a supercomputer that could, like,
beat everybody at chess and... solve crimes and Quests
riddles and stuff.” You start the game with three quests, and have the
70. “I wish the Headmaster of the Bleak Academy power to swap them out or pick up more—you can
2
would have a crab stuck on his head.” pursue up to four quests at any given time. I’ve chosen
71. “I wish life were like on Swiss Family Robinson.” three quests to...
72. “I wish I had a bunch of money.”
73. “I wish every day could be Sunday.” ŭŭ ...serve as your basic, default character motivation
74. “I wish I could burp really complicated music.” in play (“Precious Memories”).
75. “I wish the Golden Phoenix Bun Shop delivered.” ŭŭ ...give you extra direction in the first few sessions
76. “I wish I could just do this past week over.” (“Learn the Ways of Fortitude”).
77. “I wish we could go back in time and see the ŭŭ ...tie you into the campaign plot (“Haunted”).
creation of the glass dragon.”
78. “I wish everyone who wanted to have one had Bonus XP
a nose.” Once per fun scene, though at most once per fifteen
79. “I wish I had a secret door in my house that led minutes of play, you can earn bonus XP for either of the
right to the Yatskaya Shrine.” first two quests just by bringing them up—e.g.,
80. “I wish I had an evil laugh that was even better
than Leonardo’s.” ŭŭ ...saying “Scrapbook!” to recognize the scene as a
81. “I wish I had an awesome accent.” precious memory worth scrapbooking.
82. “I wish my house would never run out ŭŭ ...declaring, in a relevant or amusing fashion, “I’m
of essentials.” learning the ways of Fortitude!”
83. “I wish I had a secretary who would smoothly
intercept anyone trying to complain about You can earn a bonus XP for the third quest, Haunted,
my wishes.” once per in-game week by picking a scene from the
84. “I wish Laodemus would show me that amazing quest’s list of scene options to play out.
flying elbow drop move of his.”
85. “I wish I knew the languages of birds and beasts.” Other Quests
86. “I wish I had cool ninja servitors.” If you’re interested in another quest or two, and you
87. “I wish I could have an amazing wuxia fight on have access to Fortitude: by the Docks of Big Lake,
the roofs of Fortitude this weekend using baked I’d recommend looking at the quests for...
goods as weapons.”
88. “I wish for the sky to be beautiful and the evening ŭŭ ...trying to become a Dependable Person.
perfect when my best friend goes on that date.” ŭŭ ...learning to bring in a Good Catch of fish.
89. “I wish I had a herald to announce things for me.” ŭŭ ...being recognized as a Sacred Child.
90. “I wish I were flossing enough.” ŭŭ ...working on a Generic Project.
91. “I wish things would get better.” ŭŭ ...Joining the Kichi.
92. “I wish I could see a meteor shower this week.” ŭŭ ...Joining the Sosunov.
93. “I wish the next book in this series would go just ŭŭ ...Joining the Yatskaya.
ahead and come out now.”
94. “I wish the author of this series weren’t dead.”
80 Playbooks
Precious Memories
15 XP Quest Rewards
Completing this quest earns you a Recharge Token—a
Chibi-Quest particularly precious memory. At some point in the
future, you’ll be able to draw on that memory either to
You want to make precious memories with your friends. refresh your supply of Will and MP to full mid-week or
This quest is all about goofy and memorable scenes to add a new phrase to your Wishing Map.
that don’t go anywhere, or at least don’t necessarily go
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anywhere. If you occasionally make intense and serious
scenes into precious memories, that’s OK, but focus on
the fun.
To earn a bonus XP for this quest, all you have to
do is emote that this scene with a friend is a precious
memory. You can say this any way you like but a good
catchphrase for this quest is “Scrapbook!” to indicate
that this situation is definitely one for the scrapbook.
Precious Memories
XP
Bonus XP
Life—it’s all about making precious memories with your friends.
Like this one!
You can earn a bonus XP towards this quest at any time (but only once
per scene/15 minutes) by contextualizing what you’ve been doing in the
current scene as a precious memory.
You can indicate this any way you like but a good catchphrase for this
quest is “Scrapbook!,” as to indicate that this situation is definitely one
for the scrapbook.
Is that what you say?
Or do you usually say something else?
Playbooks 81
Learning the Ways of Fortitude
25 XP Quest Variations
1: While most versions of the Wishing Boy should have
something they’re learning and absorbing lessons from
2: and about, it doesn’t actually have to be “Fortitude
Citizenship 101”—you could be focused on passing
You’ve been spending a lot of time in Fortitude— your classes over in Horizon, or on learning glass-
mostly on weekends, of course. making, or on studying Yatskaya Magic. You could
Are you learning a trade? even be working on something outré like a quest to
2
Are you seeking the help of the shrine families? Are “Build your Own Boat” or “Study the Construction
you visiting someone? of Mecha.”
Or do you just like sitting on the docks and watching To proceed through such a quest, focus on...
the boats go in and out and enjoying the sunshine and
fresh air? ŭŭ ...engaging in the relevant studies.
ŭŭ ...learning meaningful or important things from
What You’ll Do the relevant studies.
So while you’re on this quest you should be trying to... ŭŭ ...getting in trouble because of those studies.
ŭŭ ...getting praise for those studies.
ŭŭ ...get praise for fitting in or for your local- ŭŭ ...using stuff you learned or did as part of those
area competence. studies in sweet or amusing ways.
ŭŭ ...learn or practice some unique local custom.
ŭŭ ...listen to the stories of Fortitude. The bonus XP condition for such a variation is the
ŭŭ ...apply the morals and ideals of a recently-told same as for the default version—declare that the quest
or remembered story of Fortitude in sweet or is relevant, and bam, bonus XP. Though, do try to make
amusing ways. sure that that declaration is either funny or true!
However, I’m going to let you fudge this if you like. Rewards
To declare a scene a good fit for this quest, and to earn Completing this quest usually earns you a new “Perk”
a bonus XP, all you actually have to do is declare that like:
it’s relevant. Just... decide it, decide that you’re learning
the ways of Fortitude, and that this has something to do ŭŭ Power Up Perk: Increase a relevant Skill
with what’s going on. (Sailing, Domestic Skills, Good Smile) by +1.
Usually you’ll do this by declaring or emoting “I ŭŭ Connection Perk: Gain a level 1-2 Connection
learned this in Fortitude” or “I’m learning the ways of to Fortitude.
Fortitude!” or whatever. ŭŭ Accessory Perk: You get a bicycle.
Bam! Bonus XP towards the quest. Or the non-Perk benefit:
ŭŭ Birthday: You get a scene where your family-an-
alog in Fortitude13 recognizes you as an adult
(possibly your 15th or 16th birthday).
13 If you spend enough time in Fortitude, you acquire a family there.

I don’t mean blood relatives, I just mean... you know. People. People
who take you in and treat you like family, even though you’re techni-
cally probably not.
82 Playbooks
Learning the Ways of Fortitude
Bonus XP XP
You’re painfully foreign here. You thought of yourself as this laid-
back, unruffled, unworried kind of guy, but in a lot of ways you were still
a Horizon kid. There was always this underlying sense in your life like
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you were in danger of missing out. Like you needed a good game guide
to your life or you might do things wrong or out of order.
Like you were always being judged.
Like being laid-back was about fighting to be laid-back, you know?
It wasn’t easy. It wasn’t free.
Bit by bit you’re learning to let go of that. Bit by bit you’re learning
that work can be healing, that the moments of your life can be stretched
to hours, that it’s just as good to watch the birds and enjoy the wind as to
play a new computer game or read a manga. Bit by bit you’re becoming
part of the world.
And here’s how you show it.
When it’s funny, or when it’s true, or when it matters, you’ll say or
emote something like:
ŭŭ “I’m learning the ways of Fortitude!” or

ŭŭ “Well, I’ve been learning the ways of Fortitude.”
You can do this at any time (but only once per scene/15 minutes) to
earn a bonus XP for this quest.
Playbooks 83
Haunted
35 XP Quest
1:
Face-palming
2:
Your bonus XP emotion is amused exasperation
3: or incredulity.
You specifically want to elicit this reaction over...
This quest begins the story
“Chuubo and the Tiresome Temples,” pg. XX. ŭŭ ...the trouble Chuubo gets himself into, or
2
ŭŭ ...the unintended consequences of your powers,
You’re haunted. There’s something embedded in your particularly your wishes.
mind, something powerful, like a thorn stuck in a
lion’s paw. Players express this emotion when they...
It’s a power useful in judging the world and, if it’s
wicked, ending it. ŭŭ ...face-palm.
And because of that— ŭŭ ...say “face-palm”.
Even though you live a long way from Fortitude, ŭŭ ...spit-take.
Outside dust keeps getting into your house. A masked ŭŭ ...put their head in their hands.
woman keeps showing up in your dreams—strangely ŭŭ ...beat their head against the table or a wall.
attractive, strangely menacing, and almost certainly a ŭŭ ...shake their hands in the air in disbelief.
real person using magic and not just a dream-image. ŭŭ ...say, “No. No. No no no. Don’t. Don’t. Oh no.
So you’re going to have to find someone in Fortitude You wouldn’t.”
who can help you, or teach you to help yourself. You’re ŭŭ ...or some equivalent, but it only counts if they’re
going to have to put a name and a face to the power still having fun.
that’s haunting you from afar. And you’re going to have
to reach out to her— Each such face-palm earns you one XP. This is free-
Befriend her. Or maybe declare her as an enemy. floating XP—you can spend it during the session, or at
Or something. the end of the session, on any quest you like!
She’s almost certainly the Main Character and PC You can earn up to 1 face-palm XP every 15 minutes
option, the Dream-Witch—but don’t be afraid to let of real time. If another player dares you to do some-
the events of the game throw you a curve ball. Maybe thing face-palm-worthy, and if you take that dare
she’s something else. Maybe it’s something else. Maybe on and earn a face-palm, you can earn an additional
it’s even sometimes her and sometimes something else. XP that isn’t bounded by the clock—it doesn’t count
towards the 15-minute rule, and you can earn another
Rewards XP within 15 minutes before, after, or both.
This quest often grants a small miraculous power Advice to Other Players: the face-palm reaction
relating to dreams or sleep. Afterwards, I suggest should be sincere, but it can totally be exaggerated for
reviewing the notes on pg. XX and moving on to effect. In fact, it usually should be—if your exasper-
“Wishing for Ease” or “Wishing for Power.” ation is legitimate and not based in teasing or amuse-
ment, you should probably stop the game and resolve
the matter out of play instead of giving out XP.
84 Playbooks
Haunted
Major Goals XP
The HG can award you 5 XP towards this quest when you’ve...
ŭŭ ...found someone in Fortitude who can help you or teach you how
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to help yourself.
ŭŭ ...put a name and face to the power that’s haunting you from afar.
ŭŭ ...formed an important connection to it—recognized that power as,
e.g., a friend, enemy, parent, or SO.
You can earn each bonus once each, up to a total of 15 XP.
Quest Flavor
1/chapter, you can earn a bonus XP towards this quest by...
ŭŭ ...doing reckless stuff together with a rival, enemy, or

wicked creature.
ŭŭ ...having a troubled dream.
ŭŭ ...investigating magic that might help your situation.
ŭŭ ...talking to a scholar or sailor about your situation.
ŭŭ ...performing cleaning- or purification-related chores.
ŭŭ ...talking with somebody about what dreams are, as compared
to reality.
ŭŭ ...talking with somebody about whether the world deserves to
exist, whether it’s good or bad, or whether that even matters.
You can combine this with an XP Action, but you’re not required to.
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Abilities ŭŭ You become “Dark Chuubo” by tying your tie
You have 8 Will and the following mundane abilities— around your head.
• (Shokyou instead becomes Dark Shokyou
ŭŭ Domestic Tasks 2. You’re good at cleaning, or Shokyou Rock and Roll.)
cooking, and the like. • This removes your ability to
ŭŭ Kindness 2. You know how to be kind. calm things down, but...
ŭŭ Good Smile 2. You have a good smile. • ...it gives you an ability to stir things
ŭŭ Sailing 1. You’re familiar with sailing and boats. up and make them more rocking.
ŭŭ Hobby (your choice) 1. You’re familiar with
something else. Health
You have 2 Normal Health Levels, 1 Tough Health
2
You’ll use these to accomplish ordinary things in play. Level, and 3 Divine Health Levels.
That means that even without your Immortality
Connections ability, you’re as tough as nails—you could survive
You start the game with two free Connections: three nukes, one chainsaw to the stomach, and fall out
of a second floor window onto a beehive and you’d
ŭŭ The Best Friend 2. You have a best friend. still just barely be OK. However, note that if some-
ŭŭ The Dream-Witch 1. You have a mysterious thing does bypass Immortality, this additional layer of
connection to the dream-witch. toughness mostly manifests as “plot armor,” where you
can find some way to survive, rather than representing
You can also get a level 1 Connection to any other PC actual true grit—it’s not that you laugh off even the first
by mutual agreement. nuke, it’s that there’s some crazy plot twist like your
soul getting caught in your shadow when you “die;” the
Miraculous Abilities bomb falling in love with you instead of killing you;
As Chuubo, you have the following miraculous abilities: you getting blasted away on a rubble “surfboard” and
landing in the Town mattress dump14; or your finding
ŭŭ Extremely powerful magic makes sure you stay a shelter just in time to “only” wind up with serious
a healthy, ordinary kid. radiation poisoning.
• You basically never get hurt. When Immortality applies, as the name suggests,
• Stuff that would kill most people just dazes you. you can skip all that rigmarole and just... get up a
• ...but you have trouble taking while later wondering what all the fuss was about?
the spotlight sometimes. Although, the occasional justification or explanation
ŭŭ Your daydreams kind of bleed out into reality. wouldn’t hurt!
• Your daydreams are often visible to others.
• Your daydreams are sometimes tan- Miracle Points
gible in harmless but useful ways. You have 5 Miracle Points (MP) that you can use to
ŭŭ You’re good at calming things down. enhance your miraculous abilities or use them more
• You can make a place calmer often than usual.
and quieter just by trying. Once spent, you’ll regain 1 MP/week, up to your
• You can calm almost anyone down. normal 5.
• Once per season you can unleash a “peace-splo- You can gain additional MP through Issues, when
sion” to really settle things down. Region Properties or your Affliction get you into
ŭŭ You can make one wish per week. trouble, or by spending a week diligently doing some-
You have two alternate forms... thing that honors a Region Property or Bond. (e.g.
ŭŭ You think you might be able to turn into a helping make sure everyone has a home in Fortitude.)
giant snake.
• It... probably wouldn’t help.
14 Always throw out your old mattresses properly in a mattress dump
instead of just stacking them on top of one another in the back yard
until they fall on somebody!
86 Playbooks
Perks Ordinary
Characters in this game have a handful of Perks. You Here’s how the “Ordinary” Perk works.
gain them or improve them by completing quests, and You’re just an ordinary person. It doesn’t mean that
you can have up to 8. much at first, but if you wind up picking up a Calling
You’ll start with these Perks: in play—something that you have to do, something that
you’re meant to do—it’ll feature heavily in that. You’ll
become something supernaturally ordinary, something
Ordinary stabilizing, a part of the simple, honest basics of the
world. You’ll become an anchor to reality—
You don’t really want to be a god of dreams Or at least, that’s one thing you have the potential for.
or a river dragon or a tree of worlds or whatever.
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Any time you have 1+ points in the Calling
You’re just an ordinary person. That’s all you Issue, the following rules apply:
want to be. You’re like...
...in a world of chaos and disruption, you’re ŭŭ The HG will invoke Ordinary to defend you
like a signpost of humble, ordinary life driven from effects that would spot you as extraordinary.
into the twisting ground to pin it down and make Such an effect will need [Strike ≥ your Calling] to
Affliction, based on your Calling discover you as anything else.
ŭŭ The HG will invoke Ordinary to protect you
from effects that would make you extraordinary
in an overt, obvious fashion. Such an effect will
Connection: the Best Friend need [Strike ≥ your Calling] to succeed.
ŭŭ If you have Calling 1+, you have to do something
2
You have a best friend.
That’s even their character title!
to deflate any scene that is making you out to be
this super-special person of destiny. Maybe it’s
Connection: the Dream-Witch getting the hiccups when you get the microphone
to make your speech. Maybe it’s pretending to
1
You have a mysterious connection to the Dream-Witch.
really be hurt when someone shoots you. Maybe
it’s just pointing desperately at the person next to
you whenever the spotlight turns to you!
Connection: ??? ŭŭ If you don’t do this, the HG will invoke Ordinary
to give you two warnings and then to automati-
1
At the start of the game, with the player’s consent, you
may take a free level 1 Connection to any other PC.
cally remove you from the scene. Normally you
wander off, need to use the bathroom, or realize
that you were just daydreaming the scene; under
sufficient duress, however, you’ll dissolve into a
Health hidden spirit world or turn into a 108-yard-long
snake and slither away. You can stay in the scene
You’re pretty sturdy. if you or somebody else uses a miracle with
+1 Divine Health Level [Strike ≥ your Calling] to keep you there.
You can replace this Affliction with a different iden-

tity if something changes over the course of the game
and “Ordinary” is no longer the core of who you are. If
you want to change this consciously and deliberately
in character it requires a quest, but since I’m handing
it to you with your character I’m going to make a
special rule:
Playbooks 87
If you and the HG agree, it’s also OK to just change it Wishing
either because something happened in play to change it Type: Imperial Miracle, Ritual Power Cost: —
or because (as a player) you just don’t find it fun. Once per week—after each Sunday’s dawn—you can
go down to the Wish-Granting Engine and make a wish.
Reality Syndrome The wheels and cogs in the Engine will turn. The
When you were 5, you created the Marvelous Wish- sparkers will spark. The creaking component of your
Granting Engine, Mk. I. Engine will creak, and the portion that’s intended for
It was a cardboard box. honking will honk, and there will be a silvery shimmer
For a long time—from that day to the completion from the bells, and that make-a-joyful-noise compo-
of the modern Engine—the story of your life was a nent that you built will give a joyful shout; and then the
story of daydreams and boxes; and while you’ll prob- whole thing will shudder and burn with its power and
2
ably never play that out, and if you do you’ll probably the shining beacon at the top will fire off a lance of light
skim through it, the game records that story anyway. It to Heaven; and your wish—
is—was—a miraculous story Arc, or set of Arcs, Whatever wish you make!—
Reality Syndrome 3. Your wish comes true.
That history is what empowers your daydreams, You wished for an ice cream, once. That was a
makes them ever-so-slightly miraculous, and gives the mistake. You can’t have ice cream and eat it too, and
modern Engine its motive force. the sun almost went out to keep it from melting. Really,
Here’s how that works. everyone’s pretty lucky that the world lasted long
enough for you to wish the ice cream back away. And
Effective Daydreamer let’s not even talk about the time when you wished that
Type: Imperial Miracle Cost: everything would be OK.
ŭŭ 0 MP—Your daydreams become visible But don’t get the idea that wishing is inherently bad
over time. or dangerous or dumb.
ŭŭ 4 MP—You can invoke this power instantly. It’s not.
Sometimes your wishes turn out OK. Sometimes they
After a few minutes of daydreaming, while you’re turn out better than OK. Sometimes they save people,
sustaining this power, the area around you picks up a really, genuinely save them, or make Town into a better
Region Property— place.
Wishing isn’t always good and wishing isn’t always
ŭŭ You can perceive and adjust Chuubo’s daydreams. bad.15
It’s just... what it is, really, like everything else in life.
That is, people can move bits and pieces of your
daydreams around by hand, have a conversation with
people you’re daydreaming about even if you’re
wearing headphones and can’t hear them yourself, and
so forth.
You can use this offensively, e.g., to blind or deafen
or confuse someone, but only if their player goes along
with it—otherwise even the lamest explanation for how
they get around it, up to and including “...somehow,”
can circumvent the effect.
15 Though wishes that don’t flow from your Wishing Map come pretty
close to “always bad”
88 Playbooks
Dreams Made Flesh Knight Path Miracles
Type: Miraculous Action Cost: Type: Miraculous Action, Quest Miracle Cost: —
ŭŭ 0 MP—1/week, your daydreams can peaceably Once upon a time, there was something that was true
interact with reality. about you. What was it?
ŭŭ 1 MP—Use this power a second or later time There was a role you aspired to reach.
this week. What was that?
ŭŭ 2 MP—Use this power a second or later time in a And there was something in your way. You’re not
handful of hours. sure what that was either. It’s a little strange.
ŭŭ 4 MP—Use this power instantly. If you figure out what those things are—I don’t care
whether that’s by declaring them ab initio as a player or
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Once per in-game week, after invoking Effective by “discovering” them in the course of events in play—
Daydreamer, you may use your daydream to peace- then all you’ll need is a 15-XP quest to armor yourself
ably interact with reality. For instance, you can climb in that truth or that failing so that anyone who looks at
a daydream ladder to reach a real house’s roof or have a you can see it; or to live up better to that role; or even to
daydream enchanted broom clean your house. call upon that role’s patron powers.
You can spend extra MP to use this power when This isn’t normally as good as just doing a 15-XP
you’ve already used it this week. Spending 4 MP is quest for a Recharge Token and using it for more Will
enough to invoke both Effective Daydreamer and the during a week or to power up your Wishing Map—but
power-up instantly—for instance, if you’re falling off it’s an option. It’ll usually (but isn’t required to) use the
a cliff into Big Lake, you can spend 4 MP mid-fall to quest card from the opposite page.
daydream up a cushioned motorboat, land in it, sit up,
shake yourself off, and zoom away.
Once you’ve used this power, you can keep using it
for the rest of the scene
Playbooks 89
Knight Path Miracles
Bonus XP XP
You’re trying to reconnect with something that you used to, or
“should,” be. You’re trying to garb yourself in majesty or cinematic vice.
As part of the process you’ll usually meditate, do purification rituals,
and/or do goofy stuff in order to get in touch with your former or child-
2 hood self.
Pick a two-sided sign — I’ve provided a few options here. One side
is the side you show other people when they question (or look like they
might consider questioning) this sort of activity. It’s a bold statement,
like “I know what I’m doing” or “I’m becoming something ... greater.”
You can earn a bonus XP at any time (though only once per 15 minutes/
scene) by expressing that sentiment — normally, by showing others that
sign.
The other side of the sign, on the other hand, reveals what you’re
really thinking. Ideally you’ll re-read it, or at least remind yourself of it,
every time you pick up an XP for this quest.
Don’t hiccup.
I’m Becoming
Don’t hiccup.
Something... Greater Don’t hiccup.
This is a Very Important this is a very important

and Serious Ritual and serious ritual
Connected to my Past connected to my past
It is very important that I keep my focus on what I am

doing and do not get distracted by thinking of other
things or even on things like thinking about how impor-
Centered tant it is that I keep my focus on... um... um, the, uh, you
know, the thing, the focus, you know, the THING, that,
you know, it was (continued on other side)
90 Playbooks
Child of the Ash Immortality
You’ve started on a new Arc, “Child of the Ash.” Type: Miraculous Action, Major Cost:
This is an Otherworldly story Arc about the truth of ŭŭ 0 MP—Damage or enchantment has only tempo-
your identity—about the connection, yet to be defined rary, appropriate effects on you.
and explored in play, between you and the vast tree that ŭŭ 1 MP—You totally recover and shrug everything
grows and hangs its shadow over the edge of the island off 1-2 times mid-scene.
of King Death. ŭŭ 2 MP—Starting mid-scene, you shrug off attacks
It will tie you to... and other effects like they’re paper tigers.
ŭŭ 4 MP—You’re basically unaffected by the world
ŭŭ ...a kaiju form, traditionally a giant snake; around you.
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ŭŭ ...an alien place:
• ...that great tree; Your wounds are strictly G-rated at all times. If you’re
• ...or the forest where it grows; stuck in hard vacuum, for instance, your eyes will bug
• ...or the shore that it shadows; out a little and you’ll claw at space but you nothing
• ...or the island of King Death; and to gross happens.
ŭŭ ...a certain quality of peacefulness that is living in So if:
your heart.
ŭŭ Someone hits you?
I don’t know all the answers about what this is and ŭŭ You forget to eat for three months?
what this means. I won’t even claim it necessarily means ŭŭ You’re hit by a nuclear barrage?
anything—there are other versions of the Wishing ŭŭ People are pouring molten steel over your head?
Boy, and some of them will have that kaiju form and
that peacefulness without any connection to that tree or Shrug it off! You don’t see what all the fuss is about.
to this Arc. It’s even possible that that island isn’t real! In general, you can recover from almost any pre-
But this version of the character has the Arc: dicament as soon as none of the Main Characters are
Otherworldly (Child of the Ash) 0 actively paying attention to you—mid-scene, if you’re
And if you choose to stay on that Arc, you will keep willing to spend MP, or after the scene ends, if you’re
the following powers (and eventually add more)... not. If you’re drowning in a volcano, for instance, you’ll
ŭŭ ...immortality. sink under the surface; once people stop watching the
ŭŭ ...a radiant heart that can calm others, or, if you mournful bubbles, you can legitimately splash up to the
get into it, help them rock out. edge of the magma squealing “aaah! hot hot hot!”
ŭŭ ...a potential for transformations. However:
Let’s talk about how this works.
ŭŭ You can suffer from the Sickness Issue—it’s just
that the individual manifestations of turning into a
Timing and You werewolf or being turned to the service of evil or
When you have a power that works mid-scene or whatever are G-rated.
starting mid-scene, that means that you use it after ŭŭ You can be confined as long as it’s interesting and
some meaningful stuff has already happened in the doesn’t keep you out of play. If there is interesting
current scene. stuff going on, it’s not a predicament.
When you have a power that works after a few ŭŭ Extremely deadly stuff, like nukes, volcanoes, and
minutes, that means that either a few things have to level 7+ miracles can still hurt you. Your wounds
happen while you’re setting this up, or nothing is hap- will still be much less severe than a reasonable
pening at all. Ideally this covers about 5 minutes of person would expect, and they’ll heal in anywhere
game time in a languid scene or 5 minutes of real time from a minute to a day, but if someone uses an
in a scene of fast-paced play. orbital mass driver to shove the spear of Longinus
through your guts, you will get a terrible wound,
and the visuals won’t be child-safe.
Playbooks 91
Occasionally I’ll introduce an effect that lets you take Peace-Splosion
some action at the cost of “a terrible wound,” or that Type: Imperial Miracle Cost:
seals a wound so that no effect can heal it. If you’re ŭŭ 0 MP—1/season, invoke a “peace-splosion.”
doing something like that to yourself, Immortality will ŭŭ 4 MP—Use this power a second or later time in
not heal such wounds. a book.
Once per season, you may invoke Peaceful on a grand

Arc Powers scale, e.g., calming the entire ocean or stopping a war.
Immortality is your “Arc power”—you get it for This functions essentially as a wish like...
being on one of the Arcs that grant Immortality. If you
change to a different Arc, it’s replaced by whatever “I wish this [[ situation/place/thing ]] would just calm
2
power that Arc offers instead. down!”
The rest of these powers become permanent as
soon as you reach Child of the Ash 1, which is ...and, like a wish, it gives the HG and the group as
normally as soon as you’ve finished a set of quests a whole a lot of leeway in deciding what that means.
totaling 120+ XP. For instance, the HG and the group would have broad
I suggest you stick to Arcs that offer Immortality— discretion as to whether soldiers at war, e.g.,
there’s a decent selection of them and it’s kind of one
of your things. That said, there’s a plausible exception: ŭŭ ...stop fighting...
you could decide that the most important thing for ŭŭ ...to admire the sunset.
you to do is to power up your Wish-Granting Engine. ŭŭ ...to have a party.
That’d be a good idea but tricky and dangerous ŭŭ ...to have peace talks.
work and the Arc power would be something called ŭŭ ...because the entire battlefield freezes over in ice.
“Sickly,” instead. ŭŭ ...because the wind scatters them to the four
corners of Town.
ŭŭ ...or keep going, but start using really quiet
Peaceful weapons and whispered battle cries.
Type: Imperial Miracle Cost:
ŭŭ 0 MP—Given time, you can calm someone/some- The time it takes to invoke this effect is variable but
thing or make a place more peaceful. cosmetic—it never takes “too long” to invoke, so it’s
ŭŭ 4 MP—You can invoke this power with a word. just a matter of whether it makes more sense for you to
stand there making soothing gestures for a few minutes
Invoke Peaceful and the place you’re in will become (or whatever) or not. If you’re spending 4 MP, you can
progressively nicer and quieter. After a few minutes, set this time frame yourself, including “instant.”
this qualifies for a Region Property: In addition to the seasonal use, you can invoke this
Things become more and more peaceful. at any time, if...
You can also invoke this power in a targeted fashion
to calm or quiet something down. After a few minutes, ŭŭ ...you and the HG agree that it would resolve one
the target has a moment of being as calm, quiet, and of your current level 4-5 Issues; or
clear-headed as possible under the circumstances. This ŭŭ ...you spend 4 MP.
is pretty much “whatever the target’s player or the HG
thinks is the calmest feasible result”—a rage spirit
won’t be affected at all; someone in a state of righteous
fury might shift into icy calm, fade into a thousand-yard
stare, or calm down for a moment and then revert right
back to fury; and a loud motorcycle engine would prob-
ably settle into a quieter, smoother rev.

92 Playbooks
“Dark Chuubo” It’s Not Forever
Type: Imperial Miracle Cost: — Type: Imperial Miracle Cost:
Take off your tie and tie it around your head and you ŭŭ 0 MP—1/season, between two chapters, revert to
become Dark Chuubo16. This reverses the effect of your non-kaiju form.
Peaceful and its power-up: for instance, it would create ŭŭ 1 MP—Switch back a second or later time
the Region Property... per season.
Things become more and more rocking ŭŭ 2 MP—Switch back mid-chapter (over the course
and energetic. of a few minutes).
...and talking to people would get them energized and ŭŭ 4 MP—Assume your non-kaiju form instantly.
pumped up instead of helping them chill. The powered
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up version would function basically as the wish “Let’s If you do turn into a giant snake, which I do not recom-
rock!!” and you could in theory use it to, e.g., start a mend, it’s not forever!
Fortitude-wide rave or trigger a volcanic eruption. You can turn back!
...probably.
Kaiju Form
Type: Imperial Miracle Cost: An Otherworldly Tree
ŭŭ 0 MP—Become a kaiju over the course of Type: Miraculous Action, Quest Miracle Cost: —
several minutes. You may use your dreams to learn more about the island
ŭŭ 4 MP—Become a kaiju instantly. of King Death, its shore, the forest that grows beyond
it, and the tree that shadows there that shore. However,
You think it is possible that you can turn into an 108- each use of this power requires a 15-XP quest.
yard snake, or possibly it is actually a 108-mile long This isn’t something you’d normally need to do, but
snake17, and maybe even back again. You have never it’s a power that you have and I can’t know the cir-
told anyone this because it’s a bit weird. In any case cumstances at your table, so I thought I would mention
you’re pretty sure that doing this would not actually it. There’s a possible quest card for this on the fol-
help anything. lowing page.
(And you are right!
There is a level 2 Auctoritas guarding the idea that
“turning into a giant snake never helps,” so you’d need
to put at least 2 Strike on this miracle for it to help at
all—and even then, the only ability you’d gain is the
ability to say “well, I’m a giant snake, so... you know...
probably I can do this, right?” and look pleadingly at
the HG.)
That said, the power is there if you want it, and could
eventually become useful if you pursue this Arc.
16 Shokyou instead becomes either Dark Shokyou or “Shokyou Rock

and Roll.”
17 You are not very good at metric.
Playbooks 93
An Otherworldly Tree
Bonus XP XP
You’re dreaming about the island of King Death.
This quest comes with a division of states—there’s the you who’s
fully awake and alert to the mortal world, and then there’s the you who’s
oppressed and burdened by thoughts or dreams of graveyards, zooming
2 over water, the shores of distant islands, and roots tangling around your
bones.I’ve made a sign for this—a reversible card, which you could in
theory have on the table in front of you in play to show which state
you’re in. You can earn a bonus XP at any time (though only once per
scene/15 minutes) by flipping the card, showing that you’re moving
between states—focusing on the world of life, or fading into dreams and
thoughts of death.
If you can’t actually keep the card in front of you, holding up the card
with the relevant side facing people or just saying or emoting something
appropriate can earn you the XP instead.
In the Shadow of Death
Awake and Alive
94 Playbooks
Actions and Issues Wondrous Stuff
Here’s some things you’re often doing. Activating the Marvelous
Wish-Granting Engine
Pastoral Stuff invoking a Ritual
Talking about what’s going on
Shared Reactions
It doesn’t have to be, but invoking the Engine is often
a formalized scene—the kind of thing where, in a TV
Hanging out in the world and show, there’d be a lot of stock footage. If the HG cares
experiencing stuff
about that sort of thing, it’ll play out as a “Ritual,”
Slice of Life which operates on weird and atypical rules.
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Living a simple, honest life
Shared Action
Issues and You
If you pick up the Complex Issue, I recommend
You like just kind of soaking in the world, experiencing
it be “worrying over nothing,” e.g., realizing that you
the feeling of stuff, doing simple honest things, and
don’t floss enough and becoming obsessed thereby.
hanging out with your friends. You can get bonus XP
Your most common Vice Issue is probably hap-
for these kinds of actions a couple of times a week.
lessness, where you tend to do unproductive, point-
less, or counterproductive things when on your own.
Trouble
Note the extra rules concerning you and the
Getting worked up over stuff
Calling Issue under “Ordinary,” above.
Obsessive Action
Getting in way over your head

while trying to do simple stuff
Never Say Die!
You tend to double down when simple things go

wrong. If you’re trying to catch a cat, and it goes out
on a window ledge, so do you. If a giant bird snatches it
and flies off, you’re going to start looking for a way to
follow it into the sky. Never Say Die!
You sometimes get stressed out over the simplest
things, like whether you’re flossing enough or whether
a forthcoming movie is going to be good enough to live
up to your expectations. That’s Obsessive Action.
…why a Snake?
You have no explanation for why you can turn into a
giant snake, so it’s better not to do it very often. One
time you found a bottle of whisky and you didn’t dare
to drink it even though you were kind of curious just
in case you’re the kind of person who turns into a giant
snake when drunk.
Playbooks 95
Timeline 1-2: Playing Timeline 3: Starting in
through your Childhood the Modern Day
The HG may want to play through your childhood at In a game that starts in the present, your history is a little
an accelerated pace—probably about 50x acceleration, less spread out. The Mk. I Wish-Granting Engine might
covering a year in about the same time you’d usually not even have existed. The current Engine is probably
cover a week. newer than the first two timelines suggest—you’ve had
In a game like that, your history would look like this: it for a minimum of three Sundays18 and a maximum of
“most of your life,” but I’d guess that you built it 12-18
Age 5: You create the Wish-Granting Engine, Mk. I. It months back.
is mostly a cardboard box. You’ve been haunted by Outside dust and the dream-
It is ambiguous whether your wishes at this age really witch for the past 3-6 months.
2
“happen” or are just games of pretend. It’s even pos-
sible that they were pretend at the time, but that at some
point in the future you will wish that they’d been real!
Age 5-8: This is when the game would start.

Precious Memories: This quest doesn’t change.
Learning the Ways of Fortitude: You mostly only
visit Fortitude to buy candy or grilled fish or to sit near
the water. But kindly people might talk to you about the
Fortitude way of life anyway!
Haunted: You are not actively haunted yet, but
you might have weird interactions with Outside
dust, encounters with the Dream-Witch, visions of a
shadow on a distant shore, and inexplicable deliriums
and illness.
Age 9: You normally stop playing with the Wish-

Granting Engine for a few years here because it’s just a
cardboard box and that’s kid’s stuff. (This is up to you.)
Age 10-11: Somewhere in here is probably when the

Dream-Witch and the dust of the Outside start actively
haunting you.
Age 12: This is usually when you build the Marvelous

Wish-Granting Engine, Mk. II. This is the current
version that really works!
Age 15: This is “the present.”
(The major difference between timeline 1 and time-

line 2 is when the old sun dies, which isn’t very per-
sonally relevant to you. In timeline 1, it was a couple
of years before you built the Wish-Granting Engine. In
timeline 2, it happens when you’re 8.)
18 That is, enough time to wish for a Marvelous Wish-Granting

Engine, a best friend, and an ice cream.
96 Playbooks
The Best Friend
[[CHARACTER SPLASH, identical to the one in the Best Friend lifepath.]]
Playbooks 97
Fact Sheet • ...something else? Someone
You are Seizhi Schwan, the Best Friend. You didn’t else? You have no idea!
exist. Then Chuubo wished for a best friend, and bam! ŭŭ You’re not afraid that people will find out you’re
Seizhi Schwan! You are terrified that one day someone not real. Instead, you act shy because...
will notice that you are not actually a real person and • “...that’s what Seizhi Schwan would do.”
then something horrific and unspecified will happen. • “...I don’t want to steal the spot-
light from real people.”
Primary Quests • “...something from outside the
ŭŭ Invent a history for yourself. world is hunting me.”
ŭŭ Help answer the wishes of the local animals
and birds. Character Description
2
ŭŭ Find your destiny. You drifted in the tumult and the storm. You were
frightened. You were frightening. You were lost, so
Bonus XP When... very lost, and you did not even know yourself.
Players are happy for you and give you a thumbs up! That was what it was like, to live in the far Outside.
You should aim for a life of overall stress/awfulness but You were a spine, a thorn, a tentacle of the Bleak
with frequent awesome/sweet/joyful moments. Academy. You were an unfolding horror. You were a
fear, you were fear itself, you were afraid, and all these
Powers things because you could not find yourself, you could
As a proper best friend and person who is totally real19, not find a personality to be, you were alienated from
you are extremely good at seeing people’s hearts, con- yourself, you did not exist.
necting to them, and fitting into situations. You’re also You did not exist.
able to read the hearts and wishes of animals. Then Chuubo, who was lonely, wished for a best
friend. And you were dragged screaming up through the
Common Variations levels of the Outside and into the world and Town. You
Shake it up! For an atypical Best Friend experience, started... being. You became real.
pick one or more of the following: Suddenly you could look in the mirror and
see yourself.
ŭŭ You are a girl, named either Suzy Schwan or Suddenly you could say something, and you’d hear it.
Seizhi Schwan. You’d recognize that voice. That was the best part. You
ŭŭ You can’t feel the wishes of animals—instead, would recognize that voice, because it would be yours.
you feel the wishes of... And oh!
• ...the dead? It was so very, very good, being real.
• ...buildings? You even forgot for a while that you were a fake, an
• ...machines? illusion, a constructed being. You forgot, because it was
• ...the clouds, the winds, and the weather? easy to forget, because the sun rose every morning and
ŭŭ You think this is actually the second time you’ve it cast down light and you saw things and you knew that
existed. You just lost your existence the first time. you were seeing them. You breathed both in and out.
That’s why Chuubo was able to bring it back! There was gravity, and it knew you, recognized you, it
Were you... pulled everything in the universe towards you at a rate
• ...a legendary hero of Town? proportional to the product of your masses divided by
• ...a horrible demon? the square of the distances between you. And there was
• ...a sandpiper or other animal? summer. And there was fire. And there was cold and
• ...a rat? there was wind. And you could sit with Chuubo in the
• ...an ordinary human? middle of it all, like the whole universe was spinning
• ...a wish spirit? around you, you, you, on top of the earth and under the
turning sky, and you could play jacks and dice and gin
19 Honest!
98 Playbooks
rummy, and you could talk about random things, and it panic and flail harder and harder, only you won’t actu-
was great. ally flail at all, and you’ll realize that it’s not working,
You had weird powers. that waking up isn’t working, because you don’t exist.
You were magical and full of wish power. You This isn’t really your preference as to who you’d
were really persuasive, sometimes. You could see want to be. As existences go, being geeky, awkward
what people were wishing for when they blew out the Seizhi Schwan isn’t exactly the top of the list. But it’s
candles on their birthday cakes, and you could even see so much better than being nothing. It’s so much better
how that knowledge invalidated those wishes as they than having everyone point at you and call you out as
were made. One time you were out swimming and you a fake. So there’s nothing for it but to be Seizhi as hard
got to playing with an octopus and before you knew it as you can.
Playbooks
you had changed your color and were stretched out flat You’d love to have riches, to luxuriate in palaces and
against a bottom rock. That was a crazy day! silk baths (like ordinary baths, but with silk instead
It’s kind of freaky. of water) and other incomprehensible follies. But you
It’s kind of freaky and it’s even a little insincere, you can’t. That’d make you someone different. It’s natural
think, having powers like that. But back then it didn’t for Seizhi Schwan to want that, but not to have that.
bother you. That’s not the kind of thing that bothers a At least not yet. And you’d love to be awesome, like
real person, after all. Why, back then, if somebody tried your brother Laodemus, or heroic, like the Prodigy,
to make your powers into a big thing, you could have or—well, speaking frankly—to be a famous superstar
just put your hands on your hips and laughed, saying, genius mega-athlete wealthy ruler of everything who
Ho ho ho, of course I can see the wishes in your can fly and shoot lasers out of his eyes, like... like...
heart, old chum! I’m a real person, you know, named ...well, unfortunately, that would be like “nobody.”
Seizhi Schwan! And that’s the problem, isn’t it?
So that was your Heaven, and every day was a marvel; There’s nobody like that, and even if there were,
until one day Chuubo showed you his Marvelous Wish- they’d be totally fake, wouldn’t they? A famous super-
Granting Engine— star genius mega-athlete ruler of everything flying laser
—and you remembered. person like that wouldn’t actually exist.
So you’d love to get Chuubo to make a wish and
Maybe it was the same day he created you. Heck, solve all your problems, sure, or just solve them your-
maybe it was the same instant he created you. You don’t self by going to the most luxurious possible place and
know. You think you’d already known him, known him fitting in. You crave that, you want it so badly you can
practically forever, but you were created complete with taste it, but at the same time, it’s scarier than the face of
a sense of history, so you can’t really know on what day death itself to you, because above all things, you have
the creation actually transpired. Maybe it was the same to stay who you are, who you’ve become, the person
day. Maybe he waited a few days. Maybe he waited a whom by becoming you have wrenched free from the
while. But it probably wasn’t long. nothing of being nothing whatsoever at all. You have
He couldn’t have known that it would hurt you, to stay Chuubo’s best friend. You have to stay Seizhi
after all. Schwan. And if you want anything else, you have
Anyway, you saw the Engine; and you remembered; to earn it, Seizhi Schwan has to earn it, step by step,
and now you know. growing slowly and painfully into it, just like anybody
Now you live with it every moment, with knowing else.
that you’re not real. With the horrible fear that one day Because you have to exist.
everyone will point at you and say, “Oh my God that Above all else, more importantly than anything else,
boy over there he’s just an imaginary person! Fake you have to exist.
person! Fake person! Kill him!” It’s just too bad there aren’t any self-help books that
Or that one day you’ll try to wake up, try to clear the would tell you how to actually do that, and become
last bit of dreams from your head, and you won’t be more real.
able to. And you’ll try to move your arms and legs and
head and mind and you won’t be able to. And you’ll
Playbooks 99
Home and Family Hints
As the Best Friend, you live over the hills in the
modern part of Town—in Horizon, or School Region, “Once upon a time, but not all that long ago, the
built around Principal Entropy’s School. Horizon is Headmaster of the Bleak Academy rode up into the
a gothic, brooding area and you are pretty sure that it sky of Fortitude and he drew back his great black
is just crawling with walking dead and vampires and bow and he fired an arrow and he killed the sun.”
monsters and stuff. The fog and the gargoyles and the — from a discussion of your quests
tombstones and the people mysteriously vanishing
and the clip-clip-clop of horse hooves on the cobble- I imagine you as having been part of... a lifeless,
stones—it’s pretty terrifying! seething land of the dead.
I mean, OK, look. It’s not like you don’t belong there. Then the sun goddess died.
2
It’s your home, and you’re used to it, it’s got its hooks in I think death... changed... that day. I think non-ex-
you. Sometimes you’re not even really comfortable at istence changed that day too. You were a part of “the
all in the peace and quiet of Fortitude where you could Lands Beyond Creation”—
be attacked at any moment by things not coming back And then she lit them up and turned them into
from the dead and there not being fog or megalomaniac “the Outside.”
scientists or vampires or whatever—but even so, every I think you are a person and not just a thing; and I
time you get back on the bus to Horizon, part of you is think that there is more to that story than just a wish. I
certain that this time you are going to get killed. think that the wish is why you are here, and why you
Your parents are Mortimer and Melancholy have a body, and a form, and a name. But I think you
Schwan, morticians. Your older brother is might owe the real miracle of your existence not just to
Laodemus Schwan, an itinerant masked wrestler Chuubo but to the former sun.
and adventurer. He refuses to admit it to you but So if you have a destiny, I think that destiny is
you suspect that he and his life partner Aidan are something to do with the Child of the Sun or with the
gay. Your housepet, Vixoth, is an ancient and former sun herself.
absurdly intelligent bat. I think you will go to Fortitude to help or hang out
They are probably... with your best friend. And you’ll get involved with
You hate to admit this, but they are probably a the story of the glass dragon, which was also affected
fake family. somehow by the sun or its death; and Nightmares’
It’s hard to be sure. It’s distantly possible that Angel, too; but most of all, with the Child of the Sun.
they’re real people with improbable names who Your personal story will begin, I think, when you find
have a falsified child/sibling. Or that they were how it can fit with hers, or, if it’s more interesting, with
real people, but that the wish changed them up a the story of the old sun and the Bleak Academy.
bit. But it’s most likely that they’re every bit as Note that in some fundamental ways you’re a Horizon
imaginary as you. kid, so you’re going to have to work a little harder to fit
If they are, don’t show them the Engine! Oh, do into the story than most—I’m leaving you in that pickle
not! No matter how angry you are; no matter how because it maps directly onto your IC struggle, but do
lonely; no matter how much you might want your bear in mind that you may need to be a little active
family to understand, you must never show them about getting yourself involved rather than letting the
the Engine. story come to you.
Because if they are fake people, your family,
and not real people at all, they probably do not
yet know.
100 Playbooks
Quests
You start the game with three quests, and have the
power to swap them out or pick up more—you can
pursue up to four quests at any given time.
I’ve chosen three quests to...
ŭŭ ...serve as your basic, default character motivation

in play (“Hide the Evidence”).
ŭŭ ...give you extra direction in the first few sessions
(“The Wishes of Birds and Beasts”).
Playbooks
ŭŭ ...tie you into the campaign plot (“Why Are
You Here?”).
Bonus XP
The first quest is about making up a fake history for
yourself. The second quest is helping out the animals
whose wishes you sense. Both are the most fun when
things get a little crazy and over the top. So once per
fun scene, and at most once per fifteen real-life minutes,
when you notice that things have gone over the top or
decide to take them over the top—you can earn a bonus
XP towards one of those quests.
You can print out the Over the Top sign on pg. XX
and hold it up when this happens.
As for the third quest, Why are you Here?, you can
earn a bonus XP once per in-game week by picking a
scene from the quest’s list of scene options to play out.
Other Choices
If you’re interested in another quest or two, and you
have access to Fortitude: by the Docks of Big Lake,
I’d recommend looking at the quests for...
ŭŭ ...learning a trade, aka, A New Job! or A

New Hobby.
ŭŭ ...becoming a Dependable Person.
ŭŭ ...becoming a Shrine or Park Guardian.
ŭŭ ...becoming a Friend to the Birds or Friend to
the Street Cats and Dogs of Fortitude.
ŭŭ ...Joining the Kichi.
ŭŭ ...Joining the Titov.
There’s also the option to honor the wishes of the
dead instead of animals, on pg. XX.
Playbooks 101
Hide the Evidence
Bonus XP XP
Arrange for a sign. It says “Over the Top.”
Sometimes when you’re making up your history, or taking pains to
establish it as real, or when you’re caught in a lie or contradiction—
Things get a little over the top!
2
per scene/15 minutes) when that happens, or when you decide to make
it happen and take things over the top. At that time, hold up the sign or
otherwise declare/observe that things have gotten over the top and you
can claim the XP.
You don’t even have to say anything in character! You just have to
hold up the sign.
R THE TO
VE
O
P
102 Playbooks
Hide the Evidence
15 XP Quest To earn a bonus XP for this quest, make sure that
this gets a little over the top—or bribe yourself with a
: Chibi-Quest bonus XP for this quest by deciding to take them a little
over the top. Get caught in lies. Work way too hard.
You want to cover up the fact that Chuubo wished you Tell ridiculous stories. Get people to buy ridiculous
into existence. stuff hook, line, and sinker. Hold up your Over the Top
You mostly do this by planting stories of your past— sign, if you have one, and rake in the XP.
Playbooks
telling people stuff that makes it seem like you’ve
always been real, and ideally confuses them into Rewards
remembering you as having been around—and inves- Completing this quest earns you a Recharge Token—a
tigating the places and things and parts of the world memory, event, or thing that to you represents a certain
you need to understand in order to make your stories level of reality. Later, you can draw upon that Recharge
seem plausible. One day you’ll be reminiscing with an Token once to either replenish your willpower and wish
old woman about the old days before the recent con- power (“MP”) mid-week or add a phrase to your canon-
struction in her neighborhood. The next you’ll be labo- ical, well-established history (pg. XX).
riously skipping stones at a pond as part of constructing
a story of how you got an incredible nine-skip stone (or
should it be seven? Is nine at all plausible?) when you
were younger and a real person who totally existed and
was doing things while young.
Playbooks 103
The Wishes of Birds and Beasts
Bonus XP XP
Arrange for a sign. It says “Over the Top.”
Sometimes when you’re helping out, things get a little over the top.
per scene/15 minutes) when that happens, or when you decide to make
2
it happen and take things over the top. At that time, hold up the sign or
otherwise declare/observe that things have gotten over the top and you
can claim the XP.
You don’t even have to say anything in character! You just have to
hold up the sign.
R THE TO
VE
O
P
104 Playbooks
The Wishes of Birds and Beasts
25 XP Quest
1: “The Walker in Darkness”
3: There’s a recurring feature in your Arcs—“the Walker
in Darkness.”
You have the power to know what people want. And, This dude(tte)’s the bad example. They’re the one
sometimes? What animals want, too. Sometimes you’ll who falls to your vice to give you the strength to
Playbooks
just be hanging out and you’ll suddenly realize that... reject it, or the one who makes it worse so that you
can triumph over them at the end of your character
ŭŭ ...that bird over there doesn’t have enough shiny Arc. They’re not a big enough deal to be the villain.
stuff for its nest; They’re a mid-boss, or a friend you try to save.
ŭŭ ...or, that dog needs someone to help un-mend They’re a sinner that this Arc is likely to consign to the
a mended fence that’s in the way of its usual metaphorical flames.
wandering route; In your first quest, this is probably “the Sacrificial
ŭŭ ...or, that cat is really getting too old to fight the Bull” (pg. XX)—someone with a name like Edith
other tomcats properly and wishes it had someone Bull, Jake Bullworth, or Vladimir Bûl.
else to sub in as its champion. And they have one of two paths here. Maybe they’re
going to share your concerns about not being real,
On rare occasions you may even pick up a really because they’re descended from a Magister of the
weird wish from some animal, like a heron that wants Bleak Academy and it kind of freaks them out. That
to be human or a dolphin that wants to play with some version of the character? They’re going to do some-
human, dolphin, or octopus that it met a few years back. thing really stupid because of it. They’re going to be a
You can feel this stuff! You can see it. friend, maybe, at first, but they’re going to get the idea
So you help. that because they’re not completely real their choices
To earn a bonus XP for this quest, make sure that don’t matter, and they’re going to do something stupid
this gets a little over the top—or bribe yourself with a and wrong.
bonus XP to take them a little over the top. Run yourself Or they’re going to be a jerk.
ragged collecting string for bird’s nests. Deliver cease They’re going to be a jerk to you about your not
and desist notices to dogs that bark a bit too much like being real. They’re going to be mean and grind your
other dogs. Find yourself disguising a heron as a person face in it.
for a polite evening of humanistic revelry or arguing Ultimately this is in the HG’s hands for right now.
with a cat’s owner about the kind of cat food it prefers. Basically, at some point, you want the HG to intro-
Hold up your Over the Top sign, if you have one, duce this person. Maybe one of the Bulls I mentioned
and rake in the XP. above, maybe some other Walker in Darkness. You
You can make up your own animal-helping tasks, or can collaborate with the HG on who this will be or
pick them up from the HG. you can let them handle it, but ultimately bringing the
character in isn’t your job—
It’s just, you get 5 XP when they show up! So you
want it to happen!
You are responsible for making sure this is on the
HG’s agenda—you have only yourself to blame if they
just forget!
Playbooks 105
Why Are You Here?
XP
Major Goals
The HG can award you 5 XP towards this quest when...
ŭŭ ...you do something that connects you spiritually or practically to
2
death and rebirth, the sky, a holy mountain, or the sun.
ŭŭ ...you find a place for yourself in Fortitude, ideally one that
connects and relates to one or more of those ideas.
ŭŭ ...a context is established or updated for your regular interactions
with the Walker in Darkness as an enemy/rival you’re stuck with
occasionally or a friend/ally you sometimes get the chance to see.
You can earn each bonus once, for a total of 15 XP.
Quest Flavor
1/chapter, you can earn a bonus XP towards this quest through...
ŭŭ ...having one of those nightmares (about the death of the sun).

ŭŭ ...talking about one of those nightmares.
ŭŭ ...talking with somebody about death and what it means in a
world of potential rebirth.
ŭŭ ...talking with somebody about the nature of the unknown
chaos outside the world.
ŭŭ ...talking with somebody about what it means to
belong somewhere.
ŭŭ ...talking with somebody about fate, free will, and meaning.
ŭŭ ...a scene mostly leading to/motivated by your declara-
tion, “This is my destiny!”
106 Playbooks
Thumbs-Up
Your bonus XP emotion is players being happy for you. ...or some equivalent thereof.
You want your life to be troubled, oppressive, Each such thumbs-up earns you one XP.
stressed, and short on the simple pleasures so that it’s You can earn up to 1 thumbs-up XP every 15 minutes
more noticeable when good things happen. You want to of real time. It’s also possible for a player to dare you to
embrace the good things that do happen, vigorously, and make them happy for you, presumably because your life
let your happiness about them show. You want to make is totally sucking—e.g., you’re languishing in a dank
the category of “things to be happy for Seizhi Schwan prison cell somewhere, chained to the wall. If you can
about” to be, in short, as big as possible. And you want actually get a thumbs-up in circumstances like that (“oh
to be good enough to people, and kind enough to people, my God, the rats in here are adorable. Come here, little
Playbooks
both in front of them and when they’re not around, that guy? You totally remind me of my friends in Fortitude.
people can be genuinely happy for you when things go Oh, you’re nibbling me! Hahaha.” Or “Yes! Drafted into
well. the Yakuza! This is my destiny!”) it isn’t bounded by
So here’s what you want people to do when they the 15-minute rule—you can earn another XP within 15
get that frisson of happiness that is “Seizhi Schwan is minutes before, after, or both.
having a good day.” As a special rule—it isn’t quite a thumbs-up, so if
They’ll... someone else winds up with this XP condition they
might not have this proviso—you specifically can also
ŭŭ ...give you a thumbs-up. earn this bonus XP when someone else confirms:
ŭŭ ...give you a fist-pump.
ŭŭ ...give you a big smile, accompanied by some sort ŭŭ “Yes! That was your destiny!” or
of XP-related gesture. ŭŭ “Yes! This is your destiny!”
ŭŭ ...say “Thumbs up.”
ŭŭ ...say “Beam.”
ŭŭ ...say “Grats” or “Way to go.”
Playbooks 107
Variations
Instead of helping animals, you could help the dead; or a
shrine family; or just people around Fortitude and Town
in general. Or you could have some important work that
you’re doing—maybe you collect bodies for transporta-
tion to your parents’ funeral home, sometimes. Maybe
you’re investigating something for Chuubo?
Any such quest would earn bonus XP when it gets a
little over the top.
I’ve left the thing you’re actually helping blank on
the quest card so that you can write in “the local birds
2
and beasts,” “the shrine family Titov,” “the dead,” or
whatever else.
Rewards
Completing this quest usually earns you a new “Perk”
like:
ŭŭ Accessory. You get some awesome toy or tool
you’ve been wanting.
ŭŭ Power Up. Increase your Do Stuff by +1.
ŭŭ Trick. You can now read the heart of something
new. Is it...
• ...the dead?
• ...machines?
• ...clouds?
• ...(if you didn’t start with this) animals?
Sufficient practice will establish this Trick as a
natural feature of your Heart-Reader ability, at
which time you will no longer need this Perk.
ŭŭ Bond. Gain a new level 1 Bond that ties you to
one of the creatures you met or promises you
made during the course of this quest.
Or the non-Perk benefit:
ŭŭ Birthday: You get a scene where your family-an-

alog in Fortitude20 recognizes you as an adult
(possibly your 15th or 16th birthday).
20 If you spend enough time in Fortitude, you acquire a family there.

I don’t mean blood relatives, I just mean... you know. People. People
who take you in and treat you like family, even though you’re tech-
nically probably not.
108 Playbooks
Why Are You Here?
35 XP Quest Abilities
1: You have 8 Will and the following mundane abilities—
2:
Chuubo’s Best Friend
“Schwans and Sovereigns,” pg. XX.
You’re good at doing things to help or support
Chuubo. That’s not the whole of your story—it
Playbooks
You’re looking for your destiny—the thing you’re can’t be, you think, because someone who only
meant for, the way you slot into the world. exists to support somebody else isn’t real—but
If you have a destiny, after all, that makes you real. it’s a big part of who you are.
And you’ve been having nightmares lately about the
death of the sun—about that time when the old sun, Bond, based on your Calling
Jade Irinka, got killed by the Headmaster of the Bleak
Academy, and a new sun took her place.
Maybe it’s connected. Maybe it isn’t. ŭŭ Know Stuff 3. You know a lot of stuff.
Connection the Wishing Boy
All I can say is that when someone tries to tell you ŭŭ Exist 3. You are extremely good at existing.
4
You’re also good at reading Chuubo’s
what you’re for—who you should be, what you should ŭŭ Do Stuff 1.and
heart You’re familiar
knowing what hewith
needs.doing stuff.
be doing, or just generally puts an expectation on you ŭŭ Ordinary 1. You’re familiar with being ordinary.
however unfair or silly it may be—you can make a fist
and declare, “Yes! This is my destiny!” In addition to theWish
Connection: obvious
Spirits applications in terms of
The player always says this out loud, but Seizhi continuingYoutolike
exist
and (which
get along you dowish
correctly
spirits ofand
Town.pre-
1
with the
has the option of subvocalizing it or saying it under cisely, often winning praise from those around you),
his breath. you may use your Exist ability to do things generally
helpful in staying alive and in Town. It is further helpful
Connection: ???
Rewards when pretending to be real—much more so, in fact,
1
The normal reward for completing this quest is that you than the Marx Brothers
may take glasses
a free level originally
1 Connection purchased
to any other PC. for
actually do find a destiny—complete with a “Perk” like: this purpose.
ŭŭ Superior Skill. Gain a level 2 Superior Skill Connections

reflecting your new aspiration or role. You start the game with two free Connections—
ŭŭ Affliction. Gain a new Affliction representing
the same. ŭŭ The Wishing Boy (or Girl) 4. You’re Chuubo (or
ŭŭ Bond. Gain a level 1 Bond Perk reflecting your Shokyou)’s best friend, by universal law.
new aspiration or role. ŭŭ Wish Spirits 1. You like the wish spirits of
ŭŭ Power. Gain a small miraculous power relevant to Town.21
your new aspiration or role.
You can also get a level 1 Connection to any other PC
Afterwards I suggest reviewing the notes on pg. XX by mutual agreement.
and moving on to the quest “The Troubled Sky.”
21 Wish spirits are natural spirits, like will-o-wisps and flower fairies,
that make people wish for things.
Playbooks 109
Miraculous Abilities Health
As Seizhi Schwan, you have the following miracu- You have 2 Normal Health Levels, 1 Tough Health
lous abilities: Level, and 2 Divine Health Levels. This is the “normal”
level of toughness for a character in Chuubo’s
ŭŭ You were created by a wish. Marvelous Wish-Granting Engine: you can survive
• You’re really good at being the a lot, but not so much because of physical toughness
Wishing Boy’s best friend. as because of your adaptable nature and your wishing
• You regenerate wish power (aka heart that finds solutions. Like, if my legs exploded sud-
“Miracle Points”) quickly. denly, I’d probably just die of blood loss, but you might
ŭŭ You’re really good at reading people’s hearts. quickly stick a pair of chair legs on there and infect
• You can see what people want, them with Seizhi Schwan-ness instead!22
2
right now and in their lives.
• You can see what animals want. Miracle Points
• You’re good at understanding You have 5 Miracle Points (MP) to enhance or activate
people and animals. your miraculous abilities.
• You’re good at communicating, even... You regain 1 MP, to a maximum of your normal 5...
►► ...in noisy environments.
►► ...to people who don’t want to listen. ŭŭ ...at the beginning of a new week.
►► ...across language barriers. ŭŭ ...from your Frantic ability when you get
ŭŭ You decide how Seizhi Schwan fits into into trouble.
the world.
• You can fake up a history that’s hard You can also gain additional MP, with no partic-
for even wishes to change. ular maximum...
• You can communicate so well that your
target starts turning into you... ŭŭ ...through Issues.
• ...or reject something so thoroughly ŭŭ ...when Region Properties get you into trouble.
that it becomes less you—even... ŭŭ ...when a Bond, e.g., “Chuubo’s Best Friend,” gets
►► ...your “ex”-reflection. you into trouble.
►► ...your “ex”-photograph. ŭŭ ...when you spend a week diligently honoring a
►► “...that person who spilled the Region Property or helping Chuubo.
soup” (who isn’t you). ŭŭ ...when you spend a week diligently honoring
ŭŭ You can fit in anywhere. some Bond you’ve earned from a quest.
• You can adapt quickly to any environment. ŭŭ ...when your Is This My Destiny? power gets you
• You can create a temporary deep con- into trouble.
nection to anybody or anything.
22 On the other hand, I’m not going to spend the rest of the night
worrying that my legs will actually explode, whereas you, or at least
Seizhi Schwan, might.
110 Playbooks
Perks Chuubo’s Best Friend
Characters in this game have a handful of Perks. You Here’s how the Chuubo’s Best Friend Perk works.
gain them or improve them by completing quests, and You’re Chuubo’s best friend by mystic law—that’s
you can have up to 8. what you were created for. At first that’s just a social
You’ll start with these Perks: reality. You like him. He likes you. You’re best friends!
But if you wind up picking up a Calling in play, some-
thing that you’re meant to do, it’ll react with that. The
wish that created you won’t let your destiny... to be
the Pizza King, or the right hand man of the Child of
the Sun, or to rule the lake-elf kingdom, or whatever...
Wishes of the Dead
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supercede your friendship to Chuubo without a fight.
You can replace the ability to read animals’ hearts with Basically, your ability to support him will scale up
the ability to feel the wishes of dead people. with whatever else you’re doing, and maybe that’s an
Specifically, if you have this power, corpses will amazing good thing (by making it possible to hold
tell you— fast to your legendary friendship even while doing big
Well, not really what they want, because they mostly things that he wouldn’t otherwise be part of) or maybe
want to rot and return to the soil, or lie around in their it’s a destiny cage-match where whatever it is you’re
graves, or stuff like that, but what the people who used meant to do is struggling under the heel of the wish.
to live in those bodies wanted. Luckily, this is a “Bond” and not an “Affliction,”
If you don’t have this power, then you can still try which means that you as a player will have all the say
using Know Stuff and your general character concept in which—you decide how this Bond applies, and all
to figure out what a dead person wants, but there’s a the HG can do is veto or allow the benefits.
level 1-2 Obstacle when you’re trying to understand Any time you have 1+ points in the Calling
the heart of a ghost and a level 4 Obstacle when trying Issue, you may draw upon this Bond as follows:
to read the heart of a corpse.
Similarly, there are character variations that have ŭŭ Invoke Chuubo’s Best Friend to waive the
some insight into things like what machines want or need for food, water, rest, and air while you are
what clouds and wind and stuff want. Bear in mind hanging out with Chuubo. You have to be focused
that inanimate things that have never been alive may on him or on interacting with him, though—it’s
not have very clear or meaningful desires—such a not enough just having both of you in the
power would be useful, but it’s not a license to interro- same place.
gate random environmental things. ŭŭ Invoke Chuubo’s Best Friend when you’re
taking a mundane action specifically to be a good
best friend to Chuubo and there is an Obstacle or
conflict getting in your way and you can add your
Calling to the level of your action.
ŭŭ Invoke Chuubo’s Best Friend when you’re
taking a miraculous action specifically to be a
good best friend to Chuubo and you can add your
Calling to the action in Strike. Strike from a Bond
doesn’t add to Strike from other Bonds, but it
does add to Strike from MP and Strike intrinsic to
a miracle.
ŭŭ Invoke Chuubo’s Best Friend when being
Chuubo’s best friend really sucks and the HG may
give you up to your Calling in Will or in MP.
Playbooks 111
Becoming Somebody Power Comparison
The Arc of your existence is from being nobody to being
somebody—expressed, in game terms, as a miraculous The Troublemaker has a similar power, Heart-
story Arc, or set of Arcs, Speaker, but it doesn’t really find a way to talk to
Become Somebody 3. somebody so much as just beam encouragement or
About 120 XP into the game23 you’re currently discouragement straight into their hearts. She’s much
expecting to take this one step further and reach better than you are at bypassing purely physical obsta-
Become Somebody 4. cles to communication, but not as good at getting past
Four! Level four! That’s really somebody!... isn’t it? supernatural communication-clouding tricks, and she
Anyway, the progress you’ve made so far, just by can only convey the kind of stuff that a wishing heart
coming into existence, comes with a set of bundled cares about: “Help is on the way,” sure, or “Come
quickly!” but not (unlike you) “Hey, could you pick
2
abilities. Here’s how they work.
up some groceries?”
Frantic
Type: Special Cost: —
You’re never so resilient as when you’re terrified. powers. Other times the HG will just tell you what’s
You may take the (Be in) Trouble Action any going on.
time you can meet its condition. Doing so earns you The big deal here is that while this power is active,
1 MP, up to a maximum of your starting MP. Each your ability to understand people’s hearts and wishes is
additional group XP that you earn from this Action also a law of the world. You can have a little trouble figuring
earns you an additional MP. things out when someone has the Cool Trait or is using
a miracle to confuse matters, but it takes a miracle with
Seizhi-Sense 3+ Strike to actually block you out.
Type: Miraculous Action Cost: 0 MP
You’re intimately aware of unreality. If you suspect
that the reality you’re interacting with may be under
attack or that someone or something in your vicinity
might be unreal, you can invoke Seizhi-Sense and
clearly see the influence of unreality on a situation—
It’s like all the stuff that isn’t well-grounded in a solid
reality like Fortitude’s will glow or burn in your eyes,
and there’s enough detail to at least attempt to figure
out what’s going on. (That is, it won’t tell you what it
means that something’s unreal, but you’ll see enough to
use Skills and investigation to attempt to figure it out.)
Wish-Sense
Type: Special (activates a Level 3 Affliction when used)
Cost: 0 MP
Invoke your Wish-Sense and you can feel the per-
sonhood in others. You can see its shape. You can feel
people’s dreams and wishes. You are particularly good
at figuring out what people and animals want, both in
their life and right now. Sometimes you’ll have to use
a Skill like Know Stuff to do this, particularly early
in the game when the HG is still getting used to your
23 Although the exact number is totally up to the HG and could go up

to like 250.
112 Playbooks
Canonical History Is This My Destiny?
Type: Level 3 Auctoritas Cost: — Type: Special (activates a Level 3 Affliction when used)
Your canonical history is a list of statements. It Cost: 0 MP
starts as: You’re incredibly good at “going native”—whether
it’s fitting in as a doctor in a hospital, a mecha pilot
ŭŭ The Best Friend is the child of Mortimer and when suddenly thrust behind the controls, or a prince of
Melancholy Schwan. the sewer people when suddenly mistaken for the same.
ŭŭ The Best Friend almost beat Chuubo in that While you sustain an action, you have a level 3
legendary soapbox derby a few years back. Affliction that’s basically:
Playbooks
(It’s a bit sparse right now.) ŭŭ “This must be who I am!”
This forms the established orthodoxy of your past.
Everyone who would know such things knows them. This has the following effects:
Sometimes people even know them without a good
reason to. These two slim reeds of fact are as close as ŭŭ You have at least a +1 Tool bonus to doing
you’re going to get in your false existence to some- whatever you should be doing.
thing real. ŭŭ You have at least a level 3 Connection with
A level 3 Auctoritas protects this history. That means the environment.
that no matter what, no matter how reality goes awry, ŭŭ The HG will sometimes throw miraculous coinci-
no matter what anyone does, if the effect in question dences and bursts of inspiration in to help you out.
doesn’t have 3+ Strike, your canonical history remains ŭŭ You’ll have a lot of trouble remembering that this
untouched. (If it does have 3+ Strike, your canonical isn’t always who you are.
history is suppressed and overridden but remains, in
some vague metaphysical sense, extant.) Also, it takes a pretty powerful miracle (with at least
+3 Strike) to forcibly make you something else.
Expanding Your History
You can build on this history over the course of play, Touch the Heart
adding additional statements to the list at the cost of Type: Special (activates a Level 3 Auctoritas + Level 3
one Recharge Token each. You can add any statements Obstacle when used; can wound)
you like, and each new statement becomes established Cost: 1 MP
and orthodox—as canonically true and real as the two You’re actually pretty good at being Seizhi Schwan—
above. being that, and communicating that. When you’re
Now, if you go for something literally unbelievable— being yourself24, you can invoke Touch the Heart and
something like “The Best Friend created the world” or gain an extraordinary ability to cut through barriers to
“The Best Friend once turned into an 108-mile-long communication and connect to somebody. This ability
snake”—people may conclude that this orthodoxy is transcends language (or at least facilitates charades)
mistaken, or, more likely, reflects a confused or meta- but does not transcend physical barriers to communi-
phorical account of events. They may freely conclude cation—if someone is deaf and has their back to you,
that some sleeping power inside you created the world, or physically runs away, or gags you and drops you in a
or that the Angel of Fortitude had a troubling dream tank full of alligators, it won’t let you connect to them.
wherein you turned into an 108-mile-long snake, or Otherwise, though—
something like that, instead of just believing it and While you sustain this power, people are prone to
going along. understand what you’re getting at. Further, anyone
But for the most part, when you add something to trying to shut you out and refuse to listen to you faces
your canonical history, it happened. It’s real. You a level 3 Obstacle (for mundane actions) and a level 3
can cite it, chapter and verse, to anybody who wants Auctoritas (if using miracles.)
to know.
24 Which should be pretty close to all the time, admittedly.
Playbooks 113
Seizhi Syndrome
Type: Special Cost: — Dating
While Touch the Heart is active, you can use the You’ve thought about dating, but what if there’s some
channel of communication it creates to attack, corrupt, secret step in the date process that you’ll get wrong?
or possibly benevolently transform somebody that Then your date will point at you and say, “Oh my God!
you’re talking to—specifically, to infect them with You’re a fake person! A real person would totally have
Seizhi Schwan-ness.25 known the correct response for that statement on my
The target will know immediately if you choose to part!” Later you will probably get dissected by evil
invoke this feature of this power. After that... birds and bees in their sinister bird and bee lab.
ŭŭ ...a few seconds of conversation can creep
2
someone out and give them a Surface “Wound.” Reject
ŭŭ ...a few minutes can build that up to a Serious Type: Special (activates a Level 3 Auctoritas + Level 3
“Wound.” Obstacle when used)
ŭŭ ...a few days with a captive audience can give Cost: 2 MP
them a Deadly “Wound” of Seizhi-ness. You can also cut something or someone off from being
Seizhi Schwan: You! You’re not me! Stop being me!
This power is basically a mundane action that has While you sustain this power, it basically puts a level
special rules while Touch the Heart is in force, so 3 Obstacle or a level 3 Auctoritas in the way of their
how much control you have over the process is up to being you—imitating you, transforming into you, or
your action level and the HG. If you’re targeting a PC, being you. This has three semi-practical uses:
their player also has a lot of say about what exactly the
wound that they take does. ŭŭ You can target your shadow, reflection, or image
Note that this action is protected by the Auctoritas, to distort it.
so even Immortal characters will need to use Strike or ŭŭ You can freak out anyone who tries to clone you.
mundane actions to resist it. ŭŭ If someone has evidence that you did something,
or a prophecy that you will do something, you can
explain that that historical or future self is totally
not you.
The special effects here depend mostly on your

emotional state. Normally it just kind of muddies the
waters, but if you’re agitated enough it can scale into
things like punching a mirror and shattering your reflec-
tion instead of the mirror itself, sucking your image out
of every nearby photograph, or turning a passing flight
of swans into ostriches so that their name will sound
less like Schwan.
25 Note: Chaining people to chairs and turning them into copies of you
is wrong.†
† But turning a robot or golem into your twin, helping someone dye
their hair red, or helping someone recover from something else that is
corrupting them, could be OK. And it’s not necessarily evil to use it to
even out a power imbalance if you’re ever held captive!
114 Playbooks
The Ugly Duckling Reversion Touch the Heart (Powered Up)
You can also use this while interacting with somebody Type: Special Cost: 4 MP
to make them actively... less you. To say: No! Your hair Spend a total of 4 MP on Touch the Heart and you
can’t be red! You can’t be Chuubo’s new best friend! start haunting your target.
You can’t have a last name starting with S! The world goes weird. Reality distorts.
Or whatever. Your Seizhi-Schwan-ness becomes a monstrous,
This works as with Touch the Heart. The target will overwhelming force. Before your targets can attempt
know if you choose to invoke this feature of this power. to resist—before options like “physically run away,”
After that... “close down physical channels of communication,”
or even “give in” are available—they have to play
Playbooks
ŭŭ ...a few seconds of interaction can creep someone through a terrifying or goofy chase, haunting, or impact
out and give them a Surface “Wound.” sequence first.
ŭŭ ...a few minutes can build that up to a Serious That is, a break from reality.
“Wound.” You’re like some creature from horror or of religion:
ŭŭ ...a few days with a captive audience can give you batter their senses and their mind.
them a Deadly “Wound” of not-being-you-ness. Now, the downside of this is that you can’t actually
apply Seizhi Syndrome or the other effects of Touch the
However, unlike Touch the Heart, invoking this Heart to them until the sequence ends.
power isn’t usually a conversation or an act of com- The upside is that this actually happens. It’s dream-
munication so much as you, e.g., waving your hands sequence-like, but it’s actually real. Or at least, it’s a
to push them away and averting your eyes and ranting break in the nature of the real. If you glow with divine
incoherently. It might look a little cooler than that if glory and angels sing your praises, you actually glow
what you’re doing is intended to help someone, but with divine glory and angels sing your praises. If you
that’s basically the idea. have to chase somebody, you can warp your physical
body, crawl through televisions and appear around
Touchstone corners, and have your words thunder through hallways
Type: Special (activates a Level 3 Auctoritas + Level 3 and impinge directly on people’s minds. Basically, you
Obstacle when used) can use all kinds of horrible special effects as long as
Cost: 4 MP they have the effect of underlining the fact that Seizhi
You can bind yourself to something (or someone). Schwan is trying to express something to them. Use
You can fit yourself to it, making it a touchstone to
reality for you, a place where for however short a time “Childhood”
you genuinely belong.
If the HG decides to play through the characters’ child-
While you sustain this action you have an effective
hood, it’s highly probable that you’re actually being
level 4 Connection, and any miracle that would break
retroactively inserted into those memories and stories.
this effect or disrupt your use of that Connection needs
You can play through them and do important stuff and
at least 3 Strike. Mundane actions to drive a wedge
earn XP normally, but anything you do before age 12
between you and the target would face a minimum level
is extremely suspect and in the next couple of years
3 Obstacle.
uncertain—you may later discover and have to hide
You can invoke Touchstone and your first mundane
evidence that that thing you did or saw or whatever
action with the new Connection simultaneously.
didn’t happen or did happen but wasn’t you after all!
Playbooks 115
the mundane action system if you want to achieve any
other benefit from this—e.g., scaring someone besides
your target, fixing a broken television, using the singing
angels as a signal or message, or winding up closer to
where you wanted to be.
116 Playbooks
Actions and Issues Timeline 1: Playing Through
Here’s some things you’re often doing. Your Childhood
The HG may want to play through your childhood at
Comfortable Stuff an accelerated pace—probably about 50x acceleration,
Sorting out your head by talking about stuff covering a year in about the same time you’d usually
Shared Reactions cover a week.
Hanging out in the world and experiencing stuff In a game like that, your history would look like this:
Slice of Life
Doing the things you do Age 3: The sun dies, and is reborn.
Shared Action
Playbooks
Age 5: This is when the game would start. You probably
You like just kind of soaking in the world, experiencing don’t actually exist yet, but since you were retconned
the feeling of stuff, doing simple honest things, and into this era when the Marvelous Wish-Granting Engine
hanging out with your friends. You can get bonus XP created you, you might as well play it through!
for these kinds of actions a couple of times a week. You mostly visit Fortitude with Chuubo to buy candy
or grilled fish or to sit and talk by the water.
Trouble
Getting way too worked up over stuff Age 12: Around here Chuubo shows you the Marvelous
Obsessive Action Wish-Granting Engine and you realize that you’re
Going way too far trying to fulfill a responsibility/duty not real.
Never Say Die!
Encountering some kind of scary trouble! Oh no! Age 15: This is “the present.”
Trouble
That “legendary soapbox derby” where you almost
You worry a lot. I mean, a lot. A lot. I mean, you’re beat the Wishing Boy has always been, and will
probably worrying right now. I’m having to write all always be, “a few years back,” from the moment the
these sentences just to show how much you worry and game begins—
maaaybe that means you have a neurological problem It takes more than time passing to change something
that makes you worry too much and will later on like the Canonical History of Seizhi Schwan!
kill you—
But you can’t stop now! You’ve got to fret about that! Timeline 2: Playing Through
You also have this tendency to over-commit and then Your Childhood
push yourself too hard to keep up. This timeline is for playing through your childhood,
And you’re more likely than average to be the one if the HG and/or the player of the Child of the Sun
who encounters the scary monster or falls overboard or decide to complicate things a little and have Jade Irinka
whatever for bonus drama, too! die in play.
...you’re a troubled kid. In a game like that, your history would look like this:
Age 5: This is when the game would start. You probably

don’t actually exist yet, but since you were retconned
into this era when the Wishing Machine created you,
you might as well play it through!
You mostly visit Fortitude with Chuubo to buy candy
or grilled fish or to sit and talk by the water.
Why Are You Here?: You can count a scene where
you meet and hang out with either Jade Irinka (the sun)
or her daughter the Child of the Sun towards this quest.
Playbooks 117
Age 8: The sun dies and is reborn.
Why Are You Here?: This quest proceeds normally,
and you no longer get bonus XP just for hanging out
with the Child of the Sun.
Age 12: Around here Chuubo shows you the

Marvelous Wish-Granting Engine and you realize that
you’re not real.
2
Again, that “legendary soapbox derby” where you
almost beat the Wishing Boy has always been, and will
always be, “a few years back.”
Timeline 3: Starting in
the Modern Day
In a game that starts in the present, the big events in
your history were all pretty recent. The Marvelous
Wish-Granting Engine has probably only been around
for 1-2 years or so—
Ask the player of the Wishing Boy, if there is one, or
otherwise talk to the HG—
And you’ve been dreaming about the death of the sun
for roughly the past 3-6 months.
118 Playbooks
Nightmares’ Angel
[[CHARACTER SPLASH- indentical to the one in the Nightmares’
Angel lifepath.]]
Playbooks 119
Summary Heartless
You are Leonardo de Montreal, Nightmares’ Angel. You were raised in an evil orphanage. Everyone hated
you. People were so corrupt, wicked, and mean that the
Primary Quests heavens rendered a righteous judgment on the world
ŭŭ Study nightmares and the natural world. and the sun... went out.
ŭŭ Investigate the Hidden Library. (That’s probably why that happened, anyway.)
ŭŭ Face your premonition of death stirring in the But you—you rose above it.
waters of Big Lake. Staring up at the burgeoning night, you mumbled
words of science and you ripped out your own heart.
2
Bonus XP When... You used it as the key component in your Abhorrent
Your explanations of nightmare technology, your own Sun-Sustaining Superconductor and you, Leonardo
behavior, and the world around you leave the players de Montreal, kindled a new sun into the sky.
speechless with enlightenment.
Skewerable
Powers Later Billy Sovereign stabbed you right through
ŭŭ You used your heart to rekindle the sun... your chest with a railway spike. He thought that it
• ...and now, in darkness, you may heal from would impress everyone around you with his power.
the most terrible wounds and become a crea- He thought that it would burst your heart and induce
ture of mechanical, heartless perfection. systemic shock and that you’d de-cardiac yourself to
ŭŭ You are set apart, alone and friendless... death. But you showed him! Your heart wasn’t even in
• ...and thus you may protect others’ your chest.
innocence: ending anguish, expelling “Too naïve,” you gurgled, proving yourself the
corruption, and erasing memories. greater man, and you struggled your way free.
ŭŭ Your dreams are full of worms and rot... Eventually you discovered that Billy Sovereign can
• ...and thus you may use an abhorrent survive indefinitely while on fire. This was at first
technology born of nightmares. amusing and then disturbing and finally a horrifying
proof that the world hates you and will never allow you
Common Variations to have anything you want.
Shake it up! For an atypical Nightmares’ Angel experi-
ence, pick one or more of the following: Friendless
You tried to fit in. You really did.
ŭŭ You are Dulcinea de Montreal, a woman. You met the Wishing Boy and you thought: here’s
ŭŭ You are Leonardo (or Dulcinea) d’Avignon, somebody who’s not a total waste of time. So you
wielding dark magic instead of science. tried to hang out with him. You grit back your cyni-
ŭŭ The original Nightmares’ Angel is dead—you cism behind your teeth. You didn’t laugh when people
are Leonardo (or Dulcinea) VII, a construct of the tried to be good. You played his stupid games and you
original’s science. Possibly even a construct of sat on his stupid sidewalk and you pet his neighbor’s
that construct’s science, or multiple generations stupid cat.
on down the line! In the end, though—
ŭŭ You aren’t Nightmares’ Angel—you’re the A life like that is completely useless. It’s a waste of a
Rival, obsessed with proving that your engine is mind. It’s a waste of a person.
better than Chuubo’s. You couldn’t bear it. You had to do something. You
had to be important.
So you left.
120 Playbooks
Corrupted ...well, OK. It would show some of them. Most of
Far beyond the gates of Town, at the end of all hopes them. Probably. But the key and most important thing
and fears and journeys, there lies the Bleak Academy. is, it wouldn’t show them all.
And there is a dark behind its doorway and in that dark So you’re going to do something better. You’re going
there seethe a thousand shades of dream. to be a hero. You’re going to be Town’s savior. You’re
You pounded on those gates. going to show them that the world is a terrible and
You came to steal the power of the Bleak Academy— all-devouring place and the only one who can save them
to make yourself master of nightmare, and of death. For from it is the one they hated, the one they shunned, the
who better than you, the incomparable Leonardo de one they didn’t recognize and honor.
Montreal? Who better than you to disassemble evil, tear Not Chuubo. Not that child and his maddening
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down endings, conquer that which is feared, and bring wishing machine.
back the fruits of it to Town? You.
Only—it didn’t quite turn out that way. The unparalleled, the invincible, the incomparable
The Headmaster of the Bleak Academy took you in. de Montreal!
He showed you the secrets all of world and sound,
and dream; uplifted you. He made you master of being Except...
and nothingness and all ten thousand thousand things You think your death is coming for you. You think that
that are within the world. And then he turned your it is stirring, out there in the waters. It is something the
dreams to worms and rot inside your head, as the price Headmaster sent for you—probably.
of this knowledge, and took away your sense of good Or maybe the glass dragon, from that weird old story.
and evil, and killed you, he killed you, he stabbed you Maybe even something else.
right through the chest with a blade of night and dark- Your dream of greatness is going to catch up to
ness; or, at least, that’s what he tried. you; it’s going to draw you down to the water to meet
“Too naïve!” you gurgled. your death; and if you do die, that’s a bit of a problem,
Too naïve! You’re not one of those weak, pathetic because all the horror the Headmaster stuffed inside
sheeple who go around keeping vulnerable internal you will come pouring out to break the world.
organs in your chest. Not you! Not the incomparable
Leonardo de Montreal! Home and Family
Your heart was back at home, in Town, keeping the As Nightmares’ Angel, you live in Old Molder—a brick
sun in the sky. and metal maze of abandoned factories, warehouses,
That’s why he couldn’t kill you, and because he and apartment buildings. It’s the detritus of Town’s
couldn’t kill you, he had to send you home. brief flirtation with the twentieth century. It’s a popular
haunt for vagabonds, artists, and ne’er-do-wells.
Glorious Well, that’s where you live formally, in any case.
You’re a god of dream and nightmare now, a lord of For right now?
the far dominions—though here we should pause and For right now, you’re spending most of your time in
recognize that this is allegorical; for what you really are Fortitude. You’ve even rented a room in a house full of
is a master of strange Science—and you could be evil people who are obnoxiously not-exactly-like you. And
if you wanted to be. You’ve lost that voice in your head their dog! It yaps incomprehensibly! It doesn’t under-
and heart that tells you when you’re doing wrong, so stand tensors!27
you could totally be evil, if you wanted, and wash away You don’t really have a family at all right now.
the world in a great flood, and make an end to bullies Back at home there is your robot butler, Alvin RIMM.
and to beasts. This incredible “Ritually Impure Manservant Machine”
It’d be easy. You’d just... turn off the Mechanism of consumes particles of sin and moral impurity through
Original Sin26, and go to Town. its Sin Maw and converts them into computational and
But that wouldn’t be enough. That wouldn’t
show them.
27 You know.†
26 A marvelous moral prosthetic with gears you can really watch! † ...you’ve asked.
Playbooks 121
motive energy—what better companion for a young Hints (Part 2)
man of unscrupulous character?
But that is there, and this is now. “Once upon a time, a witch and a glass-maker made
While you are in Fortitude you mostly keep him a dragon out of glass and taught it to hate the world.
powered down. It raged and it would have destroyed everything;
only, it shattered, instead.”
Hints — Campaign Premise
“Once upon a time, but not all that long ago, the There is an old story of how the King of the Universe
Headmaster of the Bleak Academy rode up into the decided to kill the whole world. So a hero slaughtered
sky of Fortitude and he drew back his great black the King and made a house from his insides. The blood
2
bow and he fired an arrow and he killed the sun.” that flowed from the King trickled down into the world
— from the character generation and became the first irrigation system.
information for the Best Friend The Queen of the Universe became very angry. She
took form as a dragon and came to kill the world. The
I think that part of your history is fake. I think that you hero tried to face her, but there was a weight of sin on
knew the former sun, Jade Irinka, very well. I think you him. He’d killed the King of the Universe, after all.
may have even loved her. It is even possible that you So she tore him into shreds.
had time to spend with her, years of heroic adventuring You have come to Fortitude. Your researches will
or fun experiences with her and Chuubo and maybe entangle with you with the lives of the Dream-Witch
some of the rest. But—what happened was too painful. and the Wishing Boy. The two of them may even try to
So you cast the memory, and your closeness to Jade, save you. Rinley Yatskaya certainly will. But...
and all those years if they existed, away. And now all How can you face the glass dragon if it comes? How
that happened is just, one day, the Headmaster rode up, can you face the Outside? You are a wicked thing. You are
and the sun was gone, and you tore out your heart. under a weight of sin. That’s why it is your destiny to die.
That isn’t necessarily what happened.
It’s just something that might’ve.
The Glass Dragon
(Scientist’s Perspective)
Nightmares’ Angel and You suspect that the glass dragon is a manifestation of
the Child of the Sun chaos—a recurring one, at that: a particular way that
Your contention that you kindled the new sun into the Outside attacks Town.
being may come as a surprise to the Child of the Sun You know, almost like you could remember it,
if the matter ever comes up—even though in a very not that you can, that twenty-some years ago a glass
real sense she is that new sun. dragon did show up in the skies above Fortitude, and
People! seemed like it might destroy stuff, and then it shat-
Introspection is not a thing that they are good at. tered. Maybe it was just because it was fragile, but you
don’t think so. You think somebody did something.
You just don’t know what.
Character Variation
Leonardo d’Avignon isn’t a naturalist—he’s a spir-
itualist and psychologist, studying mindscapes and
spiritual energies.
122 Playbooks
Quests As for the other quests, The Hidden Library and
You start the game with three quests, and have the Death Found in the Water, you may earn a bonus XP
power to swap them out or pick up more—you can towards each of these quests once per in-game week
pursue up to four quests at any given time. each by picking a scene from that quest’s list of scene
I’ve chosen three quests to... options to play out.
ŭŭ ...serve as your basic, default character motivation Other Quests

in play (“Natural Scientist”). If you’re interested in another quest or two, some good
ŭŭ ...give you extra direction in the first few sessions options include...
(“The Hidden Library”).
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ŭŭ ...tie you into the campaign plot (“Death Found in ŭŭ ...modifying the quest the Hidden Library
the Water”). into something useful for investigating the
doings of the Fortitude rats, or the matter of the
Bonus XP Titov shrine.
The first quest earns bonus XP when you propose a ŭŭ ...redeeming some horror that escaped into the
theory about the natural and pseudo-natural world. real world from your nightmares using the main
The theory doesn’t have to be right or anything, and it book quest Bind.
only has to be sane and relevant to the extent that lets ŭŭ ...or, if you have access to Fortitude: by the
you hang on to your pride as a scientist. You can get that Docks of Big Lake, finding a bit of peace for
bonus XP up to once per fun scene and up to once per yourself as a Shrine or Park Guardian.
fifteen minutes.
Natural Scientist
15 XP Quest To earn a bonus XP for this quest, just propose a
theory—aloud, usually, although internal monologue
Chibi-Quest can count if necessary—about something in the natural
world, the pseudo-natural world (including things
You’re a student of the natural world, which in your like the Outside), or in the worlds and places born
case extends between the physical world and the of nightmares.
world of nightmares. You like to take notes on things,
do zoological and botanical sketches, and talk about Rewards
the structural and biological underpinnings of things. Each time you complete this quest, you earn a Recharge
You’ll show up in people’s nightmares, or get into dis- Token—some discovery that you’ve made, thought
cussions of them later, and argue with them about what that you’ve had, or dream that percolated through the
they mean. You’ll wield strange technology which you coffeemaker of your fevered unconscious mind, is pre-
claim makes sense. cious enough to you that by thinking back to it, once in
You spend a lot of time making observations and the future, you’ll be able to replenish your stores of Will
coming up with theories. Since the first is a necessary and wish power (“MP”).
prelude to the second, we can simplify this whole quest
down to its core:
Playbooks 123
Natural Scientist
XP
Bonus XP
To do science properly is a guilty pleasure—one of the little things
that helps sustain you. There’s just something so healing about studying
a bird or slime or phenomenon, taking notes on it, thinking about it, and
2
coming up with ideas about what the world (beyond the boundaries of
your own mind and body) means!
It’s not as effective as following the wild brilliance of your muse but
it’s more orderly. More proper. More sustaining. It’s like your nightmare
science is the junk food of your genius and this the warm steamed rice.
You’ll do all kinds of things as part of your studies of the world around
you, but most importantly, you can earn a bonus XP towards this quest
at any time (but only once per scene/15 minutes) by proposing a theory
about something in the natural world, the world of nightmares, or
the paranatural environments around them.
Note that you do have to actually consider/entertain the theory IC—it
doesn’t technically have to be aloud, once you’ve proposed the theory
actually thinking about it can be confined to your inner monologue, but
the point is to consider it in play and have it potentially shape your
behavior and actions, not to come up with interesting and goofy things
to say at the gaming table.
124 Playbooks
The Outside Stirs
40 XP Quest Is it because of you? Is it because you survived the
1: Bleak Academy? Is it something to do with this “angel
of Fortitude” character you’ve heard about? Or with
2: those old stories of the glass dragon?
4: You don’t know.
And that is unacceptable.
Playbooks
“Nightmares Open,” pg. XX. Rewards
Finishing this quest often grants a bit more self-accep-
This quest started with your dreams of death. tance and a “Perk” like:
You dreamed once that you tore apart your death
and scattered the pieces of it in Big Lake, but that your ŭŭ Connection Perk. Gain a level 2 Connection to...
doom defied you, refused to stay broken, the pieces • ...some wicked pet found in the near Outside.
began to coalesce and pull themselves back together • ...some ghost or remnant of Jade Irinka.
into a single thing. • ...some other dead or quasi-dead creature,
That thing wore the face of Jade Irinka, the dead sun. e.g., one of the wraith-sailors (pg. XX).
You know that it is the destiny of wicked things to ŭŭ Superior Skill Perk. Gain a level 1-2 Superior
drown in Big Lake’s waters—and that you are wicked. Skill tying you to the water or the Outside in
And even worse than your own wickedness is the blas- some fashion.
phemy inside you. The Headmaster forced it into you, ŭŭ Accessory Perk. You’ve found or won or earned
a plague, a curse, a rot, a blasphemy—sometimes you a little self-motivated skiff—by default, its name
have to grit your teeth to keep it from getting back out. is “Eagle.”
You’ve been feeling the waters calling to you. You’re When you’re sailing it, you can spend “miracu-
hoping that it’s just some stupid thing like “a new glass lous Will” (a separate pool of 3 Will that replenishes
dragon is coming” or “Chuubo is going to wish for a every time you take an in-genre XP Action, or share
sailing trip with you and it’s retroactively making you a scene with someone else who does) to handle nav-
pick up familiarity with boats,” but the truth is, your igation, sailing, and weather survival rather than or
death is coming. It’s inevitable. The only thing you can in addition to your ordinary Will.
really hope for is that it’ll turn out to be metaphorical,
like, a temporary death, or something that feels like After you’ve finished the Outside Stirs, I suggest
death, or just something you’d rather die than see. reviewing the notes on pg. XX and moving on to
And worse, when you got to Fortitude, when you’d “Someone’s in Trouble.”
found yourself drawn there—“to investigate,” of course.
Not out of some kind of macabre fascination with your
own impending doom—you realized that everyone’s in
trouble. Everyone’s in danger. All of Town.
Something’s stirred up the Outside. There’ve always
been occasional riotously colorful storms coming in
from Outside, flowing in over Big Lake, full of the
particulate essence of the great beyond—but they’re
getting a bit more frequent of late. There’s an overall
increase in the Outside’s ambient presence in people’s
nightmares, and in the groundwater, and people have
been dreaming now and then of the mask of a dream-
witch and the shine of some vast glass creature.
Playbooks 125
The Outside Stirs
XP
Major Goals
ŭŭ ...you explicitly take responsibility or get handed responsibility for
dealing with the riled-up Outside.
2
ŭŭ ...you construct some sort of defensive perimeter.
ŭŭ ...you encounter Jade Irinka, the former sun, or the Headmaster of
the Bleak Academy.
ŭŭ ...three weeks/chapters pass without obvious IC progress on
the quest.

Quest Flavor
1/chapter, you can earn a bonus XP towards this quest through
the following:
ŭŭ ...sympathizing with, or assisting, the outcast and
the wrong.
ŭŭ ...your dreams are calling you to a place of danger.
ŭŭ ...listening to stories of strange things happening in Big Lake.
ŭŭ ...regaling people with a legend of the Outside, the glass
dragon, or the epic dangers (or whatever) that are the focus of the
quest—typically a legend invented by your player but occasionally
forwarded from previous discussions with the HG.
ŭŭ ...complaining to the other PCs about the progress of
your investigations/work.
ŭŭ ...reluctantly allowing yourself to be dragged away from it.
ŭŭ ...reluctantly allowing others to get involved with it.
126 Playbooks
The Hidden Library
25 XP Quest Rewards
This quest typically ends with an insight—you under-
2: stand something—and a new Perk to generally enhance
your strength:
It’s not really intentional. It’s not what you’re doing
here in Fortitude. ŭŭ MP. This Perk adds 1 to your starting MP. (You
But your research into other things will lead you to also get an immediate MP.)
Playbooks
the hidden truths of Professor Hideo Hayashi’s archive
and give you a lead on the stories of the Dream-Witch
and the shards of the glass dragon.
I don’t know if it will ever matter much to you. You
have your own stories. You have your own deal. Perhaps
they won’t cross over all that much. But I wanted to
start you off with a quest that’d give you a good chance
to get involved.
Knight Path Miracles
Major Goals XP
The HG can award you 5 XP towards this quest when you...
ŭŭ ...get someone to show you the ropes of Professor Hayashi’s
archive, since that’s got the best records of things like historical
storm frequency and local legend.
ŭŭ ...stumble on or are shown the hidden part of the archive’s upper
floors, where it fades into a portion of the Outside.
You can earn each bonus once, for a total of up to 10 XP.
Quest Flavor
ŭŭ ...you discuss the operational principles of your or
Chuubo’s Engine.
ŭŭ ...you work on your theories in a café near the Archive.
ŭŭ ...you’re drawn into somebody else’s obsession (manga,
movies, whatever).
ŭŭ ...you fall off of a building.
ŭŭ ...you are bitten by a snake.
Playbooks 127
Nightmare Technology Implicitly all processes are reversible: turning food
Cruel physics seeks always to nail you to the cross into energy and turning energy into food are symmetric
of feasibility. Your desires and your plans are always concepts, even if thermodynamics usually breaks the
fetching up against some mewling reason’s shore. parallel; thus a machine that takes in electricity and
Evolution knows no telos, whimpers the world. regurgitates meals is as viable as an artificial stomach
Impurity, for a robot, is an irrelevant conceit. Time is that does the opposite.
not a fluid, Leonardo. Compasses can’t point to truth.
Ball bearings have nothing to do with getting your The Third Principle of Nightmare Technology
bearings in the wilderness, and a machine, for the love Regrettably, however, nightmare technology is bad.
of God, cannot know what it means to sin. For the love You shouldn’t use it. Not ever. Well, hardly ever.
of God. For the love of God, de Montreal! There is a blasphemy sealed inside you—the
2
And perhaps these claims are true. Perhaps, you will Headmaster put it there—a curse of flood, poison, rot,
admit, in the most congenial of your moods, that certain and worst of all, a curse of the world being wrong, a
elements of your methodology are suspect. curse of the world being offensive to the order that gave
But what of it? You are Leonardo de Montreal, and it rise—and the greater the power of your nightmare
you have moved beyond such petty distinctions as those devices, the more influence that blasphemy has. People
between what is possible and what is not. who use your devices, including yourself, often suffer
from an escalating Issue like Sickness, Complex, It
The First Principle of Nightmare Technology Never Stops!, or Vice.
Nightmare technology is generally biotechnology. The
devices you build are not always conscious and only The Final Weakness
rarely intelligent but almost all of them are on some Worst of all, nightmare technology is frail. It has a
level alive and aware. tendency—even as do nightmares themselves—to fray
Behind your camera lenses are eyes. Your robots against the reality of the world.
have beating hearts. Inside your super-fabrics are In the past they were fragile. They’d melt against the
layers of something organic or generated by something wishing power of the heart or the harsh cold will of the
organic. Your portals between real and nightmare lands Bleak Academy. Even without the presence of miracles
are edged in blood or in living hands. to oppose them, they would still decay swiftly in the
Creating new people, new animals, and even new harsh light that is the Is. No sooner would the relevant
species is within your science’s scope. Issue resolve, in fact, than your device would most
likely go rogue or melt down into dust and ash.
The Second Principle of ...but to this, at least, you have found a partial remedy:
Nightmare Technology
Nightmare technology blurs the conceptual and the The Incomparable Nightmare Engine
physical. Compasses can point to truth. Time can be At the Bleak Academy you forged a new path
compressed into a fluid. for yourself. And somewhere along that path you
It’s relatively easy for you to build a device that’s built—built? Found? Created, seized, constructed?
powered on a spiritual, notional, or emotional conceit— ...summoned forth, let us say—your Incomparable
on faith, wickedness, or lies; on attention or truth; on Nightmare Engine.
love, jealousy, or hate. Similarly sensing such things is Do you not recall, my dear, how the laws of physics
a relatively simple matter. once battered us about, like a bully ripping a person’s
It’s more difficult but still quite feasible for you to tongue out on the playground and spitting horrible
make a machine that manipulates such things. The sticky gunk into their throat? Do you remember what
space between reality and dream is a wall. The space that was like?
between tonight and tomorrow: the same. Nightmare That kind of thing is over now.
science can make a portal through either. A truth ray to No longer are you physics’ wretch but now it is your
reify a statement and cause it to become fact is equally own. Let the laws of the world run as they may: it is the
within your grasp. function and the potency of the Engine to suspend them
128 Playbooks
for a time. It is the power and purpose of the Engine to Miscellaneous Powers
rip open a seething hole between what is possible and
The two key limitations of nightmare technology (that
what is not, and while that power courses through the
it’s bad, and that it frays a little in the world of the real)
world such petty dreams as physics’ have no sway.
apply principally to stuff made with the Nightmare
Hear it now.
Science Skill. Other powers that use nightmare tech-
You summon the power of your incomparable night-
nology as a special effect aren’t necessarily bad or frail
mare engine and lo! the thunder roars. The Cacophony
in the same respect—the normal rules for your other
Component clamors with its endless tuneless bells
powers override their description as “nightmare tech-
and the Maddened Piping Portion trills forth with its
nology.” Most of the actual effect of these limitations
maddened pipes. The World-Cracking Claws of your
is in the HG’s hands anyway—
Playbooks
diabolical engine do clench and churn within the world,
I just wanted to make sure both you and the HG
and there rises a wail of dolor from within the distant
knew that it wasn’t automatic that using, say, I Alone
halls of reason;
Can Save You (pg. XX) is bad.
And then, as if the truth were a pane of glass, that
metal strikes—
As if the world were a gust of dream, struck down
by will— Nightmare Science
What you conceive Type: Magical Skill Cost: —
Becomes the real. As Nightmares’ Angel, you have the ability to make
Such is the Science of Leonardo de Montreal! devices that shouldn’t work, and yet they do.
You labor fiercely, then, to build some abhorrent Nightmare science is a magical Skill. Technically
device; to make the thing of your conception while the that means you can do anything at all with it—the lim-
laws required for its operation are yet fact; and when at itations on the Skill are thematic and not practical. That
last it is complete, and perfect in every respect, you seal doesn’t mean that throwing away your theme and using
it against the errant gusts of the laws of nominal reality nightmare science to burp out a succession of ever-
and no more will it need the Incomparable Nightmare cooler magical flying unicorns is a good idea. It just
Engine for its work. means that if somehow you wind up there, if somehow
It is with a combination of great relief and great that does seem like a logical place to take nightmare
reluctance that the Nightmare Engine unclenches and science, I’m not going to be the one to rule it out and I
withdraws its force. It bellies itself low against the don’t think your HG should (at least not exactly) either.
earth, when you are done, and busies itself in loathsome However, unlike most Skills, magical Skills like
sulk, whispering and complaining in the thousand reedy nightmare science do face Obstacles even in the course
voices of its kind while the Loathsome Sulk-o-Meter of relatively “normal” applications. Even stuff that’s
affixed to it counts down the hours of its spite. Sixteen perfectly normal nightmare science, like breeding
hundred hours later, more or less—it has ranged from special “seethe-hounds” that can seethe through walls
thirty seconds to seventeen weeks, in the times you or down pipes, can face a level 2-3 Obstacle depending
have recorded—it will be usable once again. on the details of their construction. Harder stuff faces
As for your newly-made device, it is complete and harder Obstacles, and stuff outside your normal the-
sealed; it shall be years, at least, before the world does matics faces a +2 Obstacle on top of that! Making a
break it down and you would need the Nightmare jetpack, for instance, is Obstacle 4-5 even though it’s
Engine to make it work again. definitely “easier” than making a large dog that can
squeeze through small pipes: the normal nightmare
flying machines are bulky zeppelins and flying for-
tresses, not zippy jets, so you suffer a difficulty jump.
Even though the formal rules term is “magical
Skill,” the word you should be paying attention to here
is “Science.” This isn’t magic, or at least not zap-or-
shout-a-spell kind of magic: you start by doing research,
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observation, and experimentation, and then the actual ŭŭ [Obstacle 2] Detect or observe abstract
use of the Skill is engineering. concepts;
In short, doing stuff takes time. ŭŭ [Obstacle 2] Build large and bulky land vehicles
In fact, even if you are doing magic, even if you’re and ships;
a d’Avignon sorcerer and not the scientist de Montreal, ŭŭ [Obstacle 2] Build “shielding” against world
using this Skill probably still takes time: time spent laws (e.g. the chaos of dreams or the Outside.)
reviewing grimoires and experimenting and then
casting complicated spells. It’s the same process, sci- ŭŭ [Obstacle 3] Build large, bulky flying machines
ence-like and then engineering-like, only in a pointier and submersibles;
hat; that’s just part of what Nightmares’ Angel is. ŭŭ [Obstacle 3] Build devices to manipulate
This is to some extent proportional to the point of abstract concepts in limited ways;
2
what you’re doing—if you’re just doing something to ŭŭ [Obstacle 3] Build short-distance time and
be doing science then you can draw upon a vast field reality portals;
of half-finished ideas, notes, and machines and can ŭŭ [Obstacle 3] Create anti-entropic technology29;
probably put it together in a matter of days. (And even ŭŭ [Obstacle 3] Create fully aware and intelligent
then, it’s only “days” because this is a slow, pastoral beings;
game.) If you’re trying to solve a meaningful problem, ŭŭ [Obstacle 3] Build devices to act at a distance;
it might take a couple weeks. If you’re building some- ŭŭ [Obstacle 3] Build empowerment chambers to
thing that would change the state of your lives and the transform people in limited and normally posi-
game, it might take a season of intermittent effort or a tive ways.
15-XP quest.
If you want to hurry, if you want to skip past all We’re reserving Obstacles 4 and 5 for nightmare
of that—well, to a certain degree, you can. There are adaptations of other magical Skills’ techniques. For
always corners that can be cut. But going too much instance, the Kichi family can astral project while
faster takes you outside the thematics of the Skill and staring into their magical pools as an Obstacle 2 tech-
you’ll suffer the same +2 Obstacle as if you’d com- nique. The Yatskaya can embody a spirit or archetype
pletely abandoned science and just started burping as an Obstacle 3 technique. So a device that you could
out unicorns. plug into your brain that would send your thoughts out
to scan the world would face a level 4 Obstacle—as
Standard obstacles for the practice of nightmare for the Kichi technique, plus 2. A machine that grafted
science include: a “spirit” or post-Jungian nightmare archetype into
your flesh would be Obstacle 5—as for the Yatskaya
ŭŭ [Obstacle 0] Perform simple, practical, and technique, plus 2. These things would be even harder
realistic feats of engineering, such as putting and more unreliable at first because you won’t automat-
together a quick block and tackle. ically know how to make them—first, you’d have to
overcome the Obstacle, and then you’d have to over-
ŭŭ [Obstacle 1] Build “normal” machines28 with come the fact that the result is not necessarily entirely
some slight improvements 10-100x faster than an as you’d expect.
ordinary person reasonably could. In general, random stuff that isn’t listed above or emu-
lating an established technique from another magical
ŭŭ [Obstacle 2] Build living, self-moti- Skill will be Obstacle 3-5; once you hit Obstacle 5,
vated automata; that’s as hard as it gets.30
ŭŭ [Obstacle 2] Manipulate genes;
ŭŭ [Obstacle 2] Use abstract concepts as a power 29 But not anti-Principal Entropic technology
30 So why do anything at Obstacle 5 that isn’t just an All-Powerful
source; I-Win Button? ...honestly, if you could get your “things go terribly
wrong” percentage down low enough, you probably would. In your
experience, there’s at least a 20% chance that any given creation
will make your life more complicated rather than less, and con-
28 “Normal” here means “for Earth, available to the middle class in a templating the probable outcome if an all-powerful device goes
developed country, circa 2003-2016.” wrong is not conducive to a good night’s sleep.
130 Playbooks
Materials Taken Out of Nightmare Outside-Measuring Caliper
Thanks to some of your other powers, you have access
Your Outside-measuring caliper provides a measure of
to materials taken from nightmares. You don’t have
the amount of Outside corruption present in any given
to use them—it’s not like Tesla ever looked around at
location, with key values including:
reality and said, “Agh! These materials are too normal!
No scientist could ever use them to make anything dis-
ŭŭ “Hm.”
turbing or cool!”—but it’s really a good idea.
ŭŭ “Can’t tell.”
Using nightmare materials and letting them add
ŭŭ “Concerning.”
freaky details to the resulting machines is a +1 Tool
ŭŭ “This is very serious.”
bonus and sometimes the HG will even voluntarily
ŭŭ “I’ve never gotten readings like this!”
Playbooks
scale that to a +2!
Normally to use this device you will hold it up a bit
The Incomparable Nightmare Engine
above eye level, adjust the levels a bit, and squint. It’s
Type: Imperial Miracle, Ritual Power Cost:
also useful for tossing on the table in front of someone
ŭŭ 0 MP—Invoke this power 1/season.
else who understands science, as this will almost
ŭŭ 4 MP—Use this power a second or later time in
invariably cause them to let out a startled oath at the
a season.
results of your recent measurements. You may turn the
startlement dial preemptively up or down to increase
Note: This is a specific version of your Supreme
or decrease the level of startlement that this provokes.
Invocation power (pg. XX) and counts against its sea-
sonal use.
Once per season you may invoke your Incomparable
Nightmare Engine and take nightmare technology to
the next level—making one of your nightmare devices The Mechanism of Original Sin
permanent31 and exalting its powers to the level of a Having lost your inborn sense of good and evil, you
wish. This functions as a wish would (see the various must compensate with your Mechanism of Original
discussions in the various books of that ridiculous child Sin. Through seventeen methods it watches you
Chuubo’s powers), and most specifically as: always, glaring down on you from some empyrean
peak of mind and causing you to know when you are
“I wish this device actually worked.” naked, sinful, or wrong. The mechanism must receive
a regular diet of type A blood, yarn, hamburger, and
I’m phrasing the wish like that to give you the best salt or it will cease to function, with various delete-
possible sense of how it would play out: rious effects and implications.
I realize that strictly speaking your nightmare devices
already work, they’re just frail, but if the story winds
up twisting the wish, or giving it cool positive conse-
quences, I want those to relate to the device’s function
and not to its longevity.
31 Or at least not inherently doomed to near-term obsolescence
Playbooks 131
101 Nightmare Things [Obstacle 2: Modest Machinery]
15. The Hopping Scarecrow Closet whips open its
[Obstacle 1: Nightmare-Style Versions of coat and the clothes hung inside pop out.
Mundane Technology] 16. The Romantic Tension Robot relies on romantic
1. The Incomparable Floss-Crab assists in flossing. tension to survive.
2. The Headache Worm painlessly removes head- 17. Grocery Bugs collect and put away groceries.
aches and cleanses optic discolorations. They can assemble into giant hands or spheres.
3. The Unabashedly Hygienic Clothes Maw dries 18. Shadow Patches crawl to and spread over
wet clothes with its heated tongue. windows to provide emergency shade.
4. The Icing Tree twines through the air to extract 19. Hornbills du Montreal are purple-and-black
the summer heat. hornbills that love you. And have an extra eye.
2
5. The Wrist Needler clings to your wrist and fires 20. Land cats are land-crawling catfish. They cook
anesthetic needles when provoked. themselves when they hear fingers snap.
6. The Peculiar Entertainment Box distills the 21. Gloom walkers are giant, gloomy tripods that
behavior it witnesses to create ever-more-realistic walk around.32
puppet shows. 22. Your magnificent love-powered assembler nano-
7. Variable Boots adjust your height within a margin machines absorb local “love radiation” to sustain
of six inches either way. their existence and to build specific objects—then
8. The Lazy Glass is a mirror that runs a few neatly dissolve, their task complete, when they’ve
minutes slow. used that ambience up.
9. Thermodynamic Tubing effortlessly heats water 23. Jar beetles fly into jars at the end of their lives,
or other substances poured inside. whereupon they decompose into honey.
10. Your Sticky Knife is inexplicably sticky but 24. Third-eye fish recognize and reject desire and
doesn’t like to cut people. ignorance. Splish!
11. Popping a handful of Wakeful Eyes is always 25. The de Montreal Fetal Screening and Scrubbing
good for quick energy. Process cleans away unhealthy gene complexes in
12. Bug Skewers tend to pierce bugs when thrown. Or an unborn child.
dropped. Or waved about casually. 26. Your Viral Wickedness Solution turns viruses
13. The Lung Organ is a pipe organ principally against one another.
made out of pipes ripped from a white dream- 27. Your Lie Fire Lantern blazes up when it hears
whale’s lungs. what it thinks is a blatant lie.
14. Squirm Nails squirm to avoid being hammered. 28. Your Truth Compass allows you to navigate the
This was not your most practical invention ever metaphorical waters of uncertainty.
but the original batch of 108 really ought to be 29. Your Nightmare-Detecting Centipede scurries up
used for something. and whistles in your ear when someone in your
vicinity is having a nightmare.
30. Your Elegantor Tank is a large elephantine
alligator-like vehicle. Its skin is thick and its eyes
are clear laminate.33
31. You could spread a Great Net between Big Lake
and Fortitude to filter out incoming storms.
32. Your Seeping Blood Bots flow down through the
sewers and the water table and map them.
32 You don’t remember what they’re for.

33 It does not make things more elegant, for clarity. That would be your
Elegantator Tank, which is half-elephant, half-alligator, and half-po-
tato. Elegantly.
132 Playbooks
33. The Decency Engine adapts the basic technology 46. The Sunless Sphere shelters you from external
of the Mechanism of Original Sin to train animals light while rolling you ponderously around Town.
and machines to act with decency. Regrettably it is very hard to keep in good repair.
34. Your Regrettable Snarler was supposed to bite 47. Fwip Gloves unfurl sticky yard-long tendrils
you immediately before you took an action that to grab things for you when you ‘fwip’ them
you would regret within the next hour. Instead it at something.
just kept biting you until you threw it off a cliff. 48. Air-purifying spores float gently around your head
35. Your Injustice Glasses darken when you regard and release pine scent.
injustice. Your Justice Shades, conversely, darken 49. Coal mite swarms are “artificial ghosts,” tracing
when they regard justice. out letters on the wall to form what an actual
Playbooks
36. There’s no better sneaking vehicle than a Shadow ghost, if there were one, would want to say. They
Python-back Pavilion—while it can be a little also eat mosquitoes.
difficult to find the python when you need it, the 50. Your Travail-Observing Lemur weeps for you and
creature’s ability to precognitively avoid moving your sorrows.
to places where it’s going to be seen is truly 51. Your Dramatic Gesture Glove feeds on your
quite remarkable. drama to produce visible dramatic F/X or to
37. Your micro-plants feed on vacuum energy to recharge electricity-using devices.
produce “branching oxygen.”
38. A cat can look at a King, so your cat-eyed Divine [Obstacle 3: Supreme Science]
Right Detection Device can spot people socially 52. Too many cooks spoil the soup, so your Cookless
empowered to perform certain activities. Crock-Pot spits up superior anti-spoiled soup
39. Your Heart Odometer tracks how far any given divine beyond the conceptions of lesser men.
person has walked down the road towards love. 53. Your Inventory Item is always with you. It
40. Outside Normalizing Boxen use directed attention comforts you.
(they stare at the Outside and make a “staring 54. Your Fear-Induced Straightening Device uses
noise,” jiiiii) to colonize patches of the Outside the “clarity of fear” to automatically disentangle
with a tamer form of reality. cords and straighten lines.
41. Your Hands-Free Communication Device is 55. You have the power to grow wings of blood and
powered by people not touching it. fire, but that’s so... weird. Abnormal. Suspicious!
42. Your marvelous Redemption Machine is a floating But with your wing injections that incite other
eyeball with a dangling metal arm and long, people to grow wings of blood and fire... you can
wire-like fingers. It floats around after evil people finally chop off that problem at its source!
staring at them until they redeem themselves in 56. Screening Goggles filter out obstacles from your
shame. Sometimes at night it wet willies them visual field.
while they sleep. You are explicitly excluded from 57. Your Hand-Held Reality Flosser removes irregu-
the category of viable targets. larities in space-time.
43. Umbrella Angels flutter in the sky above you, 58. A long time ago, Chuubo explained to you that
drink the rain, and die in the light of the sun. you “have to” read a certain comic—that it is
44. Your Incomparable Expressiveness Assistant sits practically “the whole reason that the world
on the back of your head and curls its eyestalks exists.” His pitiful mind could think of nothing
forward to echo your chilling glares, curious better to do with such a comic than read it—but
looks, innocent looks, winks, and eyerolls. you have gone far beyond his feeble proposal
Do not accidentally build your Incompatible and conceived of the Outside Seeding Project:
Expressioning Assistant instead! scattering microscopic pieces of his the-reason-
45. Your Gift Squeakers squeak frantically when the the-world-exists comic throughout the chaotic
person who receives them has just said the wrong Outside, you hope to seed dozens, hundreds, or
thing. They are certain to be a hit this Christmas. even millions of new realities!
Playbooks 133
59. Your Conceptual Diffusion Device dissolves 74. When triggered, your Cephalopod Superstructure
things or ideas into a diffuse foam; you may then assembles ordinary objects around you into
or later use a drop of a hyper-real fluid to recon- the twitching limbs and eyes of a cephalopod
struct them. battlesuit. Never before has wielding sandwiches,
60. Your Two Linked Pens write the same thing when books, dressers, and porcelain animals in combat
clicked, no matter how far apart they are. felt so liquid, so natural, or so supreme.
61. Your Two-Things Tangler temporarily interrupts 75. Your Infallible Humanity Emulator can sit on
reality to “fuse” two things together. the forehead of a dog, cat, or bird and cause it to
62. Your Sleepless Edge can cut a portal between display convincing qualities of humanity.
tonight and tomorrow morning. Time to show 76. Your Swift Watch reliably generates a certain
tomorrow’s Leonardo de Montreal what-for! amount of extra spare time every day.
2
63. The Barren Wanderer slips sideways through 77. Your Personality Bombs unleash disturbances in
Sleepless Edge’s portals to explore between the the psyche.
two sides of midnight. What stories will it bring 78. Your Infallible Cat Disextinctory Device will
when it returns? transubstantiate a nine-lived cat to one of its
64. Your spray bottle of Sky-Pinning Reagent can previous lives.
hold the sky still, so that it ceases to retreat from 79. Your Out-of-Sight Out-of-Mind shielding
you when you approach it—at last that field of activates automatically to protect you from things
blue becomes something that you can touch, peel you’ve forgotten to worry about.
apart, or climb! 80. Your Mirrored World Window lets you stare
65. Similarly, your Sphere-Cracking Space Bat is into the baffling alternate dimension where Dark
more than able to fly up to the crystal sphere Chuubo, and not you, went to the Bleak Academy.
around the world and crack it with its head, letting 81. The Endless Raven lives the same day over and
in rain or a falling star from the other side. over again.
66. Your vast submersible, the “Blue Whale34,” can 82. Your Nightmare Infusion, Mk. I, pours vivid
safely explore the deepest waters of Big Lake. nightmares into someone’s head and confuses
67. Your Writhing Dream Beetles eat their way their sense of reality utterly for up to 24 hours.
between world and dream before they die. They will fade in and out of the Outside while the
68. “Lance Corporal,” your vast dream-yacht, can sail effect remains.
the “waters” of people’s dreams. 83. Your Sin-Scrubbing Loofah can purify things
69. The Awful Bell sounds like anybody’s worst damaged by spiritual pollutants.
nightmare when it’s rung. 84. Your Unbearably Artistic Mesh sinks into the
70. The Transfinite Hypersphere Polymer Coating surface of an object and infuses it with emotional
on your gloves allows you to reach through time meaning—sadness, joy, bittersweet melancholy,
and steal breakfast from yourself. Or, you know, or whatever, much as Titov magic might.
other stuff! 85. The Lightless Pointer projects an alluring absence
71. Your glorious lighter-than-air sky palace and that dogs, cats, and pointing fingers are drawn
gardens can reach heights of almost 50 yards to follow.
above the ground!
72. Your Worth-Injecting Six-Guns allow you to
shoot value directly into people. Bang!
73. Your “breath amplification chamber” can turn
anyone into a Chi powerhouse for a short time.
34 Sometimes you think you are not very creative at naming things.
134 Playbooks
86. Your Anti-Pastoral Leaded Coffin provides you 94. (Obstacle 2 Changeling ability, +2 Difficulty):
with a place where you may retreat to, even in Your Entity-Mirroring Shell can consume you and
Fortitude, and avoid feeling like things must remold you to look and act like someone else.
move slowly, that work must be fruitful, and that 95. (Obstacle 2 Fox Magic ability, +2 Difficulty):
you have a home. You are not sure why you care You can shatter some nightmare device to
enough to create such a thing, exactly, except that instantly unleash a gout of flame, lightning,
you occasionally have horrific images of yourself or poison.
twenty years from now as one of those pastoral 96. (Obstacle 2 Fox Magic ability, +2 Difficulty):
people who stare out at the sunset and say, “Yup.” Your Integrated Vulpine Injection sheds your old
This must not be! mortal flesh into steaming goop and frees your
Playbooks
87. Your Chilling Realization Bubbles, which Leonardine or Dulcinean spirit to run forth in the
you manipulate with magnetic sticks, produce shape of a dream-fox. That’s like a fox, only, you
a chilling realization when they pop against know, more dream-like.
a person. 97. (Obstacle 2 Yatskaya ability, +2 Difficulty): Use
88. Your Pathetic, Groveling Minion Machine has an your nightmare science to make a cat do what
artificial internal life complete with dreams and you say. Say, “Cat, I know nightmare science.
nightmares. Eventually this will creep you out and Do what I say!” Then provide instructions.
you will build it a Live-for-Yourself attachment, Surprisingly, if you can overcome a mere level 4
which will probably go wrong. Obstacle, that feline very well might!
89. Topo de Montreal is a synthetic tele-operated
talking rat version of yourself, which must, of [Obstacle 5: Beyond the Limits of Nightmare]
course, assume its own intelligence and agenda 98. (Obstacle 3 Changeling ability, +2 Difficulty):
when not actively controlled. (Otherwise it Your Nightmare Infusion, Mk. II, leaves the target
would be found out.) Eventually it will steal its physically in reality but detaches them utterly
controller and no longer will you have an agent from themselves. Despair fills them; their eyes
among Fortitude’s talking rats. vanish, replaced by night and falling stars; they
90. If a Fortitude family loses its youngest child, preach the gospel of the Bleak Academy.
you might create an Inverted Nightmare Child 99. (Obstacle 3 Fox Magic ability, +2 Difficulty):
to soothe their feelings of loss. This... might not Having learned a great deal about what people
work out as you expect. refuse to look at or listen to, you can make
91. Your Mechanism for Original Sin complained yourself effectively invisible.
about your eating the cookie people, so you are 100. (Obstacle 3 ability for... some kind of magic,
hoping that your Incomparable Gingerbread probably? +2 Difficulty): Your Incomparable
Afterlife will alleviate the moral strain! Time-Stitching Device can save any nine things.
101. (Obstacle 3 ability for... monks? Kung fu
[Obstacle 4: Forbidden Techniques] monks? Probably? +2 Difficulty): Activating
92. Your “Nightmare Metal” is a high-tech polymer your Supreme God-Body Ascension Method, you
memory metal created by infusing ordinary ele- transcend mortality, flying into the sky amidst
ments with nightmares. You can produce a small sheets of spiritual lightning, a roiling divine
amount of this at Obstacle 3 if you have access to power building up inside you until it bursts out
extremely appropriate nightmares. in a nuclear-like explosion that rectifies and
93. Similarly, your “Solid Fire” interleaves fire, purifies, or at least mysteriously affects, many
lightning, cloth, and a sticky nightmare colloid, things. Later, you drift down amnesiac from the
and can sometimes slip down to Obstacle 3. sky, having failed to properly become an all-con-
quering spirit-body God.
Playbooks 135
Shock and Awe
Your bonus XP emotion is speechlessness. You are normally obligated to answer questions
Like any good scientist, your role and your burden is in character, which requires that you first engage the
to explain the world to all the people who just don’t get interest of others in asking them of you or at least
it. They are always wondering such things as “Just how expressing confusion, uncertainty, or an interest in an
does that nightmare technology work?” or “How can it explanation in your presence. However, if you are in an
be that Leonardo de Montreal, who professes to loathe extremely casual game where having players step out of
us with every fiber of his being, is once again helping character to ask questions of “Professor” de Montreal
out?” or “Wait, why are there talking rats in Fortitude? makes sense, then please feel free to answer across the
How does that work?”. fourth wall, ideally with the aid of a handy flipchart that
It is up to you, with the unequalled beneficence of materializes unexpectedly when such occasions occur.
2
a de Montreal, to answer these questions in such a You can earn up to 1 speechlessness XP every 15
fashion as to leave them with little else to say. If they minutes of real time. Further, if another player or PC
wish to demonstrate their speechlessness at the end of consciously weaponizes this—that is, demands an
such an explanation or demonstration, they may award explanation from you for the pure entertainment value
you an XP as follows: of it or to stun/baffle/perplex/silence somebody in the
world—you can earn a speechlessness XP that isn’t
ŭŭ Gaping at you in an exaggerated, comical, and bounded by that 15 minute rule.
therefore clearly intentional fashion.
ŭŭ Lifting up a finger as if they’re going to respond, Advice to Other Players: As long as the justifica-
but then lowering it again, ideally to point at a tions Nightmares’ Angel gives are entertaining, and
bowl containing XP tokens while silently shaking as long as they have a tinge of vivid, vital unreason,
their head. you can feel free to exaggerate your speechlessness,
ŭŭ Covering their eyes but helplessly peeking enlightenment, or smirk of amusement for effect. In
through the gaps in their fingers at you, in horri- fact, you should! There’s one exception: if Nightmares’
fied and unwilling fascination. Angel goes overboard in interpreting things as asking
ŭŭ Saying, “Speechless!” for an explanation—e.g., in response to “hey, how’ve
ŭŭ Saying something roughly equivalent to “Right you been?”—then you should observe a stricter pro-
then,” and moving on. tocol, and start awarding bonus XP only if actually
ŭŭ Saying something roughly equivalent to, “I think stunned or brought to laughter by the response.
we are all now more familiar with the [topic, e.g.,
the reasons that Leonardo de Montreal is once
again helping us out, which are not in the least
bit beneficent.]”
[[BEGIN BOX]]
136 Playbooks
Abilities Miraculous Abilities
You have 8 Will and the following mundane abilities: As Nightmares’ Angel, you have the following mirac-
ulous abilities:
ŭŭ Weather-Sense 2. You have an uncanny sense
for weather. ŭŭ You are heartless (when not in sunlight).
ŭŭ Perseverance 2. You’re good at not giving up. • You only have to worry about blood loss
ŭŭ Love for the Wicked 1. You believe even the and chest wounds when in sunlight.
worst deserve kindness. • You may act with a heartless per-
ŭŭ Shield 1. You’re oddly familiar with pro- fection, in the dark.
tecting people. • You can heal from almost anything, in the dark.
Playbooks
ŭŭ Dream Analysis 0. Your dream analysis helps • Once a season you can miraculously increase
only rarely. the Child of the Sun’s Connection to you.
ŭŭ People Skills 0. You’re uncomfortable ŭŭ You have rejected friendship. In exchange:
with people. • Once per week, you may...
ŭŭ Swimming -1. You’re not good with water. ►► ...heal wounds beyond medical science.
ŭŭ Domestic Tasks -1. You’re not good around ►► ...protect an innocent from attack.
the house. ►► ...prevent or reverse aging and decay.
►► ...release someone from
You also have one mundane ability with special rules unbearable suffering.
(detailed above): • You may endure the most awful
burdens indefinitely.
ŭŭ Nightmare Science 2. You practice a unique form • Once per season, you may expunge an
of science. unwanted memory from the world.
ŭŭ You were twisted at the Bleak Academy...
Connections • ...and learned a marvelous nightmare technology!
You start the game with two free Connections— • ...but an awful blasphemy dwells inside you.
• If you’re ever too badly hurt it
Connection: the Wishing Boy might escape into the world.
0
X
No! No no no! You are not con- ŭŭ You are better than the fools and weaklings
2 nected to him in any way!
around you...
• ...and can see through their pathetic deceptions...
Connection: the Child of the Sun • ...and straight through to their plans.
It is oddly easy to get along with the Child of the Sun.
• You also tend to encounter people
1 when they’re at their lowest.

ŭŭ What wounds you, only strengthens you.
• Once per season you can turn a wound
You can also get a level 1 Connection to any other PC into a temporary power set, compa-
by mutual agreement. rable to the bullet points above.
• You can recover from just about any wound.
• Once per season, you can draw on a
wound for a wish-level effect.
ŭŭ You might grow wings of blood and feathers
and fire.
ŭŭ You have mastered nightmare technology.
• You have access to the Incomparable
Nightmare Engine...
• ...and various other devices.
Playbooks 137
Health Perks
You’ll normally start the game with 2 Normal Health Characters in this game have a handful of Perks. You
Levels, 1 Tough Health Level, and 2 Divine Health gain them or improve them by completing quests, and
Levels. This is the “normal” level of toughness for a you can have up to 8.
character in Chuubo’s Marvelous Wish-Granting You’ll start with these Perks:
Engine, and it means you can survive a lot.
In fact, you already have— Connection: the Wishing Boy
The truth is, you used to have 6 Divine Health Levels.
0
X
No! No no no! You are not con-
But then you cut out your heart, resolved to never know
friendship, wept at the perfidy of lesser creatures, and
2 nected to him in any way!
This Perk functions as a level 2 Connection but only when you can plausibly
pretend to yourself that you’re being completely detached and impartial.
had the Headmaster of the Bleak Academy stuff a blas-

Connection: the Child of the Sun
2
phemy into your chest. And each time, instead of letting
It is oddly easy to get along with the Child of the Sun.
yourself heal, you metaphysically locked the wound in
place to use it as a power source. 1
So that used four of your Divine Health Levels up.
And you’re still going. And even if you take five Connection: ???
more wounds and die, you have a good chance of drag- At the start of the game, with the player’s consent, you
ging yourself back again from the grave. You are, in
short, extremely resilient. The life force in you isn’t
1 may take a free level 1 Connection to any other PC.
dependent on biology: it’s all fueled by the raw will and

magnificence of Leonardo de Montreal.
Miracle Points
You have 5 Miracle Points (MP) that you can use to
enhance your miraculous abilities or use them more
often than usual. Once spent, you’ll regain 1 MP/week,
up to your normal 5.
You can earn bonus MP, with no particular maximum,
through various game mechanics, but you don’t really
have any convenient access to them—probably the best
shot you have at picking up extra MP when you need
them is your Sickly power, below, which can increase
your Sickness or Trauma Issue and occasionally give
you MP.
138 Playbooks
Wounded Angel Timing and You
Herein you will find the stories of your life thus far—
recorded, remembered in the game as the miraculous When you have a power that works mid-scene or
story Arc, or set of Arcs, starting mid-scene, that means that you use it after
Wounded Angel 3. some meaningful stuff has already happened in the
The powers that you have today come from these the current scene.
struggles of your past. When you have a power that works after a few
Here’s how they work. minutes, that means that either a few things have to
happen while you’re setting this up, or nothing is hap-
Heartless pening at all. Ideally this covers about 5 minutes of
Playbooks
You have no heart inside your chest. That’s why stab- game time in a languid scene or 5 minutes of real time
bing you in the chest is so naïve! in a scene of fast-paced play.
Heartless Perfection
Type: Miraculous Action
Cost: Supreme Heartlessness
ŭŭ 0 MP—When not in the sun, claim immunity to Type: Imperial Miracle
blood loss, chest wounds, and emotional attacks. Cost:
ŭŭ 1 MP—After a few minutes in the dark, take 1-2 ŭŭ 0 MP—Use this power 1/week.
mechanically perfect actions. ŭŭ 1 MP—Use this power a second or later time
ŭŭ 2 MP—After a few minutes in the dark, become this week.
mechanically perfect until you leave the dark or ŭŭ 2 MP—Use this power a second or later time in a
the scene ends. handful of hours.
ŭŭ 4 MP—Become mechanically perfect from ŭŭ 4 MP—Use this power instantly.
the instant you reach the shadows (or, if you’re
already in them, from the start of the scene). Spend a few hours away from the light of the sun and
activate Supreme Heartlessness and you may recover
Only in the sunlight do you have a heart. Thus, shadow, from any debilitating condition, up to and including
night, and windowless dark immunizes you against death. This can in theory cure even Corrupted and
blood loss, chest wounds, and emotional attacks. Heartlessness, but it’s the player and not the character
Further, once you’ve been out of the sunlight for a who invokes this power and chooses which conditions
few minutes, you can activate Heartless and become to repair.
mechanically perfect in a heartless skill. You make no IC, you’re just aware that in the dark, you heal.
errors, maintain a chilling equanimity, and think with
cold precision. This does not enhance your speed,
strength, or raw will, so a sufficient mob can still over-
come you in a fight and characters like the Prodigy
may sometimes exceed you with a comparable miracle.
Playbooks 139
Friendless ŭŭ ...ranting about the galling small-minded pettiness
You have no friends and you may not know love. More of other men.
precisely, you cannot admit to such emotions—even in ŭŭ ...explaining why only the nightmare science of
the privacy of your soul—and if cornered on this point, Leonardo de Montreal has merit.
confronted with proof of friendship or forced into an ŭŭ ...arguing vigorously, and possibly with
admission, you must either wound one of your health nobody, that you choose not to have friends or
levels or lose access to the powers below. love anybody.
I Alone May Save You Holding up the Sky

Type: Miraculous Action Type: Imperial Miracle
Cost: Cost:
2
ŭŭ 0 MP—Use this power 1/week. ŭŭ 0 MP—Endure a burden indefinitely,
ŭŭ 1 MP—Use this power a second or later time after preparing.
this week. ŭŭ 4 MP—Use this power instantly.
ŭŭ 2 MP—Use this power a second or later time in a
handful of hours. Given a few hours to prepare, or having survived the
ŭŭ 4 MP—Use this power instantly. first few hours of something terrible that happens, you
may invoke Holding up the Sky to bear even the most
You are a shield to others’ innocence. agonizing and impossible burdens indefinitely. You can
Have you sacrificed friendship and love to protect skip the preparation/survival interval and invoke this
others? Or are you like Ayn Rand’s Galt, your strength power instantly at a cost of 4 MP.
an accidental enabler of the weaknesses of lesser men?
Starting mid-scene, you can invoke I Alone May Memory’s Surcease
Save You to... Type: Imperial Miracle, Ritual Power
Cost:
ŭŭ ...heal the wounds of others, if and only if they are ŭŭ 0 MP—Invoke this power 1/season.
beyond ordinary medical science (such as death ŭŭ 4 MP—Use this power a second or later time in
or transformation). a season.
ŭŭ ...free someone from unbearable anguish.
ŭŭ ...protect, save, or shelter an innocent. Note: This is a specific version of your Supreme
ŭŭ ...prevent or reverse aging and decay. Invocation power (pg. XX) and counts against its sea-
sonal use.
You can then continue to invoke this power without Once per season, you may invoke this power to
additional MP cost for the rest of the scene, e.g., if expunge a memory from the world, casting up a veil
you’re freeing a bunch of people from transformation of nightmares between that memory and reality and
or sheltering an innocent from repeated attack. sending the truth of the matter staggering off through
This power can only save people from anguish and the Outside to the gates of the Bleak Academy.
trouble with a physical or spiritual root; social, emo- This functions under the same rules as a
tional, and moral suffering are outside its scope. wish—specifically:
“I wish that we could just...
Salvation Scenes forget that that happened.”
Sometimes the whole point of a scene is for you to use Accordingly, the normal outcome is that people just
this power. In this case, you still can’t use it until mid- forget the matter unless they are willing to fight to hang
scene without spending 4 MP, so I recommend that you on to the memory—but the HG may decide that it’s
spend the early part of the scene... more fun to have your nightmare technology go haywire
...wheeling in and setting up relevant night- and reverse the event itself, make everyone amnesiac,
mare technology. or unleash brain scrambler beasts on Town instead.
140 Playbooks
Corrupted Your own nightmares are a different matter. If you let
The Bleak Academy turned your dreams to worms and yourself dream them for too long, the world around per-
rot inside your head. turbs and becomes a place of swamp-rot and choking,
polluted air—very like some proletariat sense of Hell.35
The Stuff of Nightmares This has disturbed your progress on your incomparable
Type: Miraculous Action Nightmare Map, forcing you to perform your dream-
Cost: delving while in a white room environment or a desolate
ŭŭ 0 MP—After a few minutes’ exposure, fish wilderness. In Old Molder, you had your mechanical
1-2 components or devices out of nightmares butler wake you exactly 90 minutes into any nightmare,
per scene. but in Fortitude, you mostly just drink a lot of coffee
Playbooks
ŭŭ 1 MP—Push the limits on this a bit. and pre-pay five times the requested damage deposit.
ŭŭ 2 MP—Pull a ton of stuff out of some- This isn’t really a very great power to have, and
one’s nightmares. I’m sorry. In theory, you could use this offensively by
dozing off in the homes of those that you dislike, or to
Spend a bit of time either in the presence of someone break free if you are ever chained—but this is a minor
having a nightmare, or talking about their deepest and advantage at best, since conscious use of technology is
most irrational fears, and you can invoke the Stuff of more suitable to a hero of your stature.
Nightmares to tease out a portion of their nightmares
as a building material or a simple mundane device. From the Land of Rot and Poison
To the dreamer, a nightmare may seem complex and Type: Imperial Miracle, Ritual Power
ethereal; to an iconoclastic and forward-thinking sci- Cost:
entist, daring to defy the orthodoxy of Jung, they are ŭŭ 0 MP—Invoke this power 1/season.
easily recognized as simple molecular compositions ŭŭ 4 MP—Use this power a second or later time in
of principally standardized components, useful in the a season.
construction of machines. An eye-devouring rhomboid,
for instance, so commonly wrapped around the outer Note: This is a specific version of your Supreme
layer of a dream, makes an excellent frictionless com- Invocation power (pg. XX) and counts against its sea-
ponent; a truculent gom, however furious its protests, sonal use.
may be teased out into circuitry or rope! In sum, to you, Once per story you may open a gate from your
a nightmare serves as the equivalent of a fully-stocked nightmares into the world, call out a nightmare horror
laboratory and wilderness explorer’s kit in one. with whatever powers you describe, and command it to
Even without the more outré applications, with perform a single task. This functions as a wish would
regular access to nightmares you can build complex (see pg. XX), and specifically the wish:
but ordinary devices (such as radios, dams, computers, “I wish [name of the horror] would
and so on) tens or hundreds of times faster than any crawl out of my nightmares and
ordinary boy. do [task] for me.”
You must normally sleep for a few hours first, as
The Sickness Rises per The Sickness Rises, but this limitation is cosmetic
Type: Imperial Miracle and intended for consistency only, so if you need to
Cost: work around it the HG should be as lenient as dramat-
ŭŭ 0 MP—1/week, after a few hours of sleep, your ically possible.
nightmares escape into reality.
ŭŭ 1 MP—Use this “power” a second or later time
this week.
ŭŭ 2 MP—Use this “power” a second or later time in
a single day.
ŭŭ 4 MP—Use this “power” instantly, even
35 This has been adapted a little bit for “Fortitude: the Glass-Maker’s
while awake. Dragon”—normally, you’d have a red world of fire and suffering in
here, and you still can if that’s what you’d prefer or expect!
Playbooks 141
Glorious they may have made. You might recognize that in a
You are better than everyone around you. mere three days someone is likely to stab you through
Put like that it seems like a good thing. But it’s not. your chest with a railway spike, say, or realize that a
It’s a wound. It’s a horror. It’s a crime against your soul. teacher has readied a pop quiz you may or may not be
It’s good to be the incomparable Leonardo de Montreal, prepared for in the hopes that it will detrimentally affect
but to live in a world of callow, vicious, scheming the grades of students like yourself. If your target has
fools—that’s hardly an ideal arrangement! not yet made any plans against you, you discover this
as well.
Superiority
Type: Miraculous Action
Cost:
XP Actions
2
ŭŭ 0 MP—Starting mid-scene, invoke this power Each in-game week, every PC has the opportunity to
now and then with stuff in between. take two “XP Actions” and earn the group XP. Usually
ŭŭ 1 MP—Starting mid-scene, use this power on these will be the three XP Actions “in genre” for a
multiple characters in quick succession. pastoral game:
ŭŭ 2 MP—Starting mid-scene, use this power on
everyone in the room. ŭŭ Shared Action
ŭŭ 4 MP—Open a scene by cold-reading as many ŭŭ Shared Reactions
people as you want. ŭŭ Slice of Life
You can see through the pathetic deceptions of other You’ll try to connect to people while doing chores or
men. Invoke Superiority after a few minutes of inter- talking, or you’ll be out in the world and you’ll have a
acting with a character to determine one of the following: moment or mood that sticks with you. As Nightmares’
Angel, you’ll also have the option “I immediately
ŭŭ A one-sentence description of how they are most (Suffer) Trauma as an XP Action!”
likely to betray you.
ŭŭ A one-sentence summary of the wickedest thought
in their mind.
ŭŭ Whether they are being honest with you, and why. Materials
Once—when you were young, and foolish, and
You can use this power against any given target once
naive—you used mundane substances as the foremost
per scene.
materials for your devices.
You laugh! You shake your head! But it was so!
Flash of Insight
Soap shavings, metal, wire, and lint; ash and wood;
Type: Imperial Miracle
bubbles and wine; dandruff, teeth, and even human
Cost:
hair—these were the substances of your craft. And
ŭŭ 0 MP—1/week, with work, you have a flash of
they have their place, of course, even now. They have
insight into someone’s plans against you.
their uses.
ŭŭ 1 MP—Use this power a second or later time in
But how simple-minded you must have been!
a week.
It is beneath you, beneath any great inventor, you
ŭŭ 2 MP—Use this power a second or later time in a
now know, to build your works from principally
single day.
material dross. The substance of invention is not any
ŭŭ 4 MP—Use this power instantly.
physical thing, but rather nightmare; it is not eccen-
tricity, as the lumpen claim, but simple practicality to
Spend a few hours pacing and talking to yourself and
recognize that it is from the stuff of wicked dreams
trying to figure out somebody’s plans against you and
that greatness must be built.
you will have a flash of insight that pierces through to
the heart of any formal or inchoate plans against you
142 Playbooks
General Wounded Angel Abilities Oh, You Fool
If the above are the wounds you picked up along the Type: Imperial Miracle Cost: —
way, this is the path that marks your learning to live Something in your fate means that you tend to see
with your life in general. people at their worst and most helpless.
When someone makes a terrible mistake, or gets into
Sickly terrible trouble, or otherwise shows their worst or most
Type: Special Cost: — vulnerable side, it is inherently probable that you are
You are prone to trials and your life is a sorrowful thing. nearby and watching. Deciding which scenes you actu-
Once per session you may do all of the following, ally show up in is a player-level matter; what this power
in order: gives you is an inherent boost to the dramatic appropri-
Playbooks
ŭŭ declare yourself under attack by corruption ateness of your showing up, as if you’d established that
or trauma; you were nearby.
ŭŭ declare a suitable:
• (Suffer) Corruption or Nightmare Devices
• (Suffer) Trauma Type: Special Cost: —
XP action—basically, you experience surreal As Nightmares’ Angel, you begin play with the fol-
effects and then your corruption, sickness, or lowing miscellaneous devices:
ongoing psychological damage gets worse;
and then ŭŭ the Abhorrent Sun-Sustaining Superconductor
ŭŭ automatically pick up a point of the Sickness (pg. XX).
Issue unless your Sickness Issue is either at 5 or ŭŭ the Mechanism of Original Sin (pg. XX).
has just recently been resolved. ŭŭ .your Ritually Impure Manservant Machine (pg.
XX).
This power is functionally a narrative one—from an ŭŭ your Outside-Measuring Caliper (pg. XX).
IC perspective, it’s not the power to be sickly but the ŭŭ the Incomparable Nightmare Engine (pg. XX).
power to be right about how much your life sucks.
You will receive a bonus MP at Sickness 1, 3, and 5, You may also wish to have a tool belt or pocketed
as well as when the Issue “resolves,” making this power coat stocked with miscellaneous ephemera such as
one of your more reliable methods for recovering MP. goms, eye-devouring rhomboids, inverting maws, and
the like (pg. XX)—
Freakish nightmare devices that can act as a +1 or
sometimes even +2 Tool for your Science!
Arc Powers
Sickly is your “Arc power”—you get it for being on
one of the Arcs that grant Sickly. If you change to a The Incomparable
different Arc, it’s replaced by whatever power that Nightmare Engine
Arc offers. That could be Sickly, but for most Arcs Occasionally someone will suggest that Chuubo’s
it’s either Immortality or the MP-regeneration power Marvelous Wish-Granting Engine is comparable, at
“Frantic.” which time you may wish to gently remind them of the
The rest of the powers below are permanent, whether Incomparable Nightmare Engine’s name.
or not you’re currently on the Wounded Angel Arc,
and you’ll keep them even if you lose the wounds with
which they might logically seem to correlate.
Playbooks 143
(Cage for a) Blasphemy Empowered Wounds
Type: Imperial Miracle Cost: — Type: Imperial Miracle Cost:
At the Bleak Academy the Headmaster poisoned you. ŭŭ 0 MP, 1 Divine Health Level—Empower one
He filled you up with an awful blasphemy. And now, wound per season.
because of that, if you ever lose your last Divine Health ŭŭ 4 MP, 1 Divine Health Level—Empower one
Level, the sky will fill with stormclouds, the ground wound at any time.
will seep with foul water, and you will begin to vomit
out poison, rotten chunks of wood or flesh, and cor- When something really, really bad happens to you,
rupting spirits from your mouth and your hollow chest. you can turn it into a power source. This removes one
And then— Divine Health Level from your character sheet, binding
Well, you don’t know what happens then. You it inextricably to the wound, but gives you the fol-
2
don’t know the rest. You don’t want to find out. The lowing abilities:
Headmaster forced a wish of poison, rot and drowning
into your chest, but you don’t know or want to know the ŭŭ A new miraculous ability, usually something you
details; all you know is that shortly after that last Divine can use weekly or at any time.
Health Level is lost, that wish will go into effect across ŭŭ A new Imperial ability that helps or strengthens
Town or wherever you happen to be. you—that is, its focus must be on you, not on
Maybe it’ll only last a few hours. Maybe you can stop attacking or changing someone or something else.
it by healing up that last health level. You don’t know. ŭŭ Optionally, a third ability that completes or
If you permanently wound your last two Divine competes in some fashion against one of the
Health levels using Empower, this poison ravens other two.
out but if it fades away or is dealt with or otherwise
resolves, you may contain the blasphemy indefinitely You have rough control over the kinds of powers you
by refusing any recovery from your wounds. get, but may have to experiment some to fully define or
discover them. These powers replace the normal bene-
fits of a wound36.
Sustaining the Sun Empowered wounds cannot heal and no one can
When the sun went out, you used abhorrent supercon- free you from them save yourself—you must invoke
ductive technology to help create a new one. Strictly Recover, below, before any healing effect of any sort
speaking the name Abhorrent Sun-Sustaining can lift the burden from your flesh or soul.
Superconductor is a misnomer, since the machinery
functions more to cause the sun than to sustain it— ŭŭ If you’re confused about how to handle wounds
even if you shut the device down and took your heart and removing a health level from your sheet,
back and... used it to power something else or as an proceed as follows:
amusing conversation piece or something... the sun ŭŭ If the thing you’re transforming isn’t a wound,
would probably last another ten billion, three hundred take a wound or use it to wound your highest
and sixty-seven years at least. However, first, this pre- remaining Health Level anyway.
sumes that nothing further will happen to desolarize ŭŭ If you just wounded a Normal or Tough Health
the world, when in fact sun-threatening events are level, swap the wound with the wound in a Divine
quite common and a backup system is more than a Health level.
little advantageous; and second, it presumes that you ŭŭ Remove the new wound and the Divine Health
give a flying fortress what the Horizon Terminological level simultaneously from your character.
Institute has to say, when in fact you have long since
stopped even opening their letters.
36 Alas! You will never know the normal pleasures of a wound. “I’ve just
lost my hand!” the others will celebrate† Or “Look! A sneeze!” But
these simple joys elude you. Your only benefits from your wounds are
terrifying miraculous powers.
† People do not actually celebrate this.
144 Playbooks
Recover Once an Angel
Type: Special Cost: — Type: Imperial Miracle, Ritual Power Cost:
You may stop empowering a wound at any time, ŭŭ 0 MP—Invoke this power 1/season.
allowing you—potentially—to recover from conditions ŭŭ 4 MP—Use this power when you’ve already used
acquired in play. The associated powers go away and Supreme Invocation this season.
you gain a new, wounded Divine Health Level. You do
not immediately heal; rather, healing becomes possible. Note: This is a specific version of your Supreme
As a special exception to ordinary procedure, self- Invocation power (pg. XX), drawing on any wound
healing powers may remain active long enough to help you like, and counts against its seasonal use.
you recover from the wound that created them. For You keep thinking that if you really wanted to, you
Playbooks
instance, if someone cuts off your head, it’s perfectly could grow wings of red and blood and feathers and
legitimate to: orange and fire. They’d be awesome for flying too close
to the sun because there’d be no phase transition pre-
ŭŭ take a cool temporary power where your head ceding falling.
flies around and a slower weekly power “neck But if you can grow wings like that, then you’re not a
viscera hands” that lets you knit your spine back human. Maybe you’re not even a person. It could mean
together; you’re a devil or a changeling phoenix child or that
ŭŭ fly your head around for a while enjoying the your memory regarding the salvation of the sun isn’t as
thrill of decapitation; and then, accurate as you think.
ŭŭ when being a head in the game gets boring, So, so far, you don’t.
disempower the wound, hook your neck viscera
hands in, and start healing. The Wayward Heart
Type: Imperial Miracle Cost:
Suffering is a power source for you: it’s painful and ŭŭ 0 MP—Connect to the Child of the Sun 1/season.
awful and you do not like it one bit but it is rarely inca- ŭŭ 4 MP—Use this power a second or later time in
pacitating for very long. a season.
Supreme Invocation Once per season you may invoke this power while
Type: Imperial Miracle, Ritual Power Cost: talking to the Child of the Sun.
ŭŭ 0 MP—1/season, invoke a wish-level power from Your heart will beat inside the sun. She’ll gain 1
one of your wounds. point of inherent Connection to you (up to a maximum
ŭŭ 4 MP—Use this power a second or later time in of 5) and her Connection with you will rise to 5 for the
a season. remainder of the Scene.
You, who have sacrificed yourself to save another,
Once per book, you may use an empowered wound may become closer to them thereby.
as justification for a wish-level effect—wish that Though, her player has the option to reject these ben-
something were so, tie it thematically to the wound, efits. Don’t be too creepy about them or she just might!
and it becomes so. Normally this is instant but if the
connection to the wound is ephemeral or vague then the
process takes some time. For instance, if a head wound
compromises your memory, you might be able to use
this power to erase an incident (for the most part) from
the memory of Town. Ultimately, you can probably do
anything at all here: the question is, what do you want
to wish for? And how can you tie this to your core and
current wounds?
Playbooks 145
Deeds of the Binder
XP
Bonus XP
You’re working on some grand project of nightmare science—to be
ready upon the completion of this quest.
But how shall it function?
2
per scene/15 minutes) by proposing a theory about how the device
will function, how it will be built, what its design should be, or some-
thing unusual it could be used for.
Note that you do have to actually consider/entertain the theory IC—it
doesn’t technically have to be aloud, once you’ve proposed the theory
actually thinking about it can be confined to your inner monologue, but
the point is to consider it in play and have it potentially shape your
behavior and actions, not to come up with interesting and goofy things
to say at the gaming table.
The Deeds of the Binder This then manifests as a miracle but you don’t have to
Type: Miraculous Action, Quest Miracle Cost: — use an action to sustain it—you can “stay on the quest”
You may undertake a grand project of nightmare science for up to a season to keep the miracle active.
as a 15-XP quest. This isn’t necessarily stronger (or, for Later on, if you develop your Wounded Angel
that matter, weaker) than anything else you do— Arc further, you’ll learn to make grand ritual attacks on
It’s just a way to break free of the normal rules struc- your enemies or to reshape the cosmos with projects
tures that bind you by committing real time and part of such as this.
your advancement to the project. Maybe you get it done
faster or better or with less Will than mundane Science;
maybe it’s cheaper or more effective than or breaks the
The Indistinguishable-from-
usual limits on your miracles. Humanity Machine
The point is, as someone who has studied at the Bleak Leonardo VII, the mechanical version of Nightmares’
Academy and become a god of dream and nightmare, Angel, is an astonishing mechanical man constructed
you may pursue a 15-XP quest to: so realistically as to be indistinguishable from a
human. When someone attempts to distinguish him
ŭŭ Imbue some of yourself, or some of your occult from a human, Leonardo VII may point them irritably
power, into an object, person, or thing. at his operating manual; it says quite clearly, on page
ŭŭ Summon out a vaster strength from some wicked 17 and again on page 32, that this can not be done.
power or wound.
ŭŭ Conjure or create a servant, reshape a region, or
construct a fortress.
146 Playbooks
Actions and Issues Ritual
Here’s some things you’re often doing, along with notes
Activating the Incomparable Nightmare
on the kind of Scene that I’d expect to grow around Engine or other terrible powers.
them.
invoking a Ritual
Declarations
Monologuing, before a decision. This doesn’t necessarily happen, but your supreme
Decisive Action
invocations have a tendency to also invoke a
formalized scene—the kind of thing where, in a TV
Proposing a theory—then trying show, there’d be a lot of stock footage and music. If
a risky experiment!
Playbooks
the HG cares about that sort of thing, it’ll play out as a
Science, Faith, and Sorcery “ritual,” which operates on weird and atypical rules.
If you find yourself monologuing or theorizing, the

trick to giving those words dramatic payoff is to have
Issues
them lead to your actually doing something—taking
a risk. If you pick up a Complex, I recommend it be an
obsession with your impending doom.
Trouble Your most common Vice Issue is risking your
sanity on controlled delves into your own nightmares
Getting way too worked up over stuff.
or into dangerous parts of Town in order to understand
Obsessive Action what’s going on. It’s also relatively common for the
Going way too far trying to live Mechanism of Original Sin to go on the fritz and give
up to your self-image. you a “Vice” that’s really just ordinary behavior that
Never Say Die!
you believe (because your mechanical conscience tells
you so) is wrong.
Doing things you oughtn’t.
Wicked Action
You tend to be a little high-strung—you’ll get worked Timeline 1: Playing through

up, rant, and do over-the-top things at the drop of a your Childhood
hat. The HG may want to play through your childhood at
You don’t let anyone or anything beat you—not an accelerated pace—probably about 50x acceleration,
while there’s breath in you to fight. covering a year in about the same time you’d usually
You’re not that great with temptation. Sometimes cover a week.
the Mechanism for Original Sin will tell you that In a game like that, your history would look like this:
something you want to do is wrong. Or maybe just
unhealthy. But—how can you resist? You want to do Before Play: You’re in an evil orphanage. The sun dies.
it! Besides, this is for... this is for science! Or maybe You re-make it.
for... revenge? Maybe even for the sake of a potentially
useful coworker who you don’t think of as a friend Age 6-9: This is when the game would start.
at all! Meeting People: Sometimes you escape for a bit and
go over the hills to Fortitude. You may dislike the PCs
at first meeting, but pretty soon you decide that you’d
like to try this friendship thing. You can temporarily
replace “Natural Scientist” with a quest where you
propose theories about the other PCs and how to relate
Playbooks 147
to them—or just fold them under the general rubric of Timeline 2: Playing through
natural science. your Childhood
The Hidden Library: You may wind up spending a This timeline is for playing through your childhood,
lot of time with the various miscreants and ruffians who if the HG and/or the player of the Child of the Sun
frequent the genuinely astonishing Archive of Professor decide to complicate things a little and have Jade Irinka
Hideo Hayashi in Fortitude. die in play.
The Outside Stirs: Sometimes, when you’re in In a game like that, your history would look like this:
Fortitude, you notice that the Outside is stirred up. Is
it because you saved the sun? Is it because something Before Play: You’re in an evil orphanage.
out there wants you? Or is it something to do with the
glass dragon? And why are you drawn to Big Lake? Age 6: This is when the game would start.
2
You’re not wicked! You aren’t somebody who deserves Meeting People: Sometimes you escape for a bit and
to die!... are you? go over the hills to Fortitude. You may dislike the PCs
at first meeting, but pretty soon you decide that you’d
Age 10-11: You escape the orphanage for good and set like to try this friendship thing. You can temporarily
up in Old Molder. replace “Natural Scientist” with a quest where you
propose theories about the other PCs and how to relate
Age 10-13: You give up on Chuubo and/or the PCs and to them—or just fold them under the general rubric of
acquire Friendless. natural science.
The Hidden Library: You may wind up spending a
Age 10-14: You go to the Bleak Academy and acquire lot of time with the various miscreants and ruffians who
Corrupted and Glorious. frequent the genuinely astonishing Archive of Professor
Hideo Hayashi in Fortitude.
Age 10-15: You build the Incomparable Nightmare The Outside Stirs: the Outside isn’t stirred up yet, so
Engine back at your home in Old Molder. any investigations you do for your “the Outside Stirs”
You’re drawn to set yourself up in Fortitude, though, to quest are just a general study of the edge between the
keep tabs on the stirred-up Outside. world and the Outside. Similarly, if you’re drawn to
Big Lake, you probably don’t immediately think it’s
Age 16: The present. “because I’m wicked, and wicked things should drown
there.” You’re just... called to the lake.
Age 8: You meet Jade Irinka, the angel of the Houses of

the Sun. She is the most awesome adult lady ever.
You dream that she’s going to die, either before or
after meeting her, and start working on an Abhorrent
Sun-Sustaining Superconductor to stop that from
happening.
If Jade finds out, she probably doesn’t like it—
not because she wants to die, she just thinks the
Superconductor is Abhorrent—and she may even
destroy it and force you to start over.
Age 9: The Headmaster of the Bleak Academy kills

Jade Irinka. You rip out your heart and use it to finish
your Sun-Sustaining Superconductor and kindle a new
sun in the sky.
148 Playbooks
Later, Billy Sovereign, the worst bully at your Timeline 3: Starting in the
orphanage, stabs you in the chest, but it doesn’t work, Modern Day
because you don’t have a heart there. In a game that starts in the present, your history is a
little simpler.
Age 9-12: You set Billy Sovereign on fire. He doesn’t The sun died and you rekindled it when you were
die. It is... really disturbing. around 8-9.
You gave up on Chuubo around age 13, which is also
Age 10-11: You escape the orphanage for good and set when you went to the Bleak Academy and came back.
up in Old Molder. You came to Fortitude to investigate the threat of the
Outside 1-3 months back.
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Age 10-13: You give up on Chuubo and/or the PCs and
acquire Friendless.
Age 10-14: You go to the Bleak Academy and acquire

Corrupted and Glorious.
Age 10-15: You build the Incomparable Nightmare

Engine back at your home in Old Molder.
You’re drawn to set yourself up in Fortitude, though,
to keep tabs on the stirred-up Outside. You discover that
Billy Sovereign’s been hanging out there a fair bit too.
I wonder why!
Age 16: The present.
Playbooks 149
2
150 Playbooks
The Troublemaker
[[BEGIN CHARACTER SPLASH—identical to the one for the
Troublemaker lifepath.]]
Playbooks 151
Fact Sheet Common Variations
You are Rinley Yatskaya, the Troublemaker. You’re Shake it up! For an atypical Troublemaker experience,
convinced that neat stuff will happen—or can be made pick one or more of the following:
to happen—if you hang out with the PCs.
ŭŭ You are a boy.
Primary Quests ŭŭ You were kicked out of your family after an...
ŭŭ Tell stories. incident.
• Make trouble—get people out of their ŭŭ You’re still the youngest sibling, but you’re the
shells and practice courage. normal PC age or slightly older.
• Get involved with the people ŭŭ You’re part of a different shrine family—you’re:
and destinies around you. • Rinley “Valentine” Kichi, snoop and
2
matchmaker extraordinaire.
Bonus XP When... • Rinley Sosunov, from a “Buddha
Other players groan or roll their eyes at your goofiness. stories” instead of “tall tale” genre.
Tell bad shaggy dog stories and puns; be awkward, • Rinley Titov, summoned from the earth
naive, and emotionally transparent; and bring a bit of to contain some waking evil, only to
tall tale ridiculousness into things. discover that it’s not actually going
to wake up this year (decade?).
Powers • Rinley Nicholas/Nicoletta Vasili,
You know how to encourage and channel the power of with a superior connection to...
a wishing heart—that is, the power of personality, love, ►► ...the hearth, letting you work mir-
dreams, and wanting that people can use to change acles with cooking and sewing.
the world. ►► ...(if the player of the Wish-Granting
Your shrine family has ties to seals (the animals), Engine doesn’t exist or doesn’t mind)
dreams, and cats. steam and electricity, so that machines
and power in general love you.
You’d also have a particu-
larly good reason to worry about
your sister Mayu (pg. XX).
ŭŭ You’re not the youngest sibling!
Rinley “Valentine” Kichi Rinley Sosunov

Instead of the Yatskaya abilities, Rinley “Valentine” Instead of the Yatskaya abilities, Rinley Sosunov
Kichi would have: would have:
ŭŭ Kichi Family Magic 2 ŭŭ Sosunov Family Magic 3

ŭŭ Superior Dreamer 1 ŭŭ Superior Dreamer 2 [still]
ŭŭ Snooping 2
ŭŭ Matchmaking 0 I suggest picking up one of the standard Sosunov
family Bonds (see the Chuubo’s Marvelous Wish-
She isn’t quite as good at matchmaking as she Granting Engine RPG or Fortitude: by the Docks
thinks.) of Big Lake) as a reward from some early quest.
152 Playbooks
Character Description They may not realize that, not yet. That’s OK. You
How could anybody possibly live up to your big brother can have an ordinary friendship with them, or a trou-
and big sister? Brother Kuroma who can speak for bled one, or even the kind of thing where sparks fly. But
Death; sister Caroline the legendary witch— you know that they’re going to get into interesting stuff,
And then there’s you. and have great destinies, just like you. You just need to
You, little Rinley, saddled with not just one but two keep an eye on them. You can feel it. It’ll happen.
whole names bigger than yourself. Maybe you’ll have to give it a little... push.
To be a Yatskaya, with a family like yours, is bad
enough. But to be a Rinley, too, named after the most The Yatskaya Shrine
legendary member of your family ever—after that guy As Rinley, you live in Fortitude—specifically, in the
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who punched one shark into another shark’s mouth, Yatskaya Shrine on Maple Hill, where clouds of mul-
stole the halo of a saint and lost it in a bet, and invented ticolored incense hang heavily in the air, dreams blend
salt and pepper—well. into reality, and cats come and go as they please.
You’ve spent most of your childhood trying to find Your father Goro is mild-mannered and a little bit
something of your own to be. addled. He’s often away on dream-journeys.
That’s maybe why, when you found that rat prince Your mother Shiori was snatched away by a large
with his turtle-shell shield fighting a huge gold snake bird when you were two years old.
in the gardens of Maple Hill, you helped him out; and
kept him safe in a shoebox, after, while he recovered Kuroma
from its poison. Your big brother Kuroma is a sulky swordsman. He
You’re not really supposed to help the rats. They’re can summon King Death—the rats’ idea of Death, an
technically enemies of the family. aspect of or competitor to the Headmaster of the Bleak
But— Academy—into his body and pluck out lives, grant life,
It was so totally worth it! As magical as your home or speak the secret words of death thereafter.
can be, it’s generally very quiet and dream-like and Most of the time... that just means he’s a good
still. It wasn’t until you started hanging out with Prince swordsman with useful thoughts on death.
Eduard that you started having actual adventures. His magic isn’t easy to use and tends to be limited
You can sense potential like that in the other PCs, too. to flowing with the circumstances and the will of King
You can sense destiny like that in them: Death—he can’t just randomly pluck out the life of a
The brooding cloud of adventures to come. giant glass dragon or breathe life back into a dead rat
or whatever you might need without spending enough
Will to risk his own heart stopping.
Rinley Titov And even then it might not work!
Instead of the Yatskaya abilities, Rinley Titov Conversely, sometimes—when something’s “in tune”
would have: with the world and Death, and he’s willing to make the
effort—he can be pretty awesome.
ŭŭ Superior Dreamer 3
ŭŭ Superior Hunter 2 Caroline
Your big sister Caroline can disappear into a shadow,
Superior Hunter is a level 2 “be Robin Hood” kind jump at least five meters straight up, outfight a lion
of Skill that comes with 2 Edge when being kind of in a brawl, talk to cats as easily as to people, and do
Robin Hood-like is useful. magic—like, real magic, like witch magic, admittedly
This version of Rinley could track a ghost through by summoning the Witch of the Far Roofs down into
fifty miles of dreamland and catch a passing impres- her skin. This seems to ride on the Issues people have—
sion in her hand—not that anyone in your family her curses exaggerate the contradictions already present
would care or anything beyond occasionally calling in someone’s life, and resolve at the same time those
you rabbit and/or telling you to go catch one. Issues do; her other powers mainly play a support role
to that effect.
Playbooks 153
Most of the time... that means she’s a languid, patron- Bring people together. Keep them together. Level
izing, kind of cool older sister who runs the shrine. things out so that people can stay friends and nobody
She could probably help you with almost anything, gets too isolated!
but, like Kuroma, she’d have to burn a lot of Will to do
it, and she has her own business to attend to. Hints (Part 2)
Idril Nakano “Once upon a time, a witch and a glass-maker made

Kuroma’s friend Idril Nakano claims to be an octopus a dragon out of glass and taught it to hate the world.
spirit who’s taken human shape. He’s got white hair and It raged and it would have destroyed everything;
wears a white yukata and has a red dot on his forehead. only, it shattered, instead.”
He’s kind of a jerk and a prima donna, but he’s good — Campaign Premise
2
for Kuroma, so you tolerate him. He’s really just kind
of around, but maybe one day he’ll be revealed as an I think that the glass dragon shattered because of some-
awful villain, or have a redeeming tragic history, or be thing it understood about the world.
your gateway to under-lake adventure or something, so But what?
that’s why I’m mentioning him! I think—specifically because you’re the character
most likely to pursue such a question and because it
Eduard features in your long-term character arc—that you’re
Your friend Prince Eduard Fujimoto is a reckless probably going to have to be the PC to figure that out.
prince of the rats. Sometimes between sessions he’ll That’s a really long-term goal, though. It could take
drag you off on elaborate and fanciful adventures. He’s a while!
great at carousing and actually pretty good in a scrap,
except for that whole “he’s a foot and a half tall, not
Rinley Nicholas/Nicoletta Vasili
counting the tail” thing.
I’m assuming that “Nicholas” would be a boy’s middle
Hints name and “Nicoletta” a girl’s, but, really, it could go
either way! This version of Rinley would replace the
“Deep inside you is a core of rage; and it’s Yatskaya abilities with:
gotten loose.
“It escaped you when your boat sailed in to Town. ŭŭ Superior Connection to the Hearth 3
You don’t know how you know that. But you know. ŭŭ Superior Dreamer 1
It took some of your memories, some of your rage, ŭŭ Athletic 1
some of your grief, and now it is a great gold-scaled
python, poisonous and strong, that lives on the roof- Or you could swap that out for a different Vasili-
tops of Fortitude.” style connection (see the Chuubo’s Marvelous Wish-
— from the Prodigy’s “The Golden Granting Engine RPG.)
Snake of the Rooftops” quest Your big sister Mayu is pledged to the wind of the
high places, and one day they’ll carry her away. This
I think that the golden snake that you saved Eduard has some thematic similarity to the way the Dream-
from is a monster named Typhon, which is sometimes Witch works, so it’s possible that the HG will play that
a dragon, sometimes a snake, and sometimes a golden up. If there’s no PC Dream-Witch, Mayu may even be
whip, and which the Prodigy currently hunts. I think the Dream-Witch herself! Or you may unexpectedly
this might wind up connecting your story a little more lose her mid-game when the wind just... takes her.
closely to hers.
I think that in general your role is going to be to be
part of the social glue of the PC group.
154 Playbooks
Tall Tales Tall Tales
You’re a bit of a storybook figure sometimes, although Type: Affliction, based on your Something to Deal
you haven’t figured that out about yourself yet—you’re With Issue
on the road to becoming a trickster hero, holy fool, or Cost: —
transformative leader one day. For right now, you can
accomplish things in the background by telling a suit- if you’re an NPC, then this is based instead on
able tall tale about how you got it done. someone else’s Mystery / Illusion
In the world of Rinley Yatskaya, it’s apparently
normal to throw the rules to the wind and... Sometimes your methods for doing things are a
little unbelievable!
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ŭŭ ...sail on a thimble? Any time you have 1+ points in the Something
ŭŭ ...tap trees for root beer? to Deal With Issue, the following rules apply:
ŭŭ ...dig up gold from a random spot that seems
lucky when you’re short on money? ŭŭ You can invoke your Tall Tales power between
scenes or in a flashback, e.g. declaring that you
Stuff like that. “recently” used it to do something. (Sailed some-
Early in the game there’s a chance that you’re actu- where on a thimble, stitched up some torn clothing
ally just making these stories up and you actually got to using a cobweb, rapped on each door you walked
wherever or earned that bit of money the ordinary way. past until someone tossed a gold coin into your hands
And you’re always probably exaggerating a little when out the window, or whatever.) This lets you accom-
stuff happens completely off camera—but eventually plish whatever either automatically as a miracle or
even the most skeptical people will have to admit that with player and HG collaboration as a Ritual.
at least some of the time you’re actually and definitely It takes an Auctoritas of some sort or an opposing
doing some pretty amazing stuff. miracle with [Strike ≥ your Something to Deal
You’ll start with the ability to use Tall Tales to: With] to prevent this from happening.
ŭŭ It’s up to the HG on a case-by-case basis whether
ŭŭ Travel somewhere, possibly bringing others along. this invocation is a Ritual or a simple declaration.
ŭŭ Either: If the HG would rather handle it as a Ritual, it
• Repair clothes and other things made of fabric. goes something like this: regular play stops for a bit
• Make small amounts of money at need. while you summarize or narrate the details of what
you do/did to complete this task. Other players can
You can learn to do other things with it, though— participate by...
basically, enough practice or a “Perk” from a quest • ...throwing in descriptions of things
will add something to that list. If all you want to do is going on around you as you do this.
learn a new ability temporarily, or for that matter teach • ...throwing in descriptions or suggestions
someone one of these abilities temporarily, you can do of things you might do as part of this.
that as a 15-XP quest and it’ll last roughly until the end • ...giving emotional reactions to the story.
of the season (or until you “abandon” the quest.) • ...contradicting your claims with a proposal
of their own—explaining aloud why some
part of your description can’t possibly have
happened or “revealing” the magician’s trick
of how you “actually” achieved some effect.
ŭŭ Of these things, only contradictions slow you
down at all. You can usually hand-wave a
contradiction away by providing an explanation
of how you overcame that obstacle or why their
declared trick couldn’t possibly be what really
happened, but if a Main Character uses a miracle
Playbooks 155
On Cats
If you increase your Cat-Speaker to 3 (typically as
the reward for a quest) you’ll be able to have actual Quests
conversations with cats. That’s about the limit of your You start the game with three quests, and have the
natural potential, but in theory something magical power to swap them out or pick up more—you can
or soul-altering or otherwise freaky could let you pursue up to four quests at any given time.
increase it to 4-5. I’ve chosen three quests to...
Your family is bound to the cats of Fortitude. You
talk to them. You protect them. Caroline, at least, is a ŭŭ ...serve as your basic, default character motivation
strong enough magician to lead them. in play (“Story Time!”).
The rats, conversely, believe that if there are ever too ŭŭ ...give you extra direction in the first few sessions
many cats in Fortitude, a nightmare that they call Hedge (“The World is Changing”).
the Fang will manifest in the bodies of the cats and hunt ŭŭ ...tie you into the campaign plot (“The Straw-
2
the rats down. So they impose a strict quota: the humans Haired Kid”).
have to keep the local feline population under a thou-
sand or the current rat-human truce will be off. Bonus XP
That’s why your friendship with a rat prince is a Once per fun scene, though at most once per fifteen
little bit awkward. minutes of play, you can earn bonus XP for either of the
Your family would probably just roll their eyes if first two quests just by bringing them up—e.g.,
they knew—your father might try to “put his foot
down,” too, but he’d fail. On the other hand, it’s dimly ŭŭ ...saying “Storytime!” to recognize impending or
possible that you’d get disowned. Or that Prince ongoing story-telling;
Eduard would! ŭŭ ...declaring, in a relevant or amusing fashion, that
you or someone else is coming out of their shell
and growing up!
with [Strike ≥ your Something to Deal With] to
cast your story into doubt, or if they point out that You can earn a bonus XP for the third quest, the
your story is going to bump into an Auctoritas of Straw-Haired Kid, once per in-game week by picking
some sort and you can’t explain your way around a scene from the quest’s list of scene options to play out.
it, that stops you just as completely as their using
a miracle against the action itself. Other Quests
ŭŭ If you get into trouble because of something If you’re interested in another quest or two, and you
introduced with the use of this power, the HG have access to Fortitude: by the Docks of Big Lake,
may award you with some number of MP or I’d recommend looking at the quests for...
Will up to and including your Something to Deal
With rating. ŭŭ ...tending a garden or shrine in Maple Hill as a
“Shrine or Park Guardian.”
You’ll gain the Something to Deal With Issue ŭŭ ...becoming a Friend to the Street Cats
by spending time in peaceful and quiet places, doing (and Dogs).
laid-back and bittersweet scenes—basically, scenes ŭŭ ...keeping Up-to-Date with everyone in Fortitude.
where you’re being languid and casual tend to precede
scenes where you idly mention something ridiculous
and outrageous that you’ve recently done.
If you’re having trouble picking this Issue up organi-
cally in play, you can ask the HG to give you some kind
of appropriate dream or daydream or idle hour between
scenes, something to calm and free you and limber up
your mind for this kind of power, and to give you a
point of the Something to Deal With Issue as they
do. You don’t actually have to play it out if they agree.
156 Playbooks
Story Time!
15 XP Quests So in theory you make quest progress when the
stories you and the other PCs tell one another add a lot
: Chibi-Quest of flavor; or when a major part of a scene is listening
to someone else’s story, or someone listening to your
You love a good yarn, whether you’re telling one or lis- story, or a general exchange of stories. But the truth is,
tening to one and whether it’s true, false, or anything in identifying that kind of thing is too complicated. So
between. It’s part of why you get along with Eduard— let’s boil it down to this:
Playbooks
cats aren’t much for stories37 but Fortitude rats can’t get To earn a bonus XP for this quest, all you have to
enough of ‘em. You’re particularly fond of spinning do is declare the current scene to be or include a story-
just-so stories. time—usually by saying or emoting, “Storytime!”
You won’t generally have time to tell a full-length
story in play, so it might help to focus your stories on Rewards
3-4 “beats” of a few sentences each, which you can then Completing this quest earns you a Recharge Token—a
slip in between other things that are going on. (Set the cool thing, memory, or story. Once in the future, you’ll
topic, develop it a bit, provide a twist, and follow up be able to think back to that, maybe monologue on it
to some conclusion.) Like, “I had a cousin with a boat or tell it if you’ve got time and cope for that, and then
once.” “Sweetest little thing you’ve ever sailed.” “Until bam, it’ll refresh your supply of Will and wish power
it got eaten.” “You should never go sailing. You’ll lose (“MP.”)
your boat!”38
Story Time
Bonus XP XP
You love stories. Telling them. Listening to them. That’s important.
That’s cool.
So... you can earn a bonus XP for this quest with an emote or state-
ment that says, basically: oo, storytime!
Pick a catchphrase for this. You don’t have to use the exact same
catchphrase every time, but it’s the core of your experience here. It’s
usually pretty straightforward and to the point:
“Storytime!”
But it could be something like clutching dramatically at the air and
declaring, “Once... upon a time!” even when it’s not your story to tell.
37 Though the ones they do tell are pretty good ‘uns!

38 This is why they don’t let me write stories.
Playbooks 157
The World is Changing
XP
Bonus XP
You used to be so young. So sheltered.
Even a little shy.
But that’s changing now. You’re coming out of your shell now. And
it’s fascinating to you.
It’s not something you ever expected to happen. In the drug-misted
Yatskaya temple it always seemed to you like people just kind of
2
were, like Goro and Caroline and Kuroma and you yourself were just
always yourselves.
And now that you’re out in the world and the wind and the air is clear—
Say it! Notice it!
ŭŭ “Wow. I’m growing up.”
ŭŭ “Wow. I’m coming out of my shell.”
ŭŭ “Wow! You’ve changed!”
Whatever!
You can do that at any time (though only once per 15 minutes/scene) to
earn a bonus XP for this quest—and once you’ve established the pattern
there’s no reason you can’t be as delighted in other people growing up
as in you doing it yourself!
The World is Changing

25 XP Quest So you want to break the reserve of the other PCs.
1: Get them to come out of their shell. And you want to
grapple with growing up, yourself, usually by first
2: getting scared of or intimidated by something and then
“growing up” a little and facing it. But again, all that’s
The early part of the game is also the start of a major too complicated, so let’s focus on a simple declaration:
new epoch in your life. You’re starting to spread your To earn a bonus XP for this quest, all you have to do
metaphorical wings, figure out who you are, and is recognize or declare progress to exist: that is, declare
become somebody to reckon with—while as a player as part of a scene that you are growing up and coming
you have access to all your powers from the beginning, out of your shell, or that somebody else is!
you’re going to be using and discovering all the mirac-
ulous abilities for the first time IC during play.39 Variations
You’re also making a lot of new friends right now— Maybe you don’t actually want to get people out of
you just have to look at the other PCs and you can see their shells. Maybe you just want them to accept you
that these are people whose destinies are going to be into their shells—
interesting, and tangled up with yours, and that’s an Well, their lives—
exciting discovery for a kid who’d mostly been kind of Well, you know. Maybe you just want them to involve
alienated from everybody before. you in ordinary things, I mean. Or maybe there’s some-
thing specific that you want to get people involved in:
39 Some of them you’ll notice and be startled at. Others will be invisible like, you want to get together with some friends and
to you!
158 Playbooks
Groaning
Your bonus XP emotion is amused disdain. Like you Sometimes this will blur with a head-desk or speech-
feel when watching things that are so bad they’re good, lessness; in such a case, you can ask if that counts as a
or like a lot of older siblings feel towards their younger groan, and they can turn it into one by saying:
siblings in this age range.
I don’t mean that you want to feel that. I mean, you ŭŭ “...yes, yes,” or
want to get the other players to feel that. You want ŭŭ “...whatever.”
Rinley to evoke it. You want people to look at you and
kind of roll their eyes. Each such groan earns you one XP.
Basically, you’re aiming to be awkward, transparent, You can earn up to 1 groan XP every 15 minutes of
and impulsive. real time. However, another player can attempt to mess
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Camp and throwing in bad puns can help with this too! with you, either by having their character do annoying
things or by narrating some feature of your life. If you
Players express this emotion when they... play along with this and still manage to provoke a groan,
you can earn another XP that isn’t bounded by the fif-
ŭŭ ...groan. teen-minute rule.
ŭŭ ...say, “groan.” A classic example would go like this:
ŭŭ ...roll their eyes and head dramatically.
ŭŭ ...say, “eye-roll.” You: “OK, I’m cracking some eggs and
ŭŭ ...raise an eyebrow and squint dramatically at you. making omelettes.”
ŭŭ ...wave you airily off 2-3 times. Other Player, Messing with You, in
ŭŭ ...whine, “Rinley.” Narrator Voice: “And that is when Rinley
ŭŭ ...say, “biiiiiiiiiii (or beeeeeeee).” Yatskaya realized she’d forgotten to pack
ŭŭ ...snort. the insides of the eggs. She’d only brought
ŭŭ ...say, “Oh, Geez,” and then snort. the shells!”
ŭŭ ...pull down one eyelid and stick their tongue out You, bonking yourself on the side of
at you. your head: “Rinley! Can’t you take a
ŭŭ ...say “I don’t know you.” yolk?”37
37 Incidentally,
I used this example to figure out what
your XP condition would be. I said, “What emotion
would be amusingly challenging to produce when
someone has just narrated an absurd dilemma for
you?”
run a co-op store, or put together a band or secret club soon, my pretties, all the tact will be mine!” is strictly
or an official school club, and you need to drag people optional but qualifies.
into that.
Or maybe you’re not really concerned with courage or Rewards
growing up in general—your real challenge is learning The reward for this quest is usually a Power-Up
tact, or delicacy, or honesty, or cleanliness, or keeping Perk: something that gives +1 to one of your Skills.
your promises, or fairness, or temperance, or whatever. Alternately, you might get a small miraculous ability—
Anyway, you’re growing up! So pick a way that something comparable to the “Octopus Singer” ability
you’re changing, and a thing to be happy about when in the core book (that lets you lure octopi out from
other PCs do it, and that’ll be the core of the variant the lake).
quest. No matter what the basic bonus XP condition
is pretty much just declaring it—that your plans are
coming together, that you’re learning tact, whatever!
Rubbing your hands together and declaring, “Soon,
Playbooks 159
The Straw-Haired Kid
(aka “Adventure GET”)
35 XP Quest And maybe Totem or Palimpsest was there too.
1: (What’s its name, by the way?)
It was this little assemblage of trash, river clay, or
4: origami all folded up and come to life. It doesn’t talk
out loud, but it can communicate by folding itself
This quest begins the story into meaningful shapes, writing on itself as a scroll,
2
“Rinley Yatskaya Looks for Adventure,” pg. XX. revealing words already written onto its wrappers or
brass plates—something like that.
This is the story of how you meet somebody, somebody And there was this wolf. You saw it, by the water,
cute, and how you find out that they only have 1-3 before it turned and loped away.
seasons to live. Not even because of some disease or And you talked for a bit, and it was neat, but I don’t
something. They’re just that kind of short-lived creature. know what you said. It can come up in a flashback or
It’s the story of the straw-haired kid. something later. Right now, it’s just...
And there’s this cute little animated trash or clay You talked. And you realized when you finished
spirit, this living quest log, called Totem or Palimpsest, talking, sometime afterwards, that the straw-haired kid
and I bet one day it’ll be your magical companion. And must have been a spirit, and you wanted to look river
there’s this wolf that’s your friend’s death, that’s the spirits or whatever up in the local library or the Archive,
spirit of your friend’s death, and it’s hanging out. And but you didn’t find anything. Or, rather, that whole shelf
there’s this guy, Simon Brambles, and he’s going to try of stuff was rewritten into weird gibberish, and the one
to stop you from finding stuff out. Maybe in this quest. behind it too. It was weird and disturbing. Not that
Maybe the next one. He’s going to be all serious and you’ll know this yet, but Simon Brambles (pg. XX) got
fatherly, like he thinks that you’re better off not finding to the records first.
stuff out, but he’s probably going to be wrong and a jerk You’re not going to let that stop you.
because guys like him are that way. You haven’t found the kid again, but you won’t
But mostly? let that stop you either. In fact, it just makes things
It’s the story of how you meet. It’s kind of rough. more interesting.
Adventure GET!
See, there was this spirit hanging out by the river or
on the streets. Notes
You saw them. You’ll have that same sensation of “Wow! This person
And you thought they were cute. Someone you’d is going to be important to my story!” when you meet
kind of want to hold hands with, you know? Maybe, each other PC. You don’t necessarily think they’re cute
but probably not, kiss.40 So that makes them... or awesome, but it’s actually OK to get distracted by
their mysteries and their stuff as long as you don’t
ŭŭ ...Rafael Bannik, a boy? completely forget the straw-haired kid—
ŭŭ ...Sessily Shishika, a girl? That’s part of your adventure too!
They were playing with a paper bag blown in the

wind or maybe playing on a reed flute. And the moment
you saw them, you knew that they were going to be
really important in your story.
40 I guess you could also think they’re awesome and want to hang out
with them and share their reflected cool instead of hold hands, date,
or kiss. That works too!
160 Playbooks
Rewards
The typical reward for this quest is the level 2 Perk
“Shine.”
This lets people who are doing things for you, or in
your service, use that level 2 Shine as their base Skill if
their best applicable Skill is level 0-1.
Afterwards, I suggest reviewing the notes on pg. XX.
Finishing this quest usually also pushes you past the
orientation and excitement period on the stuff you’re
dealing with (new PCs! River spirit! Investigate! Cool!)
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and moves on to the phase where you decide what to do
and charge forward. For that phase, you’ll move on to
the quest, “Let’s Doing!”
The Straw-Haired Kid

(aka “Adventure GET”)
XP
Major Goals
ŭŭ ...trouble starts or gets much worse in a well-staged way—
whether that’s accidentally walking backwards into an enemy
camp, breaking into a supposedly empty manor during what turns
out to be a dinner party, or declaring that everything’s fine as long
as there aren’t any werewolves around just before werewolves
show up.
ŭŭ ...someone rescues you.
ŭŭ ...you stand in a shadowed place and tell someone a secret, then
run away before they can react.
Quest Flavor
1/chapter, you can earn a bonus XP towards this quest when you:
ŭŭ sneak into somewhere you shouldn’t go
ŭŭ risk trouble by digging into somebody’s secrets
ŭŭ drag others into your affairs/arrange their lives for them
ŭŭ propose a theory about the underlying situation you’re in
ŭŭ tell someone a story related to the underlying situation
you’re in
ŭŭ get into trouble trying to help somebody else
ŭŭ risk trouble in the name of adventure!
Playbooks 161
Mundane Abilities Yatskaya Abilities
As the Troublemaker, you have 8 points of Will and
the following mundane abilities: Claimed by the Sea
Type: Superior Skill Cost: —
ŭŭ Storytelling 2. You’re pretty good at Your great-great-great-whatever-grandfather was a seal
telling stories. and the sea hasn’t forgotten your family yet. It calls to
ŭŭ Legends 1. ...and you’ve heard a lot of them! you. Not much, or anything, but some! You’re unrealis-
tically good at swimming, tolerating cold water, under-
You have three mundane abilities with special rules standing fish, and communicating with seals and other
(detailed below): comparatively intelligent sea life.
It’s still only a level 1 Skill—there’s a lot of greats in
2
ŭŭ Claimed by the Sea 1. You’re good with that “whatever”—so it’s nothing to write home about,
the water. but it is superhuman. It comes with 1 Edge in relevant
ŭŭ Superior Cat-Speaker 2. You can talk to cats. mundane conflicts and occasionally a bit of dramatic
You’re also good at cat-like stuff. license to take a smaller wound from exposure or
ŭŭ Superior Dreamer 2. You’re really good at reduce the Obstacle for talking to a seal or whatever.
coping with strange things.
Superior Dreamer
You’ll want to replace Claimed by the Sea and Type: Superior Skill Cost: —
Superior Cat-Speaker with appropriate alternatives if You’re good at handling surreal, unreal, chaotic, and
you’re playing a Rinley from a different family. dream-like environments. You can dream lucidly, fall
asleep or wake up at will, and fend off mental attacks
Connections with ease. In addition to the baseline level 2 Skill, you
You start the game with the following free Connections— have 2 Edge in any mundane conflict that’s about any-
thing like that.
ŭŭ The Yatskayas 2. You’re at home at the Note that it’s almost impossible to use this Skill to do
Yatskaya Shrine. stuff in the waking world—if somebody else telepath-
ŭŭ Prince Eduard 2. You have a friend in this rat. ically assaults you or something, you might be able to
ŭŭ [Each PC] 1. You’re drawn to these people. turn the tables, but you can’t usually just shove people
out of the way when a bull is charging and say:
You can start with a level 2 Connection with any “I’ll handle it! I’ll use my... dreaming!”
other PC, instead, by mutual agreement. The results would almost certainly be gory.
Superior Cat-Speaker
You Have A Home In… This is a great Skill because you can use it to do all
Your home is always shrouded in vaguely psychoac- kinds of cat-like things—sneaking, getting to high
tive incense—it’s the way your family disposes of the places, being athletic, hunting, bobbing your head up
dust of the Outside. It’s really hard to distinguish truth and down while watching a bird out the window, and
from daydream in the Yatskaya shrine, and cats come so on! It’s only a level 2 Skill, but it comes with 1-2
and go as they please. Edge on any conflict where being cat-like is an advan-
tage, which means you’re basically a ninja or a SEAL41
except with a higher chance of embarrassing goofs.42
41 As it were
42 Both because “2 Skill + 1-2 Edge” inherently means “can keep up
with a Skill 3-4 person, but isn’t as practically effective” and because
cats themselves have a high hilarious failure rate on their otherwise
superhuman athletic and stealth skills.
162 Playbooks
You can also use this Skill to talk to cats—not only ŭŭ You have a strong heart.
do you have an exceptional skill at reading their body • You gain heart power (“miracle points”)
language and interpreting their noises, they’re substan- quickly when you’re in trouble.
tively smarter and more alert when interacting with • You can make your miraculous abil-
you. You can do stuff like tell a cat to go get help and ities stronger for a scene.
have a chance it’ll actually do so, or look at a cat’s body ŭŭ You can see and talk to the wishing power in a
language and realize that it’s smelling or hearing a large person’s heart.
predator coming from the... northwest?... that it thinks • You can tell when someone is putting
you should feel some concern about. Stuff like that! their heart into something.
• You can talk directly to somebody’s heart.
Perks
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• You can call up “wish spirits” to help you out.
Characters in this game have a handful of Perks. You ŭŭ The wishing power of the heart can change
gain them or improve them by completing quests, and what’s possible.
you can have up to 8. • You can make something seem more
You’ll start with these Perks: possible or more difficult.
• You can enhance other people’s
Connection: [Family] power to get things done.
You have a home at the family shrine. • You can handwave difficulties and
2 get things done tall-tale-style...
►► ...during scenes, with MP.
►► ...between scenes, as per your

Connection: the Dream-Witch
Tall Tales ability above.
2
You recently rescued this rat prince
from a golden snake. • You can shut down other peoples’
ability to do implausible things.
• You can change people’s destinies.
Connection: [A PC] ŭŭ You’ve learned some pretty weird things along
the way.
1
You have a level 1 Connection to each PC individ-
ually. At the start of the game, with their consent, • You tend to know a little bit more
you can upgrade this Connection to level 2
of any story that comes up.
• You can swap peoples’ wishing hearts
Miraculous Abilities around between their bodies.
In Chuubo’s Marvelous Wish-Granting Engine,
many characters have miraculous powers that derive Health
from “the wishing power of the heart, that can change You have 2 Normal Health Levels, 1 Tough Health
what is possible.” Level, and 2 Divine Health Levels. This is the “normal”
...but most of them don’t actually think of it that way. level of toughness for a character in Chuubo’s
One of your special powers is that you do think of Marvelous Wish-Granting Engine: you can survive
it that way—that you know that hearts have a wishing a lot, but mostly because of your adaptable nature and
power that can make things happen and you can use your wishing heart that finds solutions. For instance, if
that consciously. Because of that, you also have an odd you fall off of a cliff and break your back on the rocks
perspective on the possible: “what you can do without below, you won’t just die. But you won’t just laugh it
wish power” is the same kind of category to you as off and keep moving around normally either!
“what you can do while blindfolded” or “what you can Instead, maybe you’ll solve the problem yourself,
do while standing on one foot:” it’s a meaningful cate- however questionable your methodology might be
gory but not a very important one. (“luckily, there were plenty of seashells and bird feathers
As Rinley Yatskaya, you have the following miracu- nearby to melt down into a full-body cast.”) Or maybe
lous abilities: something else will save you: the magical water of the
Playbooks 163
pool you fell into will turn you part-plant or something, Spiritual
or a bunch of fairy doctors will happen along! You spent your childhood sealed away from the world
in the dream-like fastness of the Yatskaya, cool and
Miracle Points quiet and alienated from ordinary things.
You have 5 Miracle Points (MP) to enhance or activate I am certain that in this time you lived a thousand
your miraculous abilities. stories: had strange adventures in that place where day-
You regain 1 MP, to a maximum of your normal 5... dreams border on the real. And certainly when you did
not live them you must have read them, heard them,
ŭŭ ...at the beginning of each new week. told them. These stories I do not know; they are not writ
ŭŭ ...from your Frantic ability when you get herein; but they are still remembered.
into trouble. The game records them in a miraculous story Arc, or
2
set of Arcs, Spiritual 3.
You can also gain additional MP, with no partic- These are what bound you to your “Element”—the
ular maximum... wishing power of the heart that can change what’s
possible and what isn’t—and gave you most of your
ŭŭ ...through Issues miraculous powers.
ŭŭ ...when Region Properties get you into trouble.
ŭŭ ...when your Tall Tales ability gets you Fears of a Sinking Thimble
into trouble. Type: Miraculous Action [with free Strike =
ŭŭ ...when you spend a week diligently honoring a Arc level]
Region Property. Cost: 0 MP
Not many people are bold enough to sail on a
thimble, but you believe in dreams and wishes and the
Ah, the Angel. Right. magic power of the heart. That’s why you can do things
Nightmares’ Angel, being heartless, is sometimes like that!
immune to your powers. In particular, powers that Only...
affect his wishing heart are likely to fail when he is not What if the power of the heart... went away?
in sunlight or even altogether. No worries! You’re pretty sure you’d know before
you actually got on board that thimble. You have a
magic wish-warning that tells you when something bad
is happening to wishes and dreams—to that power in
the heart that makes it possible for people to bend the
world. This power also lets you know if something bad
is happening to the Wish-Granting Engine, although if
you don’t yet know what that is the warning would be
an extremely confusing alert.
You don’t always get this warning, even when you
should—so if the HG forgets, that’s just too bad, and
I’m not listing it among your major powers. Basically,
it’s here in case you or the HG is ever looking for it,
rather than as something you should be relying on
every day!
164 Playbooks
There’s a Tree in the Way Heart-Speaker
Type: Miraculous Action Type: Special Cost: —
Cost: While you have Heart-Reader active, you can speak
ŭŭ 0 MP—Use this power (every few hours). directly to somebody’s wishing heart—to the part
ŭŭ 1 MP—Use this power a second or later time in a of them that pours its love and wishes into stuff, or
handful of hours. doesn’t. The heart only really cares about emotional
information, but sometimes you can sneak in factual
You can impose a vague sense of dream-like impos- data if the emotional relevance is high.
sibility—of “nobody could really do that”—on some- Your actual speaking is just a normal action, but
thing. Like, someone wants to go into the woods, and you can bypass obstacles related to communication
Playbooks
you don’t want them to? (“they can’t hear you over this concert”) or mental state
There’s a tree in the way. (“they’re just not going to listen”) when it comes to
You can also create a vague aura of plausibility over encouraging or discouraging somebody. You’ve essen-
something, so that when you first explain that your plan tially got a broadcast radio that’s tuned to the frequency
for getting to the moon is “catapult,” it doesn’t seem of the heart.
so ridiculous.
This is not a very strong power: all it does is create
a sense that something should be impossible, or should
Power Comparison
be possible, but if someone stops and thinks about it The Best Friend has a similar power, Touch the
they can see right through you and if somebody ignores Heart, but his power is both weaker and more general.
the feeling it has no or minimal effect. However, even if He can communicate with people, and not just their
someone tries to ignore you and this power completely, wishing hearts, so he can convey information that isn’t
there will always be a sense of dream-like wonder or so emotionally important—but if someone can’t see
reasonability painted onto the target idea. or hear him, he’s not going to be able to talk to them
at all!
Heart-Reader
Type: Miraculous Action Cost: 0 MP
Invoke Heart-Reader to tell whether something is a
labor of love, an ordinary act, or the dreary trudge of
somebody just going through the motions. You can
invoke this power real-time or after-the-fact, and you
can even get a detailed sense of how much love is
in something.
This is also the power that lets you see people
who’ll be important to your destiny. By default, this
is assumed to include the other PCs, and it’s a kind of
overwhelming sensation—even if you decide not to
be actually younger than the other PCs, even if you’re
older, you’re still bonus goofier and more awkward
around them because you can see how important they’ll
be to you even before they actually are. It’s like love at
first sight, only with ambivalent general connectedness
instead of love—
And you’ll often get that to a similar or lesser degree
for Arc-specific antagonists, associates, and romantic
interests as well.
Playbooks 165
There’s No Turning Back Now! Work of Fable
Type: Miraculous Action Cost: Type: Miraculous Action Cost: 1 MP
ŭŭ 0 MP—Enhance the power of a wishing heart 1/ Spend an MP and invoke Work of Fable to:
week.
ŭŭ 1 MP—Use this power a second or later time ŭŭ Handwave away a level 1-3 Obstacle involving
this week. “completely inadequate tools.” You can make a
ŭŭ 2 MP—Use this power a second or later time in a great breakfast with just two eggs and a turnip,
handful of hours . sail Big Lake in a kettle, and shoot down a
zombie gunman with a water pistol.
Invoke this power when somebody is following their ŭŭ Spot any useful opportunities that you might
dreams and you can strengthen their power to go otherwise be missing, including opportunities to
2
forward. This has one or more of the following effects, meet someone helpful.
as you choose: ŭŭ Re-use an effect from the powered-up version of
this ability below, as long as the circumstances are
ŭŭ Unless they’ve already got something like this close enough (HG’s discretion) to how you used
going on... it before.
• ...they get a +1 Tool bonus from “wish
power” to whatever they’re doing. Note that in some cases you can save the MP and still
• ...they get about 1 Edge in a do what you want to do by waiting until the scene ends
mundane conflict, too. and then using Tall Tales.
ŭŭ An opportunity or helpful person is drawn to
them. How fast it gets there depends on the Wish Spirit
natural pace of events—normally, a couple of Type: Miraculous Action
weeks, but it’s always fast enough to be useful Cost:
(which could be “seconds” in a combat scene, or ŭŭ 1 MP—Call up a wish spirit.
“years” if it’s a life’s ambition). ŭŭ 2 MP—Invoke this power a second or later time
ŭŭ Some kind of trouble appears on the road behind within a handful of hours.
them, so that they’ll be in trouble if they try to
turn back or give up. Again, how fast it catches up Invoke Wish Spirit to call a wish spirit to you. Wish
to them depends on the natural pace of events. spirits are natural spirits, like will-o-wisps and flower
fairies, that make people wish for things. They all love
Divine Mantle you and think you’re basically a really big wish spirit
Type: Miraculous Action [Special] Cost: 1-3 MP with thumbs, so they’ll generally be as helpful as they
Spend up to the Arc’s rating in MP and invoke Divine can once you summon them.
Mantle to give all your miracles, for the rest of the ...which isn’t very much! But they’re cool, and they
scene, miraculous “Edge” equal to the MP spent. can fly, carry messages, and illuminate things. They are
Miraculous Edge works just like Strike, but it doesn’t also good at beatboxing.
add to Strike (you get whichever is best) and it doesn’t
break Auctorita.
When you invoke the Divine Mantle you are wreathed
in an aura of wish power—you burn brightly with the Anti-Wish Spirits
“wishing power” of your heart!
Sometimes a wish spirit goes wrong and becomes an
This aura is a subjective/experiential radiance, like
anti-wishing fairy instead. Instead of making people
the effect of There’s a Tree in the Way, and not a
wish for things, they get really upset when confronted
matter of visible light or tangible effect.
with a wishing heart. “Just cut that out!” they say.
“Nobody wants to be around that sort of thing!”
166 Playbooks
The World Doesn’t Work Like That! ŭŭ The effects are awesome but compara-
Type: Miraculous Action, Bleak tively understated.
Cost: ŭŭ The power of the effect is that of a Major miracle
ŭŭ 2 MP—Put a stop to a magical/heroic action, or while sustained.
crush a hope. ŭŭ Once you stop sustaining the miracle, the power
ŭŭ 4 MP—Use this power a second or later time in a level normally43 fades to that of a series of
handful of hours. mundane coincidences and Obstacles.
Invoke The World Doesn’t Work Like That! to: Swap Hearts
Type: Miraculous Action, Major Cost: 4 MP
Playbooks
ŭŭ Completely shut down a mundane action Invoke Swap Hearts to extract somebody’s wishing
facing an Obstacle 2+, or any similarly improb- heart and put it in someone or something else. Typically
able miracle. this forces a swap, although you can do a little bit of
ŭŭ Cause something amusing, ironic, or tragic to juggling for 3+ way swaps if you need to. If the HG
happen to turn a hope recently stated aloud in play introduces the Ideologue, you may be able to learn her
into dismal despair. technique for hanging on to the heart and turning the
abandoned body into a giant monster instead!
A Little More to Any Tale If you swap or otherwise move around a PC’s heart—
Type: Miraculous Action well, first, note that they’ll probably defend by taking a
Cost: wound which defines their own variation on the desired
ŭŭ 2 MP—Know a little more than you should. effect, but second, note that players retain their usual
ŭŭ 4 MP—Use this power a second or later time in a character sheet in a new body, keeping all of their
handful of hours. miraculous and Imperial abilities and changing only
those mundane Skills directly affected by the change.
You’ve heard a lot of weird stories. (If players want to keep playing their old body with
Invoke A Little More to Every Tale to know a little new powers and a new personality, I’m OK with that!
more about anything that’s come up in play. If the HG But it breaks the game’s model of events a little, so I
doesn’t want to share, you can generally come up with can’t recommend it.)
new information yourself! It’s up to the HG whether hearts eventually drift back
As a special rule, if the HG isn’t sure you’re right— to their former owners or stay swapped forever. I’d rec-
whether they want to give you tentative information or ommend assuming that PC hearts drift back to the right
are skeptical of your proposed new bit of data—you get body by the end of the story, though.
the MP back. You learned this trick from an old cat, who learned it
from spending too much time snoozing on the back of
Change Destinies something called “Malambruno.” Also most of his hair
Type: Miraculous Action, Major Cost: 4 MP fell out. It looks ridiculous!
You can change the destiny or purpose of a wishing
heart, which pretty much means “of a person.” This
functions pretty much as a weaker version of a
wish—like:
“I wish they’d always have friends around them.”
“I wish their destiny was to be a librarian.”
Only, because it’s not a wish, because it’s a miracle,
there are the following differences:
ŭŭ Resisting is easier.
ŭŭ Outright ignoring the effect inflicts just a single 43 Once you stop sustaining the miracle, it’s in the HG’s hands, and they
can technically do whatever they want with it, including ignoring it
Deadly Wound instead of two. immediately or scaling it up all the way to wish level—but normally,
it gets pretty weak.
Playbooks 167
Great Work of Fable
XP
Bonus XP
You have something you need to do, but you just don’t have the means.
Every idea you come up with has a level 4-5 Obstacle—it’s as unfeasible
as suddenly teleporting to Mars or building a perpetual motion machine.
But if you keep trying, you’re sure you’ll figure something out.
You can earn a bonus XP towards this quest at any time (though only
2
once per 15 minutes/scene) by proposing a theory as to how you’ll get
this thing done, or, if you already know basically what you want to
do, by proposing a theory about how and why it might actually work.
If there’s nothing else important going on in the game, you’ll usually
then play this out in a dream sequence before cruel reality shows that it
just won’t work after all.
Great Work of Fable new quest to make it possible again. (How could it be
Type: Miraculous Action, Quest Miracle; Major Cost: — impossible? You’ve done it!)
Spend a 15-XP quest planning and pondering your As long as the HG buys that the circumstances are
approach and you can upgrade either Work of Fable sufficiently close (e.g., they might restrict you to the
or There’s No Turning Back Now! to an epic level— same hollow log, or to hollow logs in the same area,
You can wave off even level 4-5 Obstacles involving or of the same wood, or similar shape, or something),
inadequate tools and learn to sail on a thimble, post you just need to spend a single MP on Work of Fable
letters via hollow logs, and telephone somebody when to do it again.
your phone lines have been cut and they’re not even This advantage lasts basically until a reasonable HG
holding a phone. Further, you can demand that an might forget that you’d done it. Thus, if you use such an
opportunity or helpful individual show up to facilitate advantage every session or two and there’s no huge gap
something you plan to do even if they wouldn’t other- between sessions, it stays possible. Otherwise, you may
wise exist—prompting possible scenes like: have to keep track of these effects yourself and remind
the HG occasionally of them in some orderly fashion.44
Them: “How did you get in?” This is also the powered-up version of There’s No
You: “You left your window unlocked.” Turning Back Now—you can use it to figure out how
Them: “I don’t have a window.” to make things possible for someone else, not just your-
self, and after that it’s just 1 MP to make it possible for
The effect is persistent—once you’ve established that yourself or that someone again in the future.
you can post letters via a hollow log, then it’s obviously
no longer a great work of fable to do so. If you stayed ,
on the quest after finishing it, then you can do that very
thing again—
The Obstacle is gone!
Even if you finished the quest, though, the mere
act of establishing something as possible lingers and 44 It’s not really that I think the HG needs to know the details of what
reduces the expected Obstacle to level 1-3 more or less you can do, or that the HG needs to monitor or control your use of
indefinitely. That in turn means that you don’t need a this. I just don’t want the session to break down into “No, remember
back when I did this and that?” “Wait, sort of, wasn’t it when…” or
“Dang it, if I’d remembered you could do that, I would have done
this…”
168 Playbooks
Rinley’s Dreams
Bonus XP XP
To wield some of your greater miracles you must exist outside your-
self—must set aside living and walk into dreaming, so that you can see
your own heart’s wish power from outside and shape it with a medita-
tive care.
Playbooks
You may earn a bonus XP towards these miracles at any time (but only
once per 15 minutes/scene) by shifting into that state—or, if appropriate,
by shifting out from it. I’ve provided a two-sided card to help you track
these events; you’ll normally keep it in front of you, flipping it over in
play to indicate your change of state.
If you can’t actually keep the card in front of you, though, holding up
the card with the relevant side facing people or just saying or emoting
something appropriate can earn you the XP instead.
Note: This is a valid quest card for “Great Work of Fable” as well as
for “Rinley’s Dreams.”
Rinley’s Dreams
Type: Miraculous Action, Quest Miracle; some-
Living in the Now times Major
Cost: —
Certain Spiritual miracles are slower, time-con-
suming things. To evoke these greater effects, you
must return to your old ways—to dreaming your
life away in the temple of the Yatskaya or, at least,
spending portions of your life in a dream-life state—
for the duration of a 15-XP quest. Some of these
great slow miracles include:
Using your dreams to investigate something to
Drifting in the Wind
do with wish power or the wishing power in a
certain person’s heart.
Use wish power in some fashion as a Major
miracle to protect or heal something or
stabilize it against the influence of fear, trauma,
tragedy, and the Outside.
The “great works of fable,” discussed here.
Playbooks 169
Creature of Fable Iconic
Lately you have come out of your shell. Now you are Type: Imperial Miracle or Miraculous Action, Major
moving forward with your life. Now you are becoming Cost:
something new. ŭŭ 0 MP—Maintain an iconic appearance, to the
A creature, as it happens, of fable. extent reasonable.
This is a new story Arc. A new path. And it starts at ŭŭ 1 MP—Invoke a major miracle to revert your
Creature of Fable 0. appearance instantaneously.
Frantic You have an iconic appearance—a certain hairpiece,

Type: Special Cost: — maybe; a certain fixed level of grubbiness and cleanli-
You’re never so resilient as when you’re terrified. ness; a handful of standard outfits. The details are up to
2
You may take the (Be in) Trouble Action any you and you can fiddle with them in the first story or
time you can meet its condition. Doing so earns you two, but the point is, you have one. You have a look.
1 MP, up to a maximum of your starting MP. Each When people read about you in a few centuries there
additional group XP that you earn from this Action also will be an iconic Rinley.
earns you an additional MP. That’s you.
And to a certain extent that never changes. You can be
dolled up for hours and become slightly grubby again
Arc Powers in an instant. You can trudge through a bog for weeks,
Frantic is your “Arc power”—you get it for being on shake the water out of your pants, and be practically
one of the Arcs that grant Frantic. If you change to a clean again.
different Arc, it’s replaced by whatever power that Arc Whether it’s fashionable, dorky, scruffy, pure, or
offers instead. That will usually be either: “cool,” one shake of your hair and one pat-down of
your clothes and bam! You’re back to yourself.
ŭŭ Sickly (if death and decay have been getting This power has two models for operation.
to you.) The free version is limited by reason. It’s an Imperial
ŭŭ Immortality (if they very much haven’t.) miracle, and it lets you resume your normal standard of
ŭŭ Frantic (in which case you just stay Frantic! The appearance to the extent reasonable, and via a visible
power is always the same.) progression that could be stalled or held back by others
if they fight. If your hair’s been shorn by a marauding
The rest of your powers are either permanent (all shorn-beast, it might not pop back to its full length
your Spiritual powers) or will become permanent instantly; instead, you hold out your hand, someone
(your Creature of Fable powers) as soon as you com- tosses you a wig, and you put it on, just in time for the
plete your first Arc. wind to blow you a new strawberry-leaf crown to hold
it on. If you’ve been forced into an elaborate get-up for
a marriage ceremony, it might unravel slowly enough
for panicking servants and relatives to keep on top of
Tall Tales things until the moment before the pledge.
Type: Affliction, based on your Something to Deal If that’s unsatisfying, the second version lets you
With Issue spend an MP to invoke a major miracle that simply
Cost: — instantaneously rewrites you as looking the way you
if you’re an NPC, then this is based instead on ought to look.
someone else’s Mystery / Illusion If you ever wish to change your iconic appearance
This power, discussed in detail above, comes from you may do so by spending a Recharge Token; when
your early Creature of Fable Arc. the book ends, or the next book if you barely had any
time to evaluate it, you’ll decide whether to keep the
new version of yourself or go back to the old.
170 Playbooks
Actions and Issues Tall Tales
Here’s some things you’re often doing. Explain the weird folk-tale
stuff you’ve been doing.
Pastoral Stuff Ritual
Lazy days: soak up ambience while hanging
out somewhere (the shrine, Maple Hill, Your tall tales power is usually a bit formalized—it’s
a roof in Fortitude, or whatever).
not about you giving a good OOC explanation, and it’s
Slice of Life usually not just about your explaining things IC. They’re
a bit more like the narrator pausing to tell a story from
You’re cat-like enough to really enjoy just being some- the future of one of the things Rinley Yatskaya did, you
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times. You can get bonus XP for these scenes a couple know, back when.
of times a week.
Troublemaking Issues
Poke around with something If you pick up a Complex, I recommend that
or somewhere new.
you’re overreacting to some snub or kindness and
Discovery building it up in your mind into an epic thing.
Do things you oughtn’t. Your most common Vice is probably some-
thing relatively harmless like snooping or pestering,
Wicked Action
although laziness or getting into fights might sneak in
there (particularly if you haven’t brought in the Idol
You’re a mercurial and sometimes bratty kid. from another campaign.)
Paying Attention Something to Deal With Issue under “Tall Tales,”
Listen wide-eyed to people’s stories. above.
Foreshadowing
Feel things strongly: be shocked and

overcome and take things personally,
maybe because they are personal
and maybe because you’re a kid.
Shock
People’s stories can totally suck you in. You love stories.
You’re also generally pretty emotionally vulnerable
to the world and prone to being overwhelmed by it—
whether it’s being overwhelmed by a sunset, assuming
that a particular legend is secretly about you or your
friends, or trembling at the realization that your friend
is going to die.
Playbooks 171
Timeline 1-2: Playing Timeline 3: Starting in
through your Childhood the Modern Day
The HG may want to play through your childhood at In a game that starts in the present, the sun died and was
an accelerated pace—probably about 50x acceleration, reborn when you were around 7. You probably didn’t
covering a year in about the same time you’d usually save Prince Eduard and start having adventure in your
cover a week. life until very recently—1-3 months ago.
In a game like that, your history would look like this:
Age 2: Your mom is snatched away by a giant bird. Mommy?

I assume that in a long-running campaign your moth-
Age 4: This is when the game would start. er’s disappearance will eventually become relevant,
2
but by default, you’ll grow up thinking that everything
Age 4-7: You meet the other PCs, and you might even possible has been done and she’s just, well, gone.
see the destiny in them, but you’re probably actually a One day you’ll probably realize, “OMG, I could
bit shy early on. try to find out what exactly happened!” and it’ll be a
transformative moment for you because you’ll never
Age 8-9: This is a good time to meet Prince Eduard and have really even considered the possibility before.
start coming out of your shell and actively getting to However, note that the HG is not obligated to figure
know the other PCs. out this plot before running a game with you in it—
your family only knows what the HG does decide on
Age 14: The present. plus what they can improvise on the fly, and not a jot
or tittle more!
(The major difference between timeline 1 and 2 is I’m currently expecting there to be more on this in
when the old sun dies, which isn’t very personally rel- the forthcoming book on the rats of Fortitude.
evant to you. In timeline 1, it was around the time your
mother was carried off, but probably not exactly the
same time. Or was it?
In timeline 2, it happens when you’re 7.)
172 Playbooks
The Prodigy
[[CHARACTER SPLASH, identical to the one in the Prodigy lifepath.]]
Playbooks 173
You are Natalia Koutolika, a Russian émigré to Town.
Summary You lived in Russia and you were cold. You were
You are Natalia Koutolika, the Prodigy, a Russian cold and hard and bitter and you were just a kid. You
émigré to Town. You are talented and have the potential were smart and you were street-smart. You were fierce
to be a hero, but for years your heart was frozen and it and you were strong. You were truly incomparable—
has only just begun its thaw. one of the best, perhaps the best, in an entire mortal
generation—and you were in despair; for no matter
Primary Quests how strong or smart or clever a little Russian girl was,
ŭŭ Enjoy the peaceful moments—the lulls between no matter how many math problems you could solve or
the storms. black belts you could beat up, there wasn’t any way that
2
ŭŭ Hunt down an evil magic roof snake born from you could change the world.
your past trauma. Nobody could.
ŭŭ Thaw your frozen heart. That’s what you thought, anyway, until your family
moved to Town.
Bonus XP When... This is a really weird place. It’s probably not even
Players wince in sympathy or “aww, poor thing” in a real place—like, maybe this is a dream, or a KGB
sadness at what Natalia goes through. experiment, or something. The people here don’t notice
it as much as you do, but this isn’t like any foreign
Powers country you’ve ever heard of. It’s not like America
You’re incredibly talented—a once-in-a-generation or Greenland or France or anywhere like that. It’s too
prodigy near the peak of human mental and physical peaceful. It’s too good. People anchor their laundry
potential. In particular you have access to a legendary lines with little bits of floating rock and the rats talk way
strength of spirit: what some martial artists call “over- too much, way more than any rats you’ve ever heard of,
flowing Chi” or “Ki” and some other PCs call “the anyway, and the fact that you can’t tell whether they’re
wishing power of the heart.” speaking Russian or English or for that matter whether
In your day-to-day life you’re just an extremely com- you are speaking Russian or English is disturbing on a
petent teenaged girl. When you push yourself to excel different level entirely.
you’ll rival pulp science adventurers, cinematic kung Your family just laughs at you. “You are just being
fu heroes, and even supernatural or divine warriors out silly, Natashenka45,” they say, when you go on about
of legend. stuff like that. When you explain to them that Town
cannot possibly exist.
Common Variations But that’s OK.
Shake it up! For an atypical Prodigy experience, pick It’s OK that it’s like this, and it’s OK that nobody
one or more of the following: believes you that it’s strange, because somehow—
somehow this place is good for you. Somehow when
ŭŭ You are Antony Yuryevich, a boy. you look around at all the people pretending to believe
ŭŭ You are Natalia Cordova, from Spain. in a peaceful world it makes your heart hurt with hap-
ŭŭ You are Natalie Coutourier, from France. piness. Somehow when you look up in the sky and see
ŭŭ You are Zeinaba Kiros, from a hidden kingdom the shining of the sun, it makes you feel better about
near Ghana. the world. Somehow it’s knocked the burden from you.
Somehow it’s melted you. Somehow this place and its
people have made you laugh, and then made you care,
and then made you believe—
O the madness of the world!
45 Your family calls you Natashenka even though it is not your real
name and takes almost 13.5% longer to say. The familiarity of the
nickname comforts you but the inefficiency is infuriating.
174 Playbooks
—that it matters. That something matters. That there Hints
is a point.
Because you know what? “Once upon a time, a witch and a glass-maker made
You know what? a dragon out of glass and taught it to hate the world.
If there can be a place like this—if there can be things It raged and it would have destroyed everything;
like this, if there can be stuff like this, if there can be a only, it shattered, instead.”
place like TOWN—then the world is not as closed and — Campaign Premise
terrible and barren and lifeless as you thought, as you
knew, as you were certain it was always going to be. Part of this campaign is about that glass dragon, and
If the world secretly has places like this in it, then it’s specifically that...
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OK, then everything’s OK, then it’s a world where it’s
possible for someone like you to fight for justice, to ŭŭ ...the glass dragon is coming back to life...
make a difference, to dream of making everything in ŭŭ ...a new one is being made; and/or
the whole world better. ŭŭ ..the PCs will satisfyingly investigate the reasons
And you will, you know. You will fight. and truths behind this story.
And you will win.
I think there should be a parallel between you and
Home and Family that glass dragon. You’re not the same thing or anything
You live in Fortitude, that sleepy and sprawling fishing (because it just doesn’t quite fit), but you come to Town
neighborhood by the docks of the Big Lake. with this despair in you, this world-hate and this sup-
Your father is named Yuri. He has a small fishing boat. pressed rage, and then Town is going to shatter that.
Sometimes he helps out at the bait store which is run by So...
Old Ivan. Your mother is named Lenya. She works at It’s possible that you’ll feel weirdly at home with any
the bakery on the weekends but during the week she dream-witches or glass-makers you meet.
stays home with your 2-year-old brother Sergey. Your It’s possible that if the glass dragon comes back to
tutor is named Nikolai. He doesn’t seem to mind that life, or a new one shows up, that it’ll see itself in you
you’re a bit skittish around teachers and sometimes skip and vice versa—that it’ll be your reflection.
some of your lessons. Some of your older male cousins, It’s possible that one of your roles in the story is to
such as Vanya and Aleksey, have also moved to Town. mourn for a glass monster nobody else would mourn
All 48 Russian immigrants in Fortitude (from Old for, or to show it whatever answer you find to despair,
Ivan at the bait shop to the Widow Morozova in her or to keep people from being too quick to kill it or vice
mansion) treat you as family. versa if it does come back.
That’s why your first quest is to fight something a
bit mysterious, a bit connected to you, and a bit like a
Natalie Coutourier dragon, and to kill it—so you can see where that path
Some players may find Natalie Coutourier, the does and doesn’t lead.
French version of the Prodigy, a more mature and
sophisticated character choice.
In addition to being French, Natalie Coutourier is
Natalia Cordova
Natalia Cordova, the Spanish version of the Prodigy,
an eternally youthful vampire princess. Like most
adopts the hero identity “Masked Justice.”
vampire princesses, she can walk safely in the sunlight
She’s the child of retired pulp adventure heroes and
and mask the disconcertingly predatory vampiric body
grew up having all kinds of adventures and learning
language. She grew to resent the endless politics of
to handle herself in the world. Then something awful
the vampire courts and came to Town. You may wish
happened, like trouble with the government or being
to replace Frozen Heart with something vampire-spe-
captured by evil were-sharks, and it froze her heart and
cific. Her chronological age is probably 80-150 and
made her family move to Town.
her mental age is probably 15-20, where it will likely
She hasn’t put on a mask and been a swashbuck-
permanently remain.
ling hero in over a year and a half—or, if you arrive
in Town at age 5, ever—but maybe in the first story or
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two of the game, she’ll realize that it’s time. 175
Quests
Zeinaba Kiros
Zeinaba Kiros, the African version of the Prodigy, is
power to swap them out or pick up more—you can
the princess of a hidden kingdom.
pursue up to four quests at any given time.
Zeinaba’s father’s evil half-brother obtained either
I’ve chosen three quests to...
American or Soviet backing for a palace coup, exiling
Zeinaba into a pointless life of soirees, private jets, and
high-class boarding schools. This wouldn’t be so bad,
in play (“Peaceful Moments”).
but she’s discovered that he’s devastated the country in
ŭŭ ...give you extra direction in the first story or two
her absence. I’m leaving that devastation nonspecific
(“The Golden Snake of the Rooftops”).
but I assume it involved lots of misery among either
ŭŭ ...tie you into the campaign plot (“Thaw
the populace, family members left behind, or both,
2
Your Heart”).
as well as some sort of psychic, Atlantean, or ancient
astronaut technology which her uncle had uncovered.
Bonus XP
If she gets to Town at 5 years old, she probably just
Peaceful Moments and Thaw your Heart are very
caught a brief confusing glimpse of what her uncle was
personal quests—they earn bonus XP when you feel
doing before being sent first to America and then to
certain things. I’ve prepared props for you that add a
Town. Otherwise, she probably lives a happy and priv-
bonus layer of meaning here, but at the core, you just
ileged life until around age 10-13, when she borrows
have to decide and then emote that your PC is feeling
a small plane, pilots it back to her native country for
certain things and you can earn a bonus XP. You can get
a jaunt, and discovers the devastation. When she real-
that bonus XP up to once per fun scene and up to once
izes that she’s been enjoying life while this horror goes
per fifteen minutes.
on at home, her heart breaks; when she realizes that
As for the middle quest, The Golden Snake of the
she can’t fix it, her heart freezes.
Rooftops, you can earn a bonus XP for this quest once
per in-game week by picking a scene from that quest’s
list of scene options to play out.
Other Quests
If you’re interested in another quest or two, and you
have access to Fortitude: by the Docks of Big Lake,
ŭŭ ...becoming a Friend to the Birds of Fortitude.

ŭŭ ...being an Explorer and traveling the paths of
Big Lake.
ŭŭ ...spending time out on the water in the Love for
the Water quest.
ŭŭ ...becoming a more Dependable Person.
At Peace I don’t have time for this.
176 Playbooks
Peaceful Moments
15 XP Quest Rewards
: Chibi-Quest Completing this quest earns you a Recharge Token—
somehow the peace you’ve found has coalesced into
You like the simple, peaceful moments—the moments substance, not literally, probably not literally anyway,
after the storms, when the metaphorical waters smooth but into substance in the form of a trinket, knickknack,
and everything is OK. smooth stone, colored shell, memory, or gift that
You’re not really good at accepting them— you treasure.
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If there’s anyone else around to share the moment Once in the future, you can think back to that, or roll
with, it’s hard for you not to immediately turn your it in your hand, and it will restore your Will and MP
thoughts to everything that’s wrong— (“wish power”) to full.
But those are the moments that you live for.
To earn a bonus XP for this quest, all you have to do
is decide and emote that this is one of those moments.
Take a cup of tea and stare out at the water. Sit up on
a roof and listen to the birds. Fall over and zone out
because a big job’s been done. You can express this
any way you like but I’d recommend printing out and
holding up your At Peace sign (pg. XX).
It says At Peace on the side you’re showing everyone,
and on the other side, it reminds you: You Don’t Have
Time For This.
Peaceful Moments
Bonus XP XP
You need peace. You love the simple, quiet moments. But it’s hard for
you to accept them. It’s hard for you to allow yourself to stop.
I’ve prepared a sign for this —
A sign to show that you’re at peace for a moment, that things are OK
for the moment, and that you’re relaxing. You can earn a bonus XP at
any time (though only once per 15 minutes/scene) by expressing that
emotion—normally, by holding up the sign.
The back side of the sign will remind you that you don’t have time.
If you’re not playing in a place where you can actually hold up the
sign, it’s OK to just remind yourself quietly of what it says, or, if you
must, ignore the back side in its entirety.
What’s your sign?
Playbooks 177
The Golden Snake of the Rooftops
25 XP Quest Anyway, the point of this quest is twofold:
1:
ŭŭ ...to give you an excuse to wander Fortitude, act
2: a bit suspicious, meet the other PCs, and think of
4: yourself as a hero of justice, while also keeping
5: the actual menace to the shadows and the roofs
and other places that don’t disturb the sleepy
There’s a reason that your heart froze. There’s a reason nature of the region; and
2
that you stopped believing in the world. ŭŭ ...to give you a reason to talk about what hap-
Something wrong happened. You were betrayed by pened in your past.
a role model. Or somebody you cared about died. Or
somebody sacrificed themselves for you. Or you failed So if you change up how the quest works, that should
and somebody got hurt. be the core of the stuff that gives you its bonus XP.
Deep inside you is a core of rage; and it’s gotten loose.
It escaped you when your boat sailed in to Town. Rewards
You don’t know how you know that. But you know. By default this is a straightforward epic struggle. It
It took some of your memories, some of your rage, ends with a dramatic scene where you obtain a blessed
some of your grief, and now it is a great gold-scaled spear, stab the snake through the eye with it, and leave
python, poisonous and strong, that lives on the rooftops it pinned to the roof as its body slips over the edge to
of Fortitude. choke it on its own weight.
You have to hunt it down and stop it from hurting That would end by earning you a new “Perk”:
anyone else.
If you can kill it—that’s absolution, isn’t it? And ŭŭ ...a new Health Level, either a Normal or Tough
peace? And forgiveness? Health Level, depending on how much work it
felt like you put into the quest; or
Variations ŭŭ ...a cool blessed spear.
Your nemesis might not be a golden snake—it could be
your doppelganger (flesh or glass), or your shadow, or a It’s also possible that this is more about coming to
shapeless evil, or a vast and wicked bird. terms with your past, in which case it might end with
Or maybe the thing you’re hunting isn’t anything your making an alliance with the snake or doing some
directly connected to your heart. It could be that there’s sort of vaguely sappy “accept your heart and it will
something from your past that ties into the Outside stop attacking people in the shape of an evil snake”
somehow—that you realize after hearing a legend or thing. That would earn you a Connection to the snake,
story in Town that one of the people involved in your perhaps, or some cool new trick for a Skill.
backstory was the Headmaster of the Bleak Academy,
or one of the phenomena involved was the glass dragon
or the Outside, and you go out and research stuff like
that and listen to stories until you find what you’re
looking for at the archive of Professor Hideo Hayashi.
178 Playbooks
The Golden Snake
of the Rooftops
Major Goals XP
ŭŭ ...someone accuses you of controlling the snake or being the snake.
ŭŭ ...you have a scary fight scene with the snake and lose, run away,
or can’t finish it off.
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ŭŭ ...you track it to its lair at “Madcaps’ Nave,” atop the Archive of
Professor Hideo Hayashi, where it nests with bits and pieces of
your memories.
You can earn up to two of these bonuses, once each, for a total of
10 XP.
Quest Flavor
Once per week, you can earn a bonus XP towards this quest when...
ŭŭ ...prowling the rooftops.
ŭŭ ...making a new friend/acquaintance while out hunting
the snake.
ŭŭ ...helping someone who’s in trouble.
ŭŭ ...talking about your past in Russia, reflecting on (IC) and
developing (OOC) the memories that the snake is nesting on.
Wincing
Your bonus XP emotion is sympathy or pathos—you heartstrings and provoking laughter instead because
want to tug at the players’ heartstrings. Maybe it’s you’re just plain trying too hard.
because you’re struggling onwards on bleeding feet The standard expressions for sympathy are...
across a field of broken glass. Or maybe it’s because
you’re a lonely outsider standing in the snow and ŭŭ ...wincing.
despairing for humanity and the world while every- ŭŭ ...saying, “Wince!”
body is celebrating Christmas inside. Maybe it’s ŭŭ ...or emitting an aww!
because everybody you’ve ever loved turned out to be
a KGB assassin participating in a program to break Each such wince earns you one XP.
your mind—or maybe it’s just because you really You can earn up to 1 wince XP every 15 minutes.
wanted to give somebody Valentine’s Day chocolates If another player challenges you to push yourself,
but you couldn’t find a way to admit that to yourself. despair, or otherwise do something appropriately
As some of these examples may suggest, and as a (sym)pathetic, and you manage to earn a wince or
special rule, you’re also allowed to get bonus XP from aww!, you earn 1 XP that isn’t bounded by this rule.
overshooting, melodramatically failing to tug at the
Playbooks 179
Thaw Your Heart
(aka “A Troubled Protagonist”)
35 XP Quest Rewards
1: On completing this quest or any of its variations, you
can get a new sign and stop thinking that it’ll end in
2: pain every time something touches your heart;46 plus
you’ll get a reward:
2
“Flowers in the Ice,” pg. XX. ŭŭ You can you have a dramatic scene where your
heart thaws and you accept that life has a point
You want to believe in the world. You want hope. You and people are good, accompanied by:
want friends. You want light. You want life. • ...a new miraculous ability—typically:
But it’s hard! ►► ...some “power” suitable to a leg-
You don’t want to admit it when something touches endary martial artist or assassin
your heart. You don’t even want to notice it. If you and costing 1 MP for each use.
do notice that you’ve gotten too emotionally close to ►► ...a defensive ability that lets you reduce
someone, you tend to freak out. You know that it’s only the level of wound from a physical trauma
going to get you or them hurt later on. You have trouble once per week, or more often with MP.
coping with the presence of the Child of the Sun (or, ►► ...a power that lets you wave away
if necessary, some other Main Character that the HG circumstantial obstacles in the way of
decides should be the in-story emissary of the concept appearing at or descending from high
of light)—you can’t deal with how you feel in the pres- places, normally limited to the possi-
ence of incarnate hope, she scares and awes you. ble-but-impractical but including outright
To earn a bonus XP for this quest, all you have to impossible options if you spend 4 MP.
do is decide and emote that something did reach your • Or:
heart—even if you won’t admit it IC. You can express ►► ...a new level 1 Bond tying you in some
this any way you like but I’d recommend printing out fashion to the Child of the Sun, plus;
and holding up your Touched sign (pg. XX). ►► ...you get to replace your level
It says Touched on the side you’re showing everyone, -1 Connection with her with a
and on the other side, it reminds you: This will end in level 1 Connection instead.
pain. ŭŭ Or, instead of a dramatic scene and a power, you
can celebrate a birthday, growing one year older.
Afterwards, I suggest reviewing the notes on pg. XX

and moving on to “An Unlikely Friendship” (pg. XX).
46 although sometimes you’ll get a new sign for the followup quest that
won’t be much better
180 Playbooks
The Golden Snake
of the Rooftops
Bonus XP XP
You don’t want to admit it when something touches your heart. You
don’t want to notice it. It’s really uncomfortable. It challenges your
image of yourself.
Playbooks
But it keeps happening
I’ve made a sign for this. It’s to show that you’ve been touched by
something. That it’s reached you. You can earn a bonus XP at any time
(though only once per 15 minutes/scene) by expressing that emotion—
normally, by holding up the sign.
... The back side of the sign reminds you that this will only end in pain.
If you’re not playing in a place where you can actually hold up the
sign, it’s OK to just remind yourself quietly of what it says, or, if you
must, ignore the back side in its entirety.
(I’m) Touched This will end in pain.
Playbooks 181
Abilities Unusual Abilities
You have 8 Will and the following mundane abilities: As Natalia, you have the following unusual abilities:
ŭŭ Martial Arts 3 You’re an awesome martial artist. ŭŭ You’re a hero and a prodigy, good at handling
ŭŭ Mathematics 3. You’re a math prodigy. the tough stuff.
ŭŭ Dance 1. You know your way around a • You get more done in any given week than most.
dance floor. • You’re hard to trick, mess up, or
ŭŭ Student 1. You know your way around a school. oppose with mundane actions.
ŭŭ Russian Émigré 0. You are uncomfortable with • Your level 3+ Skills become more impres-
your heritage. sive as your Heroism Issue rises.
ŭŭ You have strong “Chi” (aka “wishing power/
2
You have one mundane ability with special rules miracle points/MP”).
(detailed below): • You can accomplish a mundane action
“perfectly” (and with perfect timing).
ŭŭ Cool 3. You are hard to hurt, embarrass, corrupt, • You can enhance your strength,
or co-opt. speed, and clarity.
• You can enhance your balance and control.
See also Tireless and Mad Skills, below. • You can accomplish ridiculous, mythic feats.
• You can master a ridiculous,
Connections mythic technique for a story.
You start the game with four free Connections— • You get extra MP when you get in trouble.
ŭŭ [PC of your Choice] 2. They remind you of You can’t enhance “magical Skills” with Chi,
someone you’ve lost. although sometimes the effects you achieve will seem
ŭŭ The Koutolika Family 1. You’re comfortable a lot like magic!
with your family.
ŭŭ Fortitude Rats 1. You don’t know what it is, but ŭŭ Your heart is frozen, which protects you from
you get along with them. certain effects.
ŭŭ The Child of the Sun -1. You don’t know how to
deal with someone like this. Health
If you’re in a 1-player game, or a 2-player game Level, and 2 Divine Health Levels. This is the “normal”
where the Child of the Sun is the other PC, you can level of toughness for a character in Chuubo’s
choose an NPC for the free Connection. You don’t have Marvelous Wish-Granting Engine: you can survive a
to choose the free Connection immediately, although lot, but not so much because of physical grit as because
ideally you should choose within the first few sessions. you’re good at figuring out ways to survive stuff.
For instance, if somebody drugs and drowns you,
you’re the kind of character who’d normally use one
of your powers, go into some sort of slow-metabolism
trance, and survive. If you don’t have the MP to do that
the normal way, you’ll still do it—you’ll just “take a
wound” and get sick or slowed down for a while instead
of popping back up to the surface totally fine. If some-
body hits you with a matter disintegration beam, you’re
definitely going to lose one of your health levels—but
maybe, instead of being disintegrated, you’re just ban-
ished into a sideways dimension and keep fading in and
out of reality. Or you just lose your hand, and you need
182 Playbooks
to do weird lizard-style meditation to get it to regrow. Perks
Basically, your health levels represent your ability to Characters in this game have a handful of Perks. You
survive at least five things that you don’t manage to gain them or improve them by completing quests, and
defend against with utter perfection. you can have up to 8.
You’ll start with these Perks:
Miracle Points
You have 5 Miracle Points (MP) to enhance or activate
your miraculous abilities. Mad Skills
You regain 1 MP, to a maximum of your normal 5...
You are simply the best there is.
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ŭŭ ...at the beginning of a new week. This Bond makes you more awesome with
ŭŭ ...from your Frantic ability when you get your level 3+ Skills as your Heroism rises.
into trouble. Bond, based on your (being a) Hero
You can also gain additional MP, with no partic-
ular maximum:
ŭŭ ...through Issues.
ŭŭ ...when Region Properties get you into trouble.
Frozen Heart
ŭŭ ...when Skills tied to your Bond, “Mad Skills,” get
you into trouble.
You’ve accepted bleakness, coldness,
ŭŭ ...when you spend a week diligently honoring a
and despair into your heart.
Region Property (e.g., helping somebody find/
This armors you against happiness but also
make a home in Fortitude).
against the loss of emotional control.
Affliction, based on your Sickness
Connection: [PC of your choice]

Cool 3
2
They remind you of someone you’ve lost.
You’re awesome. You’re perfect. You’re

the Prodigy.
Connection: the Koutolika Family
You have three points of Cool.
1
You’re comfortable with your family. This means that anyone trying to hurt you,
embarrass you, corrupt you, co-opt you, or mess
with something you’re actively watching or
Connection: Fortitude Rats protecting takes a -3 penalty to their mundane
actions.
1
You don’t know what it is, but you get along with them.
-1
You don’t know how to deal with someone like this.
You don’t have to keep this Perk—it doesn’t actually do you any good.
Playbooks 183
Mad Skills Frozen Heart
Here’s how the “Mad Skills” Perk works. Here’s how the “Frozen Heart” Perk works.
You are a creature of study and training. You can You are a creature of winter.
make yourself miraculously flawless with your strong You have trouble accepting hope; light; the sun;
inner power but when you pair that with mundane strong emotions; and peace. Even after your heart
professional competence—with the hard-won fruits thaws a little and you learn to accept such things—you
of training and endless practice—you become strong are very controlled, with only the slightest slips in your
enough to punch your way out of a time stop and mask to show how hard it is on you to be so controlled!
cunning enough to out-clever the fallen angels in Any time you have 1+ points in the Sickness
their hells. Issue, the following rules apply:
Any time you have 1+ points in the (being a)
2
Hero Issue, you may... ŭŭ The HG will invoke Frozen Heart to defend you
from effects that would force you to believe that
ŭŭ ...invoke Mad Skills to waive the need for food, things are OK or will be OK. Such effects will
water, rest, and air while you are actively using need [Strike ≥ your Sickness] to succeed.
one of your level 3+ Skills. ŭŭ The HG will invoke Frozen Heart to defend you
ŭŭ ...invoke Mad Skills when one of your level 3+ from effects that determine how sick you are, how
Skills gets you into trouble and the HG may give bad it’s going to get, and (particularly in cases of
you up to your Hero Issue in Will or MP. corruption, but also in general) where your loy-
ŭŭ ...invoke Mad Skills any time you’re taking a alties lie. Any such divinations or ascertainments
mundane action: will need [Strike ≥ your Sickness] to succeed.
• ...relating to one of your level 3+ Skills, and ŭŭ The HG will invoke Frozen Heart to protect you
• ...facing an Obstacle of some sort... from taking any permanent or long-term damage
from brooding, even if you happen to brood while
...and you can add your Hero Issue to the level of the standing outside in the freezing cold or forget
mundane action.47 to eat and drink for a few weeks. As a specific
exception, this doesn’t apply to damage from
ŭŭ Invoke Mad Skills any time you’re taking a heat.48
miraculous action related to one of your level 3+ ŭŭ You may sink into internal wintry depths to arrest
Skills and you can add your Hero Issue to the the course of an ongoing transformative or corrup-
action in Strike. Strike from a Bond doesn’t add to tive influence. This doesn’t help you take positive
Strike from other Bonds, but it does add to Strike action—if you’ve been shrunk to an insect’s size
from MP and Strike intrinsic to a miracle. or turned into a ravening werewolf, for instance, it
won’t help you operate complex machinery—but
Unlike most of your abilities, this could in theory it does mean that even as a werewolf, you can
enhance a magical ability—if you ever wind up with a stop yourself from savaging your friends.
level 3+ magical Skill, bear that in mind! This is totally optional, and your having this power
doesn’t mean you’re playing wrong if you decide
to go ahead and savage your friends anyway. It just
means that if you as a player think you should be
able to stop yourself, well, you can! If somebody is
actively sustaining the transformation or corruption
effect, they can overcome this resistance by using
[Strike ≥ your Sickness].
47 If it’s possible to use The Prodigy instead, that’s probably better! But 48 The only reason for the heat thing is theme. Don’t try to find a dra-
this is pretty good. matic or rules reason for it other than that!
184 Playbooks
The Ace The Prodigy
Your history is clouded and hidden at the start of the Type: Miraculous Action Cost:
game—full of unrevealed secrets—but it makes you ŭŭ 0 MP—Starting mid-scene, take 1-2
who you are. It gives you your strength and your power. perfect actions.
It is not stated but it is recorded; it is the miraculous ŭŭ 1 MP—See “Push Yourself,” below.
story Arc, or set of Arcs: ŭŭ 2 MP—Starting mid-scene, all actions are perfect.
Aspect (The Ace) 3. ŭŭ 4 MP—Take as many perfect actions as you like
From there come your miraculous powers. this scene.
Frantic Starting mid-scene, you can invoke the Prodigy 1-2x/
Playbooks
Type: Special Cost: — scene to...
You’re never so creative and effective as when you’re
terrified. ŭŭ ...perfectly execute any act of mundane skill,
You may take the (Be in) Trouble Action any e.g. fishing, typesetting, running, fire-eating,
time you can meet its condition. Doing so earns you accounting, dancing, or planning an invasion. This
1 MP, up to a maximum of your starting MP. Each includes being effective, productive, and really
additional group XP that you earn from this Action also impressive at this if you want it to.
earns you an additional MP. ŭŭ ...automatically beat anybody’s mundane action
with your own.
ŭŭ ...execute an action with perfect timing and grace.
Arc Powers
Frantic is your “Arc power”—you get it for being on Mundane Skill
one of the Arcs that grant Frantic. If you change to a You can use The Prodigy to perfectly execute any act
different Arc, it’s replaced by whatever power that Arc of mundane skill. “Act of mundane skill” here covers
offers instead. That will usually be either: almost everything that humans do, but it doesn’t cover
connectedness, reputation, relationships with people,
ŭŭ Immortality (which means it’s a kind of weird and mortal-level magic. It’ll often cover most of the
Arc for you). same things that a Connection will, but it lacks the per-
ŭŭ Sickly (which will probably relate to some sonal core.
strange or awful transformation). Incidentally, this in no way means that you’re bad at
ŭŭ Frantic (which will mean that you’ll stay, er, those things—
Frantic!) Or rather, you are, but you don’t have to be. You
can totally get good at the stuff that the Prodigy
doesn’t cover, embedding yourself in social networks,
Tireless acquiring a good reputation, building deep connections
Type: Miraculous Action Cost: 0 MP to people, and even learning weird magical abilities as
Like everyone else, you have 8 Will to spend each week magical Skills—
to enhance your mundane actions—but you also have But neither magic nor relationships are covered by
another pool of 3 Will which replenishes every time your baseline miraculous power. At best you can fake
you perform an in-genre XP Action or share a scene them by being incredibly charismatic and shockingly
with somebody who does. good at stage magic.
Basically, you get a little more done in any given day
than you otherwise would.
You can use this bonus Will freely with any ordinary
Timing and You
or Superior Skill, although, like most Ace abilities, it When you have a power that works mid-scene or
can’t be used with magic or Connections. starting mid-scene, that means that you use it after
some meaningful stuff has already happened in the
current scene.
Playbooks 185
Push Yourself You may choose to combine this with a specific action,
Type: Miraculous Action which then also receives the benefits of Push Yourself,
Cost: or just flood your body with this power in general.52
ŭŭ 1 MP—Starting mid-scene, push yourself beyond
the normal limits of The Prodigy. Anime Moment
ŭŭ 4 MP—Do so at the beginning of the scene. Type: Miraculous Action, Major Cost: 4 MP
Invoke an Anime Moment at any time to...
Starting mid-scene, you can Push Yourself for an take
an immediate perfect action augmented by... ŭŭ ...give yourself whatever power and speed you
need to accomplish a task, even ridiculous tasks
ŭŭ ...the strength of a bear, and/or like building a tall stone wall in 15 seconds or
2
ŭŭ ...the mental speed and precision of a computer. outracing a laser, and/or
ŭŭ ...do something outright impossible, but mythi-
This includes all the benefits of the Prodigy—for cally plausible, with local and short-term effects
instance, as long as you can explain how you actually (e.g., punch out a movie character from the audi-
do it,49 you can automatically outwrestle someone ence, drink a whole lake, surf on a sound wave).
stronger than a bear.50
This power always at least doubles your mundane This includes any relevant benefits from the Prodigy,
strength and precision, so if your soul is ever trans- Push[ing] Yourself, and Legendary Master.
planted into the body of a cybernetic bear51 or what-
ever it’ll still make you a little more effective than Special Training
you’d been. Type: Miraculous Action, Quest Miracle Cost: —
You can put yourself through a grueling course of
Legendary Master training—often retreating, if not to the actual mountains,
Type: Miraculous Action to the vicinity of the two-story “Zushan Burgers” burger
Cost: joint with its mountain-shaped roof and its tiny-woods
ŭŭ 2 MP—Starting mid-scene, take perfect control back lot—to develop special and temporary Skills.
over your body. Specifically, over the course of a 15-XP quest, you
ŭŭ 4 MP—Do this at any time. can temporarily put together a level 3 Superior Skill—
changing your body or developing a supernatural
Starting mid-scene, you can invoke Legendary Master martial arts technique. If you want to learn to glide a
to perfectly control and exert full strength through any few feet above the ground by compressing the air into
and every part of your body—including, e.g., your hair. cushions with foot vibrations and Chi or learn how to
This also includes a “light foot” technique—you can conjure fire with your martial arts, well, this is how.
move as if your body were much lighter or heavier and There’s only three drawbacks:
make extremely long, precise jumps.
52 You might think that the second option is always better, or, if you
misunderstand what it’s doing, you might think that it’s always
49 Basically, you have to convince the HG that the action you take is worse. It’s neither! Keeping Legendary Master going is a “sus-
possible, but once you’ve made a case that you can win, you beat any tained action.” Basically, in Chuubo’s Marvelous Wish-Granting
mundane opposition and do so automatically. If you say: “I know Engine’s action model you can be doing around two things at any
martial arts, so of course I can subdue Johnny Twobears with the given time. If you’re sustaining an action, that’s one of them—it
strength of a single bear,” that’ll work; if you say “I don’t know, that uses half of your attention! So if you just kind of power up into a
elephant is probably charging me with a mundane action, so I punch Legendary Master, and then get into a fight, you’re powering-up
it out and win” that is probably not fine. Thankfully, you have Anime and fighting and that’s your two actions right there—if someone
Moment, below, for all your casual elephant-punching needs. asks a question, you don’t have the spare attention to talk. In
50 Warning! While you can beat up even pretty strong vampires and fact, you might not even really have the spare attention to notice.
giants, be careful with ogres! They’re not really all that great as all- (This is a pretty soft limitation in some ways because “fight and
around combatants, but many of them have an even more absolute talk” is actually every bit as much of a valid action as “fight”—but
strength than you do. If you ever encounter something called a “titan,” only if the talking is part of the fighting, or if you knew when you
or the Child of the Sun using a particularly strong limb, that could started fighting that talking would be important too. If it comes up
be pretty scary too. unexpectedly, you’d have to stop fighting or stop powering up to reas-
51 presumably to fight in some underground cybernetic bear tournament sess priorities.)
186 Playbooks
ŭŭ You have to stay on the quest after finishing it or around you with a strong effect you can specify. It takes
the power goes away. a 15-XP quest to achieve this state, and once you’ve put
ŭŭ You can only stay on the quest until roughly the in the 15 XP you can retain the aura indefinitely (well,
end of the season (details are up to the HG). up to a season) by remaining on the quest.
ŭŭ You have to be willing to claim that a human can It’s ultimately a matter of negotiation between you
master this technique through training. and the HG what these actually do, but the standard
way of using them is to direct them with your mundane
You don’t need to keep a straight face, though. You or Ace-enhanced actions—if you surround yourself in
just have to be willing to claim that. a storm of spirit swords, for instance, you can attack
people with them using your mundane actions or your
Playbooks
Spiritual Training other Aspect powers. If you surround yourself in a
Type: Miraculous Action, Quest Miracle Cost: — healing glow, you direct it with your (limited) knowl-
Intensive meditation, reflection on Zen riddles, and edge of medicine and anatomy.
austere spiritual living can awaken a spiritual aura
Special/Spiritual Training
Bonus XP XP
You’re working on a new martial arts technique or developing a useful
Chi aura. When you’ve put 15 XP into it, you’ll be able to use it for as
long as you remain on this quest.
In the meantime, though, your training can get a little... over the top.
You know what I mean. Living on a grain of rice a day. Doing splits
with your legs tied to stretchy tree branches, obnoxious martial arts
masters, or unruly bears. Spending days at a time staring at a candle-fire.
Tying yourself into awful martial arts machines. Balancing on nee-
dle-width stilts. Stuff like that!
I’ve provided a sign reading “Over the Top” on the next page.
When your training gets a little over the top, or when something
happens mid-training to take it over the top, you can earn an XP—up to
one per fun scene/15 minutes—by showing the other players that sign.
You don’t have to prove that it’s over the top. You don’t even have to say
anything in character! You just have to hold up the sign.
If you can’t hold up that sign, saying something like “OTT XP! Yeah!”
or “Over the Top” can work just as well.
Playbooks 187
R THE T
VE O
O
P
2
Actions and Issues Figure Out This Weird Place

Here’s some things you’re often doing. Explore, investigate.
Discovery
Comfortable Stuff
Out on the water, up on the roofs, out in Something seems important/interesting.
nature, staring out the window—the world Foreshadowing
and its beauty touches even your frozen heart.
Slice of Life You tend to spend a fair bit of time poking around trying
Living a simple, honest life. to figure this place out. You know enough to know that
you don’t know everything, which means stuff can
Shared Action
capture your attention pretty easily.
You like those moments when you’re at peace and you

can feel the melancholy beauty of the world. You can Issues
get bonus XP for these kinds of actions a couple of If you pick up a Complex, I recommend it be
times a week. “feeling like an outsider”—you work yourself up into
a state of obsession over how you can’t possibly fit
Uncomfortable Stuff in with people, and run away from opportunities to fit
How can you bear this? in and belong rather than face the possibility that you
might.
Adversity
Your most common Vice is despair: you indulge
Go way too far trying to fulfill in moping, self-destructive behaviors, and standing
a responsibility/duty.
dramatically alone in the cold—particularly when
Never Say Die! you’ve picked up the Sickness Issue and can activate
your Frozen Heart.
You tend to bring a lot of trouble on yourself, suf- While we’re on that topic, note the extra rules con-
fering silently or extravagantly even when it might not cerning you and the Sickness Issue under “Frozen
be necessary. Heart,” above, as well as the extra rules concerning you
and the (being a) Hero Issue under “Mad Skills.”
188 Playbooks
Timeline 1-2: Playing The Eduard/Aelfthryth Option
through your Childhood A second option is to start the game playing the heroic
The HG may want to play through your childhood at talking rat Prince Eduard Fujimoto or his sister
an accelerated pace—probably about 50x acceleration, Princess Aelfthryth Fujimoto. You’ll be cut off from
covering a year in about the same time you’d usually rat culture (for reasons you don’t want to talk about)
cover a week. until you’ve dealt with the golden snake of the rooftops.
A game like that would begin when you are 5 Only—you don’t deal with it. You lose to it. You’re
years old. rescued by the Troublemaker, Rinley Yatskaya, during
...which is, of course, a little awkward. your first real battle with it, but either you get poisoned
The simplest thing to do is just to show up in Town and weakened during that battle and can’t keep going or
Playbooks
then, but that plays all kinds of heck with your back- you actually die on a later encounter. (If Rinley is a PC,
story. It’s salvageable—you’d be too young to have though, try not to kill Eduard off—she usually has him
really failed somebody, but you could still have a “dark as an important contact!)
past” where somebody you cared about died or sacri- After that battle, Natalia comes to Town; you swap
ficed themselves for you. You wouldn’t completely to playing her as your character; and she picks up the
understand what that means, but you’d still have a quest where Eduard or Aelfthryth left off.
legitimately traumatic history and a frozen heart. Your mundane skills as Prince(ss) Fujimoto would be
But it’s awkward! Athletics 3, Carousing 3, Dance 1, Wiggle Eyebrows
I’d really rather you not arrive until age 10 at the Knowingly 1, and Representative of Rat Culture -1.
earliest. But I also don’t want you to sit the first session
and a half out, much less the first five sessions if the The Double Life Option
early years run long! So I’m going to offer you a couple Even after coming to Town, you have frighteningly
of options. realistic dreams or visions of a life back where you
come from—it’s like your experiences “back home”
The Dream-Interactions Option just keep on happening, even though you’re here.
In the first few years of the game, you’re not in Town This is probably because of a wish or some event that
yet—but your life is already touched by events there. In happens later on: like, maybe “originally” you didn’t
particular, you sometimes show up in the dreams of the get to Town until age 10, but in the future Chuubo will
Wishing Boy or the Dream-Witch or in the nightmares wish that you’d gotten here earlier (so you didn’t have
of Nightmares’ Angel. to live through all that) and it’ll go slightly wrong. Or
You can participate in play in two ways: first, by Leonardo de Montreal will remove the world’s memory
having scenes in Russia where you interact with similar of the fact that you didn’t arrive until age 10.
people to the PCs, played by the players; and second, Something weird like that!
by showing up in people’s dreams.
There is a real possibility that if you play out this The Coutourier Approach
route that you are not actually growing up in Russia If you’re playing the vampire princess Natalie
but in a dream-world, or fake reality, or something Coutourier, then the problem isn’t that you start the
else created by “the Bleak Academy.” (A college in the game too young—it’s that you’re too old! It’s easy to
chaos at the border ’tween the world and death.) understand why an eternally teenaged vampire would
hang out with teenagers, but it’s harder to explain why
they’d hang out with 5-year-old kids. Still, this is an
easier problem to fix: maybe you got drained of blood
and wound up younger, or maybe you’re actually eter-
nally a child, or maybe you’ve been hired as an au pair
for the family of one of the PCs.
Playbooks 189
Timeline But if the other PCs are, like, Leonardo and Rinley,
So, once you’ve worked that out, your history’ll look then they’ve got serious stuff of their own to deal with.
something like this: If you show up “on camera,” the story’ll demand they
drop it and pay attention to you—making it likely
Age 5: The game begins. they’ll be irritatingly unhelpful and/or artificially atten-
tive. That won’t give your relationships a good starting
Age 5-8: You can choose to arrive in Town at this age. place for organic development!)
If so, then the trauma of your past is probably pretty
confusing and nebulous to you. Alternatives include the
dream-interaction option above; playing Prince Eduard Natalia Koutolika
or Princess Aelthryth Fujimoto for a few years; or the You remember how you would throw aside the papers,
2
double life option, above. the problems and the proofs, and rage at your old tutor
“The Golden Snake of the Rooftops:” if you’re Maksim, saying it was useless, useless, meaningless,
still in Russia for this, then, in addition to the normal 1/ because—
chapter options, you can get a bonus XP for this quest Because—
from any sufficiently interesting and dramatic scene
in Russia or from making an appearance in somebody But the words would not come out.
else’s dreams. The pain of them welled up instead and closed your
throat against the sounds.
Age 9-10: This is the usual age at which your heart You remember how Danno who taught you the
freezes. For instance, this is normally when the char- fighting arts would push you hard, and he would not
acter variant Zeinaba Kiros discovers what’s hap- let you be kind to the students with whom you sparred,
pening in her home country. but tormented you if you showed them the slightest
compassion or weakness; until one day you would not
Age 10: This is the usual age for you to come to Town. bend, would not spar; when made to spar would not
This is normally a direct or indirect consequence of crush the arms of the weaker ones, would not snap the
a wish—either a direct consequence, if the Wishing legs of the slow ones, would not show them why you
Boy finds out that you’re in terrible trouble, or an indi- were the best; when set with agonizing solitary exer-
rect consequence, where some random wish happens cises instead, did not complain, but only bore them and
to make more sense if your family decides to move let the time with him become an agony.
to Town. But all of it was useless, useless; principles and
fighting, useless all, because—
Well, that’s something we’re going to figure out
Timeline 3: Starting in in play.
the Modern Day The standard version of the Prodigy has baggage.
In a game that starts in the present, your heart froze Some of it dates back to Danno—was he an immature
around 5 years ago and you arrived in Town about 3-36 bastard, or were you in some sort of sinister assas-
weeks ago. In a 1-player game, or a 2-3-player game sin-training program? Some of the baggage dates back
where you’re meeting the other PCs just as you get off before that. Did a younger sibling die? Did an older
the boat, it might also make sense to start just as you role model die? Did someone you really cared about
arrive. (...but even with 3 players, be really careful.) betray you?
It’d work great in a game where you’re “the inter- For the Glass campaign, this isn’t necessarily very
esting thing that happens to the protagonists this important—you can play it down, and if you arrive in
month.” You could probably meet a laid-back PC team Town at age 5, you may wind up skipping it entirely.
like Chuubo and Seizhi the instant you get off the boat, Then again, maybe it’ll wind up at the core of who
and things’d be fine. you are!
190 Playbooks
The Child of the Sun
[[CHARACTER SPLASH, identical to the Child of the Sun lifepath.]]
Playbooks 191
You are Jasper Irinka, the Child of the Sun. You’re Far away and long ago...
an ordinary girl and the goddess of the sun. You’re You lived in the sky. You were the child of the sun.
cheerful, sincere, emotionally vulnerable, and like You played with the bird-faced spirits and the stars; the
many goddesses you can grow extra eyes and limbs. winds and the children of rainbows.
You rode the horses of the sun.
Primary Quests You played and laughed with the dogs of the sun, the
ŭŭ Bring light and warmth to the world. firebirds, and even the great sun-bellied sloth.53 You
ŭŭ Figure out your mortal life. pressed your face against the glass-bottomed hull of the
ŭŭ Develop your spiritual identity as the sun. sky and stared down at all the people who lived below.
Later—depending on how the HG handles the early
2
Bonus XP When... years of the game—you summered in a little house in
Players use gratitude hands (e.g., hand-on-fist bow, Fortitude and got to play with the human and Yatskaya
hand-to-heart, fist-bump) because... children that lived below.
Those days seem like a magical dream now.
ŭŭ ...their character’s gratitude to you/your PC Your mother was the sun. She was the glory, she was
reached the player’s heart. the logos, she was the light of hope that illumined the
ŭŭ ...you/your PC supported/played up their character lower world.
concept/direction. Your father—
He came to Town long ago with the dust of a far
Powers and sunless land on his feet. He called himself the lord
You’re the sun and the light of hope in the mortal world. of Death’s dominion, the Headmaster of the Bleak
So you’re basically immortal and you have limited Academy, and an enemy of the world; but he loved the
power over the weather. You can light others’ path and sun anyway, you think, and she loved him, for years
help them find their dreams. You have the unique ability and years, all the sunlit days of your childhood, right up
to grow personalized magical limbs and develop new until the day that he killed her.
senses when that’ll help you inspire hope, defeat evil, Were you looking up at the sky the day that hap-
or represent the dreams and hopes that people share pened? Were you summering in Fortitude when he rode
with you— up on his pale horse and drew his great black bow and
...and to keep those limbs and senses around for use fired, and blood and darkness spread across the sun?
in other random things later on! Or were you up there, beside her? Did she push you
from the sky when he drew back his bow?
Common Variations Did he shoot her, and her life stuttered and went
Shake it up! For an atypical Child of the Sun experi- out, and the sky gave way from underneath you, and
ence, pick one or more of the following: you fell?
One of those, anyway, probably. I figure that you fell.
ŭŭ You are Raven Irinka, a boy. You couldn’t help her. You were falling, probably, or
ŭŭ You’re the new North Wind instead of the you were on the ground, maybe. And Jade Irinka, who
new sun. was the sun—
ŭŭ You’re the new rainbow instead of the new sun. She died.
ŭŭ You’re closer to being the firebird that kindles the
sun than the sun itself.
ŭŭ You’re closer to being the hope or love that keeps
the world alive than the literal sun.
53 Its belly is not the sun. That would be ridiculous. Its belly just has the
shape of the sun on it.
192 Playbooks
The First Miracle Home and Family
And on that day death changed. As the Child of the Sun, you fell to Fortitude—that
On that day all the lightless nothingness that is sleepy and sprawling fishing neighborhood by the
outside the world—and all the emptiness that follows docks of the Big Lake.
life—took light. It’s not your home. Not yet. But it’s the closest thing
Death wasn’t dark enough, cold enough, or empty you’ve got, because:
enough to swallow up the sun. You don’t know how to get back up to the sky.
I don’t know if your father knew that would happen. Maybe you can stay with the Yatskayas, or at
I don’t know if he was trying to end the world or just Professor Hayashi’s archive? Maybe someone else will
to bring his lover home. Whether she let it happen or take you in? Maybe you’re kind of shell-shocked and
Playbooks
failed to stop it. Whether she’s stuck outside the world, roaming the streets like a stray dog? The grief left you
on the other side of death, because he shot her and she as soon as you realized that your mom was still alive,
died; or she’s a prisoner in chains; or if she’s on her but you’ve got plenty of shock, loss, and confusion left
way to Town to see you once again and she just hasn’t to sort through before you’ll be “OK.”
made it yet. You don’t have a family, either.
Maybe he murdered her. Maybe he kidnapped her. You haven’t seen the Headmaster since you fell, and
Maybe she tricked him into helping her change the even if you did, until you hear from Jade’s own mouth
nature of death. Maybe they eloped. I don’t know. You that she’s OK, you’re not going to trust a single thing
don’t know. Dad says.
You know that you lost her. As for Mom—
That sucks. Sometimes you hear her laughter on the wind.
Now you can’t talk to her in the mornings when Maybe? Sometimes you feel a touch of distant joy. But
you’re getting ready for School. You can’t make her maybe that’s just part of the nature of things, and not
breakfast when you wake up earlier than the sun. You anything to do with her.
can’t tell her the stories of the things that happened You had friends in the sky, and a home, but that all
during your day. feels like a dream, now—a distant, fading memory—
But that miracle still happened. The change in the and for whatever reason, nobody’s coming down to
nature of death still happened. You know it. It burns in pick you up. Maybe the Headmaster is stopping them,
you, this is a truth that runs through you, up and down somehow. Maybe without your mother, the paths
your nerves, through and in your bones. between the sky and the upper world are gone, or even
Jade Irinka died, but she is not gone. the entire kingdom in the sky.
She kindled the whole idea of goneness with her Maybe they just don’t know that you survived.
light, instead.
The Second Miracle

And in the moment that you understood that—the
moment that you felt that, felt the knowledge of that
miracle spreading through you—
A new sun was born into the empty sky.
It’s not Jade. It’s not... you don’t know who it is. No
matter how you try to talk to it, it never answers back.
But it’s a sun. It’s light. It’s proof that you’re right,
that he the Headmaster of the Bleak Academy who
killed your mom—
That he didn’t win.
Also it helps crops grow and keeps people from
freezing to death or bumping into things all the time, so
that’s just great!
Playbooks 193
Hints: On the Glass Dragon Quests
“Once upon a time, a witch and a glass-maker made power to swap them out or pick up more—you can
a dragon out of glass and taught it to hate the world. pursue up to four quests at any given time.
It raged and it would have destroyed everything; I’ve chosen three quests to...
— Campaign Premise ŭŭ ...serve as your basic, default character motivation
in play (“The Light of Hope”).
You’ve always thought that that feeling—that “hating ŭŭ ...give you extra direction in the first few sessions
the world”—must be a lot like that moment when your (“A Mortal Life”).
Mom died, before you realized she was still alive. ŭŭ ...tie you into the campaign plot (“The Miracle”).
2
And that makes you think—
That the dragon must have risen into the sky above Bonus XP
Town, and it was made of glass. So the sun would have Once per fun scene, though at most once per fifteen
shone through it. It would have suddenly felt what you minutes of play, you can earn bonus XP for one of your
felt, when you realized that the sun was still alive. The first two quests. This is pretty easy:
miracle. The joy. It would have poured all the way
through the dragon. After all, it was made of glass. ŭŭ Decide that you’ve done a good job at being the
Isn’t that maybe why it broke? sun, say, “Ding!” or “Ting!” and claim an XP for
The Light of Hope.
Hints: On the Child of the Sun ŭŭ Propose a theory about the lower world or the
On another note: for clarity, you are the current goddess upper world, all scientific-like, to claim an XP for
of the sun and ruler of Celestia. A Mortal Life.
In fact, you are the current sun.
You won’t really understand this yourself for a while, You can earn a bonus XP for the third quest, The
but it’s true. That sun in the sky, replacing Jade? On Miracle, once per in-game week by picking a scene
some level: that’s you. from the quest’s list of scene options to play out.
That’s why it doesn’t talk back when you say things
to it. Other Quests
I recommend that you focus on the lower world for If you’re interested in another quest or two, and you
now; that’s why your memories of the sky are “dream- have access to Fortitude: by the Docks of Big Lake,
like.” Getting back up to the sky and figuring out what’s I’d recommend looking at the quests for...
going on in Celestia and why they haven’t sent anybody
for you is a campaign of its own. But still— ŭŭ ...curating some of the clam beds or snail
If it ever comes up: you are the sun, and the goddess farms along the north beach as a “Friend to
of the sun, and that is why you can do the things you do. the Beaches.”
ŭŭ ...working on Shrine Duties at a shrine.
ŭŭ ...studying navigation and learning to be
Never Lost.
194 Playbooks
The Light of Hope
You’re trying to be the light of hope in the mortal world. You’re XP

trying to be sunny.
You can earn a bonus XP for this quest when you or someone else
thinks, basically, that you’ve done that well. That you’ve sunnied well.
Pick a catchphrase for this—something you usually say. You don’t
have to say it exactly every time—it’s just the usual thing.
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Something like:
ŭŭ “Ding!”
ŭŭ “Ting!”, to represent a sparkle in your eye or on your tooth.
ŭŭ “Sunny!”
ŭŭ “Emote: sunny!” to show how sunny you are.
The rule is: you can earn a bonus XP (up to once per scene/15
minutes) just by saying or emoting that!
The Light of Hope

15 XP Quest Bonus XP
: Chibi-Quest You’ll earn one bonus XP towards this quest in a fun
scene with a friend where one of you feels that you’ve...
You’re the light of hope now. You’ve got to do your sunnied?... well. Normally you’d indicate this by...
mother’s job. That means shining on the darkness in
people’s lives—not necessarily to fix them, but to give ŭŭ ...saying “Ting!” or “Ding!” to indicate a spark of
that darkness a bit of the endless light and warmth that light in your smile or eyes.
you have inside you. ŭŭ ...(them) snapping their fingers and pointing at
Here’s some sunny things to do: you and then saying “Ding!” or “Ting!”
ŭŭ ...(you) emoting “sunny.”
ŭŭ Get people to confide their secrets.
ŭŭ Discover and bring some lost or hidden thing You don’t technically have to accept the XP if it’s a
to light. friend doing the dinging, by the way. I just thought it
ŭŭ Tend plants, help dry laundry, and do other might be kind of nice to let them help.
metaphorical sun-like-things.
ŭŭ Show off some art form that you use to help Rewards
shine in the world: singing, dancing, painting, Completing this quest earns you a precious memory—a
or whatever. bit of private happiness, a moment to treasure and keep
in your heart like a jewel. Sometimes you may also get
But really it’s not about what I think is right here. a new hair tie or something else that you think is cool.
What do you think is appropriately sunny behavior for Each such precious thing is a Recharge Token—
the sun? Once in the future, you’ll be able to draw on that happi-
ness to replenish your supply of Will and MP to full mid-
week or strengthen yourself before using your Heart of the
Sun ability on a new Region outside of Town.
Playbooks 195
A Mortal Life
25 XP Quest What kind of place?
1: Ideally you’d find work at a shrine and you’d say the
traditional prayers to Jade in the early morning, study
2: in the late morning, work and play in the afternoon, and
3: perform traditional dances during the various large and
small festivals where there’s a role for somebody con-
You’re new to the lower world. You’re an alien here, nected to the sun.
and you spend a lot of time alternating between failure If necessary, though, you could work on a fishing
2
to understand what’s going on and figuring this place boat or whatever else instead.
out.
Once per scene, you can earn a bonus XP towards Variations
this quest by proposing a theory about how something If you don’t want to be the goofy alien that doesn’t
in the lower world, or Fortitude in general, works, or understand human affairs, you could have a pet bird or
how the sun interacts with the world. sloth or something from Celestia that you explain things
to instead. Or you could ditch that side of your char-
What You’ll Do acter entirely and focus on your difficulties emotionally
Over the course of this quest, you’ll want to... accepting the world and being in exile from the sky.
If you don’t want to focus on sun-related stuff, for
ŭŭ ...participate in at least one of the holidays or whatever reason, you can look for a different sort of
ceremonies in honor of the sun. place in Fortitude. Do you want to fish? To study a
ŭŭ ...work through your feelings about your Mom. trade? To be a street urchin? To make candles? To be a
ŭŭ ...find a new place for yourself. legendary hero?
A Mortal Life
XP
Bonus XP
You don’t really know how the lower world works. It’s all... money,
and sneezing, and denim, and dragonfruit and stuff. Is the dragon in the
fruit? Is the fruit made of dragons?
You don’t know!
Any time you wisely propose a theory about how this lower world
works, or a theory/memory about how the upper world worked, or
a theory about how the sun fits into it all, you can earn a bonus XP for
this quest. (Though only up to once per fifteen minutes/scene.)
The expectation here is that mostly this quest’s theories are going to
be silly/goofy or a little sweet—but it’s fine to be profound as well if you
can manage it!
All that really matters is that it’s really you, coming up with that
theory, IC—not just a thing to say, but a concept to consider for at least
a moment as a possible actionable fact,
196 Playbooks
Rewards
Typically you’ll pick up a new Perk that...
ŭŭ ...offers a level 2 Connection to Fortitude.

ŭŭ ...makes one of your (power-granted) limbs
effectively permanent.
ŭŭ ...gives a new Trick to use with your Unnatural
Action power (below).
ŭŭ ...offers a small new miraculous power.
Alternately you may earn the non-Perk benefit
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“Birthday”:
ŭŭ You may celebrate a birthday, growing one
year older.
On Being the Sun

The people of Town have a fairly vague sense of what
it means for a person to be the sun. They don’t really
try to grasp the part beyond “a ritual figure connected
to the sun”—either they politely doubt anything more
than that or they accept it as a holy mystery. For that
reason, it’s possible for you to achieve incremental
acceptance as the new solar deity: people might accept
first that you’ve been “chosen” to represent the sun, or
that the new sun lives in you, or whatever, and expect
your actual development in that role to take time and
practice. They might even expect that you’ll give it
up at some point, like, outgrow it and want to go be a
fighter pilot or whatever instead.
I’m encouraging you to think of it a bit more lit-
erally as a player. You’re playing the actual physical
sun, which has at least two bodies, one quasi-human
and one that mostly just sits up in the sky and burns.
It should be impossible to draw a totally clear line
between you and the sun, or, for that matter, between
you and the concept of Hope. But at the same time, it’s
normally easier to move and take human-level actions
with your humanoid body, so that’s where the action
is!
Playbooks 197
The Miracle (aka “Changes”)
35 XP Quest
1: Gratitude Hands
Your bonus XP emotion is gratitude—when some-
2: one’s happy that you’ve defended them, fulfilled their
trust, or given them a chance to shine.
This quest begins the story “The Pleasure Ship,” A mere “thank you” is too common to get an XP for,
pg. XX. of course. “Thanks” is quite commonly a speech act,
a social lubricant, part of the structure of communica-
2
As we’ve mentioned, you’re the sun—the actual new tion, and not real gratitude at all.
sun, not just a child of the old one. You’re the rightful You can’t get XP just from that.
ruler of the sky and an important religious/ritual figure You need gratitude hands.
in Town. Thus players can convey a bonus XP to you by...
This quest builds towards your first real miracle, the
first real sign that that’s so: ŭŭ ...clutching the air over their heart.
A miracle, in answer to death; or, a miracle, com- ŭŭ ...fist-bumping you.
manding the powers and principalities of the sky. ŭŭ ...blowing you a kiss.
ŭŭ ...saying, “Fist-bump” or “Mschaw” (or “Air-
Rewards kiss” if they must).
This quest usually gets you started on a Primordial ŭŭ ...clasping one palm over their fist and bowing.
Arc, which—when the Arc finishes—will substantially ŭŭ ...putting their hand to their heart.
upgrade your power set. ŭŭ ...stretching out their hand to you as they say
You’ll also get an immediate bonus in the form of a thank you.
new Perk—usually, one of these: ŭŭ ...miming taking your hand in both of those as
they thank you.
ŭŭ Accessory. You gain access to an unusual vehicle. ŭŭ ...in general, saying, “Gratitude hands!”
ŭŭ Accessory. You gain access to a useful, often
lightly magical, tool for self-defense. A heavily inflected thank you—stage-whispered,
ŭŭ Accessory. You gain access to an unusual, but spoken in a foreign language, or emoted in the various
loyal, servant. weird voices people use when they’re using gratitude
voice—also suffices.
What I’m specifically imagining is that you’ll raise For clarity, this bonus XP condition isn’t about
one of the horses of the sun from the dead to be your niceness or favors. It’s about connecting to people
friend and flying mount. But that doesn’t have to be and about fitting into their lives. You can do favors for
the miracle. It’s just the rough level of awesome that people all day, but without that personal connection
I expect. you won’t get gratitude hands, and if you get it, that
You’re going to have a hard Arc—the next few quests spark of connection, it only takes a little bit of niceness
are a doozy. It’s only right that you should get some- to get a solid, serious, fist-bump or mschaw.
thing awesome from this as well!
Afterwards, I suggest reviewing the notes on pg. XX Advice to Other Players: Remember that this is
and moving on to the quest “The Refusal of the Call.” your gratitude. If you’re immersed in your character,
and your character feels grateful, so you feel grateful,
that’s fine! That works! But if you say, “Dang, I really
need someone to crush my character’s heart right
now,” and she comes by and crushes your character’s
heart, that totally deserves gratitude hands too. And
if you think your character is probably grateful but
you’re not—that doesn’t count!
198 Playbooks
The Miracle
XP
Major Goals
ŭŭ ...you have a traumatic transformation or dissociation scene in

play, where your reality gets weird because your true nature is
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changing or revealing itself.
ŭŭ ...you see a confusing vision, nightmare, or premonition of your or
someone else’s death.
ŭŭ ...you meet and get the chance to help a mysterious child find
their way.
Quest Flavor
1/chapter, you can earn a bonus XP towards this quest when...
ŭŭ ...wrestling with/expressing nameless feelings of loss that

make you act unnaturally
ŭŭ ...trying and failing to burn things, to light them on fire
ŭŭ ...getting confused about who and where you are
ŭŭ ...listening to stories about things that were lost when Jade
Irinka died
ŭŭ ...talking with somebody about your destiny/nature and what
it means
ŭŭ ...talking with somebody about why there’s such a thing
as death
ŭŭ ...dealing with acne, braces, your period, ear infections,
or other annoyingly intrusive elements of physicality.
[[END BOX]]
Playbooks 199
Abilities Connections
You have 8 Will and the following mundane abilities: You start the game with three free Connections:
ŭŭ Courtly Manners 3. You’re very graceful. ŭŭ The Prodigy 2. She fascinates you. You’re not
ŭŭ Incarnation of the Sun 2. You’re in tune with sure why.
the sun. ŭŭ Little Island 1. You love Little Island, although
ŭŭ Riding 1. You’re familiar with horses you don’t feel ready to live there.
and bicycles. ŭŭ Nightmares’ Angel 1. He’s a freak, but somehow
ŭŭ Art/Craft (your choice) 1. You’re familiar with you kind of get him.
something else.
ŭŭ Lore 1. You know scraps of secret lore about the You can start with a level 1 Connection with any
2
sun, the sky,the lake, and the Bleak Academy other PC by mutual agreement.
beyond the world. Of all of these, the only one that is “inherent”—a
permanent and intrinsic part of your character—is your
You may use the Incarnation of the Sun ability Connection to Nightmares’ Angel. That’s both good and
to know the current time, time of sunset, and time of bad: it means that if you fill up all your Perk slots with
sunrise. It’s also quite useful when you need to rise, set, other cool stuff, you still have a Connection to him, but
or bring light—you rarely fall while climbing, when it’s also a little harder to improve and redundant with
you do fall you fall gracefully, and you’ve practically any Connection Perk to him you get!
always got a match or flashlight.
You can use any of your mundane abilities—though
normally just the top two—for solar special effects like
“and the sun comes out from behind the clouds” or
“dramatic sunbeam!” This is possible because of your
Inspiring Radiance ability, below.
Additional Abilities
It’s common for the Child of the Sun to pick up
additional mundane abilities when picking up new
limbs—many of the very minor physical changes you
can undergo come with a point or two of some mundane
Skill. Note that if you pick up a “Superior Skill,” it’ll
sometimes give you an advantage even when using
one of your own Skills—for instance, if you pick up
Superior Skill: Intimidating 1 because you’re tuned
to an intimidating person’s hopes and dreams, that’s
not a very good Skill on its own terms—but it’ll give
you a bit of an Edge when trying to intimidate someone
with your Courtly Manners or with your being the
Incarnation of the Sun.
200 Playbooks
Perks Miraculous Abilities
Characters in this game have a handful of Perks. You As the Child of the Sun, you have the following mirac-
gain them or improve them by completing quests, and ulous abilities:
you can have up to 8.
You’ll start with these Perks: ŭŭ You are the sun, and the light of hope in the
mortal world.
Connection: [PC of your choice] • You are functionally immortal.
• You can influence the weather and the
1
may take a free level 1 Connection to any other PCt. sky with your mundane actions.
• You can radiate hope.
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• You can send out your con-
Connection: the Prodigy
sciousness in a sunbeam.
2
She fascinates you. You’re not sure why. • The nuclear furnace of your stomach
can digest basically anything.
ŭŭ You can bind yourself to somebody’s hopes
Connection: Little Island and dreams.
• This gives you a new limb, sense, or tattoo/
1
You love Little Island, though you
don’t feel ready to live there. decoration relating to them or the dream.
• They can emote to you from anywhere.
• You have an easier time finding them and
tracking their current hopefulness/despair.
• You can light their path.
Health
• You can work effectively towards...
►► ...giving them hope, or
You’re pretty sturdy.
►► ...fulfilling their hopes.
ŭŭ You can generate new limbs with strange

+1 Diving Health Level
magical powers...
• ...when doing so brings hope.
• ...to devour evil.
• ...in response to damage.
Health ŭŭ Your form shifts and changes over time.
• You can talk with people to adjust/fine-
You have a steady, persevering heart. tune the limbs created from their hopes.
(Metaphorically, anyway. The physical • You can keep the limbs you created
one is always contracting—then relaxing. to handle a crisis or bring hope.
Contracting—then relaxing! Ba-bum! Ba-bum!
Ba-bum! You have one alternate form:
And it won’t say WHYYYYYY)
ŭŭ If you absolutely must, you can cast off the form
+1 Normal Health Level of humanity and become a levitating city-sized
sun-inferno-creature kind of thing.
Playbooks 201
Health Levels The Altered Form:
You have 3 Normal Health Levels, 1 Tough Health General Rules for your
Level, and 3 Divine Health Levels. Transformations
That means that even without your Immortality You are not human. You are a part of the vastness of the
ability, you’re as tough as nails—you could survive world, the vast connectedness of the world, all entan-
three nukes, a tank round, and three or four serious gled with others’ hearts and dreams and hopes. You are
kicks to the head before you’re down for the count. For something primal and primordial and you may grow
most characters, this kind of toughness is “plot armor,” new limbs, organs, and adaptations from the stuff of
where they can find some way to survive—for you, people’s hopes.
that’s still feasible, but you’re more likely to survive This is a supernatural and profoundly spiritual
by sacrificing some portion of your veneer of humanity. process. I mean, it’s also kind of gross and kind of
2
You’re the sun, after all, and most mortal military arse- horrific, and no amount of sunshine and sparkles can
nals just don’t cut it against you. If you’re thrown into change the fact that you grow extra, inhuman limbs.
a junkyard car compactor, and your Immortality isn’t You can horrify people, and it’s possible for you to
working, maybe you come out of it squished literally become a creature of horror or pitiable social reject
flat or you burn your way out in a gout of sunny dis- by accident. But it’s not aimed at that, it’s not aimed
position and have trouble not being on fire for a while at or modeling horror. It’s aimed at making you a pre-
thereafter. Often this will exactly match the kinds of human divine force. You have extra limbs to represent
effects that you can get from your “magical limbs” the fact that you’re not limited to the human scale of
power set, which means that you can think of a wound action, you are a creature of doubled or tripled potency
as nothing more or less than an impromptu, temporary and senses, words and actions potentially burning with
magical limb that’s a bit less under your control and a divine power, holding many symbols in your poten-
bit more advantageous than you’d usually expect—and tially many hands.
vice versa, inventing such limbs to survive threats. When you create a new limb, you’ll need to allocate
You can also use your Health Levels to resist enchant- some of your divine vitality—one of your unwounded
ments, transformations, and the like—or, more com- Health Levels—to that creation. This doesn’t use it
monly, to twist them a bit to your purposes. Instead of up! It’s just that if you get hurt badly enough that you
letting someone turn you into a frog, letting your hair go lose that Health Level later, you’ll also lose the power
green is probably sufficient; instead of letting someone in that limb.
bend you to their will, deciding to help them on your Based on the Health Level you decide to use, you can
own and on your own terms is probably enough! choose that limb’s basic form and power:
Miracle Points Normal Health Levels

You have 5 Miracle Points (MP) that you can use to At this level the physical change is an inconspicuous or
enhance your miraculous abilities or use them more pretty effect, such as…
often than usual. Once spent, you’ll regain 1 MP/week,
up to your normal 5. ŭŭ ...a gold ring around your iris.
You can gain additional MP through Issues, when ŭŭ ...a tendril from your head that looks basically like
Region Properties or an Affliction-limb get you into a lock of hair.
trouble, or by spending a week diligently doing some- ŭŭ ...cool nail polish.
thing that honors a Region Property or Bond. (e.g. ŭŭ ...a jacket you’re never without.
helping make sure everyone has a home in Fortitude.) ŭŭ (default option) ...a tattoo with a symbol that
represents somebody.
The limb in question usually comes with a low-level

Bond or a level 1 Superior Skill. For instance, you might
have eyes tuned to see true love, or your sports jacket
might make you a little stronger and tougher, or a tattoo
202 Playbooks
of the Dream-Witch’s mask might make you a better Divine Health Levels
dreamer. Sometimes these changes give you a level 1 At this level the change is still pretty but also a little
magical Skill or some other minor advantage instead. disturbing and inhuman. E.g., you develop:
In combination with your Connect to Someone
power, you can use this to duplicate certain special ŭŭ ...a third eye in your forehead.
abilities like the strength of the vampires or the magic ŭŭ ...a crown of fire.
of the shrine families. Be careful when borrowing ŭŭ ...a pair of golden or fiery wings.
the schticks of other PCs, though—that is, make sure ŭŭ ...shapely extra arms.
they’re OK with it before you go around copying ŭŭ (default option) ...two long, strong, sun-gold
Nightmares’ Angel’s “Nightmare Science” Skill or the manipulator tendrils growing from your back.
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Troublemaker’s “Cat-Speaker” with this power, even
if you have a deep connection with them. Conversely, This stuff is weird enough that it does make you
please feel free to duplicate the key abilities of NPCs stand out. It might even make you look a bit freakish.
you’ve grown particularly close to—and players may However, it’s also usually pretty enough that if a fantasy
be fine with your copying key PC abilities, too, as long artist drew you, it would be obvious that you’re meant
as it’s in a weaker form and it’s obvious that you’re bor- to be awesome and not to be a monstrous horror.
rowing or learning from their trick rather than usurping When you have visible alterations like these, people
it as your own. from out of Town who see you are likely to assume
that you’re a monster—but maybe just a very extreme
Tough Health Level cosplayer, or a refugee from a movie set. People from
At this level the change is conspicuous but it leaves you Town won’t be sure whether you’re an angel, a monster
able to pass as human, such as: from some unworldly tribe, or what. But you’ll also
have a certain naturalness and aesthetic quality to the
ŭŭ ...you have notable antennae that you can pass off look, so if you’re popular or if you’re friends with
as hair or a hair decoration. someone they can get used to it pretty easily—these are
ŭŭ ...you’re wearing something disturbing, like a physical changes out of the anime playbook and not out
blood-soaked headband. of the mythos of Lovecraft.
ŭŭ ...you have one or two 10-20mm-thick manipu- In terms of the associated power, these limbs may
lator tendrils growing from your back. or may not prove stronger than the Tough options.
ŭŭ ...you have a magical eye or mouth hidden in Practically usable abilities are often level 2-3 Superior
your hand. Skills or miraculous abilities, just as above. As an
ŭŭ ...you’re surrounded by a noticeable wind or glow. Affliction, as something you don’t really control, the
ŭŭ (default option) ...a magical sunbeam coils around power of these Divine limbs might scale with your
you like a scarf or tentacle. Primordial Arc, or even go past it, but even that’s only
a little better than the Tough options get.
It’s up to the HG how the power that comes with That said, sometimes the circumstances of your
this limb works, but it usually manifests as a level 1 acquiring the limb will force the HG to scale that up—a
Affliction, a level 2-3 Superior Skill, or a specific mirac- Limb to Devour Evil, for instance, is always at least
ulous ability that you can use a few times per scene. as strong as necessary to make a real difference in
For instance, an amazing jacks-playing tendril might your current struggle. If a Superior Skill or base-level
give you Superior Jacks 3 (and probably 1-2 points miraculous ability won’t make a practical difference,
of Edge on things that are just like playing jacks); a then the limb will just have to be stronger! Will it get
set of gills concealed on your shoulders might let you free Strike? Become an Imperial miracle? Shroud itself
breathe underwater; and a noticeable wind around you in an Auctoritas? I don’t know! But it’ll be effective,
might protect you or someone near you a couple of whatever it is, and such extreme limbs are usually the
times per scene. kind of thing that go in your Divine Health Level slots.
Playbooks 203
Limbs and Health Wound-Limbs
I’m tying these to your Health Levels specifically so It’s reasonable for you to grow a new limb sponta-
that you can lose them when sufficiently damaged. I neously and reactively when wounded—if some terri-
don’t think this is something that will ever be terribly fying and awful swordsperson stabs you in the stomach
important, but it could come up if you fill up all your with a magical blade, catching it in your embarrassing
health levels with limbs, or you could play it up for stomach-hand or having your stomach split into a fiery
drama, or it might become a useful way for someone void is as good a way to handle that as any.
to power you down if you ever decide to become the I want to emphasize that this isn’t a power you have,
terrifying nemesis of all that is good and right— per se—it’s just a character-specific interpretation
Basically, if you get a limb that will destroy the world of the normal wound rules. When you take a wound
in 24 hours, there is an option for removing it that isn’t in the Chuubo’s Marvelous Wish-Granting Engine
2
just “kill the sun and plunge the world back into dark- RPG, you explain how your character handles it and
ness.” This shouldn’t be a scenario that actually comes you pick up a character trait accordingly. If it makes
up in play, though. more sense for you to just bleed all over and pass out
when somebody stabs you in the stomach, do that. If it
Abandoning Limbs ever makes more sense for Rinley Yatskaya to grow an
You can abandon a limb at will, e.g., if you’d like to embarrassing stomach-hand when someone stabs her,
use the Health Level for a different limb or you need she’ll do that! But on the whole, I figure that it’s more
that Health Level in order to soak a wound. The limb likely to be the other way around.
loses its powers immediately and fades away physi- When you’re wounded, the HG will tell you what
cally over the course of a few minutes (if it was using a health level you’d need to wound; a “wound” to your
Normal or Tough Health Level) to a few hours (if it was Normal Health Levels always manifests as a reasonably
using a Divine Health Level.) well-controlled Bond and a wound to any other Health
Level as an HG-twistable Affliction. Like all wounds,
you can’t discard wound-limbs on your own, but your
Immortality (pg. XX) will heal them pretty fast—prob-
ably 1-3 minutes for a Normal, 1-3 hours for a Tough
Health Level, and overnight for a Divine Health Level.
You’re actually not going to get wounded very
often—as just noted, you’re immortal! Most mundane
events and even most characters are simply incapable
of doing more than taking you out for a scene and
maybe wounding a Normal Health Level. I just figured
it’d be good to make clear that the way you usually
think of wounds, when you do get them, is “dang, I
have to spawn some new character feature, possibly
a limb, which is more freakish than normal and will
(for better or worse) go away pretty soon.” It’s not until
you start having to give up established limbs you liked
that getting hurt actually discommodes you, and it’s not
until you’ve run out of Divine Health Levels that you
should have any reason to be afraid.
204 Playbooks
Child of the Ash Characters who are in despair or on the border
You were born as a limb and effusion and radiance of of despairing can draw on this property to resist that
your mother— despair, to face impossible situations, or to keep trying/
A cutting of her, growing now in the soil of the rise to the challenge after an awful failure. Sometimes
lower world. it’ll help them succeed; sometimes it’ll help them
Your form is usually human, and even when you recover MP/Will when foolish hope gets them into
expand on it its usual base is human, but that’s not your trouble.
only option. You could have been a floating thing of Often it’ll lead to their gaining a point of the Issue
endless fire, a congeries of hideous fusion-lit spheres, Trust.
fiery maws, and limbs. It’s your own hope that you’re radiating, so it’s very
Playbooks
You just chose not to be because, seriously, why hard for you to benefit from this yourself—although it’s
would anyone be that? Like, say you got a job at a not totally impossible if you wind up with two minds,
supermarket. You go to restock some shelves. They one of which is in despair, or something, or if you train
BURST INTO FLAME. You scream! You run for a yourself to dredge up reserves of hope and radiate when
manager. The manager howls as you reflexively gulp you’re about to give up, or whatever.
him down into one of you fiery maws. That’s going to
get you a write-up! Corporate won’t like that at all! Hope-Splosion
Or let’s say you wanted to rescue a cat stuck up in Type: Imperial Miracle
a tree. Cost:
The cat wouldn’t want to come down! It would ŭŭ 0 MP—1/book, invoke a “hope-splosion.”
hiss at you! And that’s not even the worst conceiv- ŭŭ 4 MP—Use this power a second or later time in
able scenario! a book.
Still, the long measures of your birth—the nine
months, or decades, or minutes, or however long it was Once per book, you may fire off a tactical hope-burst
you gestated inside her, it probably had a nine in it but of exuberance, lightheartedness, and cheer. This func-
it’s not clear why anything to do with the sun would be tions as a wish, though a fairly specific one—some-
in months—left their mark. They tell a story and that thing like:
story is written into your flesh and bones: “I wish everything in this [situation/place]
A miraculous story Arc, Otherworldly (Child would be full of hope!”
of the Ash) 1. This is an indiscriminate but almost completely
Its powers work like this: non-lethal weapon—you won’t control how far-
reaching its definition of the situation is, you can’t target
Light to Encourage Hope specific people, and, much as with a wish, it’s going
Type: Imperial Miracle to be up to HG and group interpretation on a case-by-
Cost: case basis just why and how everything becomes full of
ŭŭ 0 MP—Given time, you can communicate a hope. It could be…
feeling of hope.
ŭŭ 4 MP—You can invoke this power with a word, a ŭŭ ...Santa Claus flying around wildly on a sleigh
fingersnap, or a sunrise. throwing presents at people while everything
lights up Christmas.
Invoke Light to Encourage Hope and you can com- ŭŭ ...a horrifying, identity-crushing Stepford Hope.
municate a feeling of hope, either using your mortal ŭŭ ...that a solid reason for hope appears.
body and language or by mixing that feeling into the ŭŭ ...that everyone there has a bizarre, transcendent
light radiated by the sun. After a few minutes, this experience, a glimpse into the face of the universe
qualifies for a Region Property, either where you are or beyond the universe we know, that fills them with
anywhere in the sunlight (your choice): ebullient and sourceless hope.
ŭŭ ...that small “hope-bugs” swarm up from a
ŭŭ There is reason to hope. previously unseen hopehill and start dashing into
Playbooks 205
people’s mouths and (if necessary) noses. They truth. A weary, defeated acceptance; an empty but an
actually taste like chocolate raspberries and give honest peace; a peculiarly gentle despair.
a kind of bubbly feeling when they sting or are Feel free to change that—if you think your wicked
digested by you but it’s still kind of weird. They mode is full-on actual despair, or even actual death, I’m
have the logo “HOPE IS GREA” on their wings, not going to be the one to tell you no!
but only the really big ones have room for the I just don’t think that’s so.
final T.
Kaiju Form
The time it takes to launch your hopebursts is cos- Type: Imperial Miracle
metic—this power never takes “too long” to invoke, so Cost:
it’s just a matter of whether it makes more sense for ŭŭ 0 MP—Become a kaiju over the course of
2
you to stand there making hope-lifting gestures (or several minutes.
whatever) for a few minutes or not. If you’re spending ŭŭ 4 MP—Become a kaiju instantly.
4 MP, you can set this time frame yourself, including
“instant.” You think you could probably give up on all this
humanoid stuff and turn your basic physical body into
Wicked Mode a shiny and hopeful but also totally horrifying conge-
Type: Imperial Miracle Cost: — ries of fusion-lit spheres and fiery limbs and maws and
You are not merely the child of Jade Irinka. Another the like. You’d probably be extremely powerful and
part of you comes from the Headmaster of the certainly you’d be able to burn things extremely well.
Bleak Academy. That said, you can’t actually imagine a circumstance in
There’s something you can do, e.g., rubbing your which this would help—
face with ashes or putting on a black cap of scholarship Even if you can turn back afterwards, which you’re
and spinning it around to point to evil, to unleash that not certain of54, spending time as a horrifying mon-
side of you: strosity is almost certain to doom any chance you
To mark your sorrow, or your change in allegiances, might ever have of good grades in School, finding
by going into a wicked mode. love, learning to cook, adopting a cute puppy, hanging
Just doing that doesn’t actually have any real effect out with your friends, or telling your father what an
on who you are. It’s an expression of something inside inhuman monster he is without him laughing in your
you. But when you do it it will change your general face. Everybody would be all, “No! I am not teaching
Mood, the thing the two powers above are about, from my baking secrets to this horrible monstrosity” or “No!
“Hope” to “Disillusionment” or “Resignation.” The I cannot let you adopt this puppy. What if you turn into
Region Property you create is now: a ravening horror once again? The puppy would catch
on fire! And that’s terrible!”
ŭŭ There’s no point in pretending. I should note that while this could definitely be a
useful transformation, for instance, if you ever get into
The “hope-splosion” becomes, instead, a wish an upstaging contest with a disguise artist or have to
of ennui: light a signal fire in the rain, it doesn’t come with any
“I wish people in this [situation/place] automatic powers. You have one special power, below,
would just face reality.” that only works in kaiju form; other than that, the only
This is meant to be the nicest possible implemen- benefit is that if you say something like, “My Intention
tation of despair—the kind of thing that makes sense is to light that signal fire by everting a fusion sphere
as the antithesis of hope without actually being a bad onto it” or “My Intention is to roll across Tokyo pro-
thing. It’s just across the river from acceptance and it’s voking disaster and calamity” the HG is likely to assign
not all that far from peace: a lower Obstacle and a more practical result.
The feeling you get when you’re too tired to put on
masks any more, too tired to hide from reality any more,
or lie, or build things up, or disguise an unpleasant 54 The power below means that your player can decide you can do this,
but it doesn’t mean that your player necessarily will.
206 Playbooks
This transformation usually takes a few minutes to Shed Scales
complete and, once complete, is permanent. Type: Miraculous Action
Cost:
Mortal Form ŭŭ 0 MP—Starting mid-scene, adjust your kaiju
Type: Imperial Miracle form’s scale 1-2x/scene.
Cost: ŭŭ 1 MP—Starting mid-scene, adjust your kaiju
ŭŭ 0 MP—1/book, between two chapters, revert to form’s scale an additional time.
your non-kaiju form. ŭŭ 2 MP—Starting mid-scene, adjust your kaiju
ŭŭ 1 MP—Switch back a second or later time form’s scale as often as necessary this scene.
per book. ŭŭ 4 MP—Adjust your kaiju form’s scale as often as
Playbooks
ŭŭ 2 MP—Switch back mid-chapter (over the course you’d like this scene.
of a few minutes).
ŭŭ 4 MP—Assume your non-kaiju form instantly. Your kaiju form, your fiery and awful shape, is
kind of indifferent to scale. Are you three stories tall?
It’s generally easier for a teenager to turn into a Skyscraper tall? Or just barely small enough to fit into
gigantic alien flame-monster than the other way around. someone’s house?
If you want to get back to your normal body, you’ll ...maybe a little of both?
need to get away from Main Characters at the end of Invoke Shed Scales while taking a mundane action
a chapter, go somewhere unobserved, and work at it appropriate for a different size and, if you can over-
for what can take you days. In fact, for a while, it’s so come the appropriate size-related Obstacle, this power
difficult that it may well be worth having someone talk automatically re-scales you to somewhere between
you back to normal as the resolution of an Issue instead insect- and Regional scale where taking the relevant
of paying the normal cost. action with the relevant level of success is feasible.
Turning back, like turning into a kaiju in the first You’ll stay that size until you leave kaiju form or use
place, is permanent once accomplished. this power again.
This power also gives you some automatic wiggle
room—if the HG eyeballs a size-related Obstacle55 as
level 1 or so, you can just completely ignore it, take
your action, and resize accordingly. Only stuff that’s a
big enough deal for a 2+ Obstacle (“You’re doing what?
OK, this is going to be epic...”) even slows you down.
Some characters with this power stop having a fixed
size at all—
Let the HG know if you’re OK with them fudging
your size now and then, and when and why that might
tend to happen.
55 Including square-cube-law-related Obstacles and most strength,

weight, and flexibility-related Obstacles, but only if the HG can figure
out a size that makes the action feasible.
Playbooks 207
Otherworldly Divination
Type: Miraculous Action, Quest Miracle Cost: —
Your Child of the Ash Arc ties you to a place—a world, Far Away
a distant world, with a reality separate from Town’s. Somewhere,
I’m going to guess that this is either the sky kingdom
or the Bleak Academy.
You’ll choose, as a player, which.
Over the course of a 15-XP quest, you can use your
dreams to find something out from or about that world.
Finding out about those places is likely to be difficult—
you’ll need Strike from an MP or a Bond to get past the
2
natural barriers to doing so, and it’ll be better used to
help the HG or yourself put together an impressionistic Here, With You
picture of the place than to pin down facts. Finding out
stuff from whichever of those places you can access is
much more practical—in your dreams, you’ll visit a
great library of the sky kingdom that was, or the library
of the Bleak Academy, and learn... well, from what
that knows.
Otherworldly Divination
Bonus XP XP
You’re dreaming about another world, a place that’s deeply connected
to you—most likely the sky kingdom or the Bleak Academy.
This quest comes with a division of states—there’s the you who’s fully
awake and alert to the mortal world, and then there’s the you whose
thoughts are on your mother’s kingdom or your father’s keep.
I’ve made a sign for this—a reversible card, which you could in theory
have on the table in front of you in play to show which state you’re in.
You can earn a bonus XP at any time (though only once per scene/15
minutes) by flipping the card, showing that you’re moving between
states—focusing on the mundane world around you, or fading into
thoughts of distant and magical lands.
208 Playbooks
Primordial then it’ll be a long and miserable swim to the edge. But
So that was you, before; a child of hope, who could in if everyone’s eyes are on you, then it’s a lot easier to
theory become a child of disillusionment or the fiery rise to the surface in a sunbeam and a clot of seething
offspring of the sun. red, which eddies away to reveal you still OK—either
But the death of the sun and your assumption of the after the rest of the stuff in the scene resolves, or, with
title changed that. MP, during the same scene you fell in.
In that moment you inherited some of your mother’s All that said, note:
nature, some of her history, some of the accumulated
weight of destiny and being intrinsic to the sun. You ŭŭ Extremely deadly stuff, like nukes, volcano baths,
inherited the miraculous story Arc, or story Arcs, and level 7+ miracles can hurt you. Your wounds
Playbooks
Mystic (Primordial) 2. will still be smaller than you’d expect, and they’ll
You became—are still becoming, really—a divine heal in anywhere from a minute to “the next
creature of the Sun and Hope. Here’s how that works. dawn,” but if someone shoves miniature black
holes into your eyes your eyes will bleed, and it
Immortality won’t look kid-friendly.
Type: Miraculous Action, Major ŭŭ You can suffer from the Sickness Issue—it’s just
Cost: that the individual manifestations of turning into a
ŭŭ 0 MP—Damage or enchantment has only tempo- vampire56 or being turned to the service of evil or
rary, appropriate effects on you. whatever are G-rated.
ŭŭ 1 MP—You totally recover and shrug everything ŭŭ You can be confined as long as it’s interesting and
off 1-2 times mid-scene. doesn’t keep you out of play. If there is interesting
ŭŭ 2 MP—Starting mid-scene, you shrug off attacks stuff going on, it’s not a predicament.
and other effects like they’re paper tigers. ŭŭ Occasionally I’ll introduce an effect that lets you
ŭŭ 4 MP—You’re basically unaffected by the world take some action at the cost of “a terrible wound,”
around you. or that seals a wound so that no effect can heal it.
If you’re doing something like that to yourself,
Your wounds are strictly G-rated at all times. If Immortality will not heal such wounds.
you’re stuck in hard vacuum, for instance—well, the
sun actually spends a lot of time in space and is OK, so If there’s an Auctoritas protecting an attack and its
maybe nothing happens to you there at all. But at worst ability to damage you, you may need Strike to use this
your eyes bug out a little and you claw at space. ability, or it won’t work. However, if immortality fails
So if… and you take a wound, it heals quickly (as noted above.)
The only way you can get a long-lasting wound is if
ŭŭ ...someone hits you? taking the wound is the price you pay for using some
ŭŭ ...you forget to eat for three months? ability, e.g. ignoring a wish.
ŭŭ ...you’re hit by a nuclear barrage? Occasionally I’ll introduce an effect that lets you take
ŭŭ ...people are pouring molten steel over your head? some action at the cost of “a terrible wound,” or that
seals a wound so that no effect can heal it. If you’re
Shrug it off! Hope is eternal. For every sunset there is doing something like that to yourself, Immortality will
a dawn. You are Jasper Irinka, and the sickest you ever not heal such wounds.
get is semi-conscious and feverish for a night (and then
a full recovery at dawn); most serious wounds just rip
your sleeves a bit, make your breathing labored, and
skin your arm or leg. And that’s assuming that you actu-
ally get wounded instead of just growing a new limb!
Your recovery is generally a bit miraculous, and works
best if someone is looking at you. If you’re drowning in
a volcano, for instance, and nobody’s paying attention, 56 You will probably catch on fire a lot, but luckily… um… well, there’s
probably something lucky about it. Somewhere. You poor thing.
Playbooks 209
Timing and You Arc Powers
When you have a power that works mid-scene or Immortality is your “Arc power”—you get it for
starting mid-scene, that means that you use it after being on one of the Arcs that grant Immortality. If you
some meaningful stuff has already happened in the change to a different Arc, it’s replaced by whatever
current scene. power that Arc offers instead.
When you have a power that works after a few I suggest you stick to Arcs that offer Immortality—
minutes, that means that either a few things have to there’s a decent selection of them, including both
happen while you’re setting this up, or nothing is hap- Child of the Ash and Primordial if you take them
pening at all. Ideally this covers about five minutes of further, and if you let yourself die to anything but a
game time in a languid scene or five minutes of real transcendent plot device sacrifice it’s probably going
time in a scene of fast-paced play, but precision isn’t to be plain bad for everybody.
2
very important here.
Inspiring Radiance The Heart of the Sun

Type: Special Cost: — Type: Imperial Miracle
You are the sun. As such, you may use your mortal Skills Cost:
to produce sunny days, beautiful sunsets and sunrises, ŭŭ 0 MP—After a few minutes concentrating, send
dramatic illumination, and the like. You’re normally out a mote of sunlight to find/see/hear something.
limited to things that are pretty sun-like, like “shining ŭŭ 1-4 MP—Speed this process up.
on someone,” but with practice or by overcoming a
small Obstacle you can do things like “clouding over” Spend a few minutes concentrating and you can send
or “making a rainbow.” With enough practice or a Trick a mote of sunlight out into Town with your senses of
Perk, you can master weather effects that don’t really sight and hearing in it. It can…
have much to do with the sun at all like “stormy skies”
or “writing kanji on the clouds.” ŭŭ …move through sunlit areas very quickly.
The practical effect of this power is that if you say ŭŭ ...focus your senses to see and hear from any
“I’m going to make a great dawn today” or “I don’t specific place in sunlight.
like this guy. I’m going to glare at him all day from the
sky and make him uncomfortably hot” or something the As a speck of sunlight that can only really exist in
HG should ask you for an action level instead of just sunlight, your mote is invisible for most practical
squinting at you with a dubious look.57 purposes—but it does brighten shadows that it passes
across, so extremely alert characters may overcome a
level 2-3 Obstacle and spot it anyway.
Practically speaking, it usually takes around an hour
to search a Region for a specific person-sized object
that is visible in sunlight, but this is only an average.
Sometimes you’re lucky or unlucky. It’s faster to find
large things and things you have an approximate loca-
tion for, and it’s slower to find things that are smaller
or that spend less than an hour at a time in the sunlight.
(For instance, a puppy that’s taken out for five minutes
now and then might take you a few days to find, while a
large building will usually only take a few minutes.) If
you’re trying to move your senses to a specific, known
57 If they squint at you anyway you should draw yourself up to your point in the Region you’re in, it takes a minute or less;
full height, level an accusatory finger at them, and say, “You, sir or a specific, known point anywhere in Town takes up to
madam, are squinting at me in direct contravention of the instruc- five minutes.
tions of Jenna Katerin Moran. I hope you’re proud of yourself.” Then,
stick out your tongue!
And run away!
210 Playbooks
You can spend additional MP to hurry this process. Your digestive system is abnormal and mystical; if
This is up to the HG—simply ask them, “Can I get better you get poisoned, you might still take a wound, but you
results if I dump some MP in this?” and they’ll either have a really good excuse to define that wound however
shake their head sadly and apologize or say, “Sure, [1? you like. (e.g., jellyfish venom might make you trans-
2? 4?] MP and I’ll skip most of the concentration and lucent instead of paralyzing you; deadly despair toxin
get the mote right to where it needs to go.” Make sure might make you bleed shadows everywhere instead of
the HG knows that they can refund some or all of the feeling despair.) If you throw up, you’ll tend to throw
MP if there’s nothing to actually find, so naming a price up fire, sunlight, and/or lumpy rainbows and sparkle
isn’t necessarily a spoiler. soup instead of food.
You can optionally activate your other senses for At the HG’s option, devouring something suitably
Playbooks
use with this power, including smell, touch, and any magical and powerful will give you MP, XP, or even
senses associated with your magical limbs, but you are a new Perk.
strictly unable to use this power to sense things that are
not in sunlight. You can’t even hear an air raid siren Connect to Someone
that’s right next to your virtual “ear” if it is temporarily Type: Imperial Miracle
in shadow. Cost:
The range of this power is initially limited to Town, ŭŭ 0 MP—After a conversation, bind to someone’s
but you may spend a Recharge Token to learn to send dream or hope.
out sun-motes to a Region in the broader world. If ŭŭ 4 MP—Skip the conversation and do this after a
you want to widen the scope dramatically rather than single (metaphorical) glimpse of their heart.
increasing it in bits and pieces a Perk might be able to
add disproportionately large chunks of territory to this This power is about hopes and dreams. It’s about people
power’s reach. who want to be a god-queen or a hero. It’s about people
who wish they could reconcile with alienated family
Digest members someday. It’s about people who wish they had
Type: Imperial Miracle Cost: — more money to spend on clothing, or wistfully dream of
These are absolute and unquestionable truths: being cool, or hope that they’ll ace their tests this year.
It’s not so much about the things people want—it’s OK
ŭŭ You can digest anything you eat over the course for someone to have a dream that they know they can
of 2-3 hours, making it a part of you. never get, or with a price that’d be too high if they ever
ŭŭ There is nothing that is notionally impossible for did. It’s about, not what they want, but the things that
you to devour. trouble them or calm their heart; that keep them moving
forward... or maybe even hold them back.
There are many things in the world that you have no It’s about where people want to go, how they want
idea how to eat, like shadows, energy, and the moon. things to happen, and where they dream of going
Like, you put a shadow in your mouth, you close from here.
your mouth, you swallow—that doesn’t work! What a When you’ve spent a while talking to someone about
crazy idea! their hopes for the future, their wishes, their dreams,
...but with the right help, the right power, or the right you have the power to “hold” their dreams—to connect
trick, it’s possible. No miraculous or mundane action, to them, take those dreams into yourself without taking
Affliction, or condition can make it impossible for you them away from your target, and use those dreams to
to eat something, only very difficult. Conversely, only manifest a limb.
the most dedicated effort that exploits wish rules can The underlying “concept” of a limb is based on
stop you from digesting something that you’ve discov- the person you’re connecting to or the dream you’re
ered a method to eat.58 holding.
For instance:
58 Do I expect this power to come up very often? No! I absolutely do
not. But if your worst enemy ever transforms himself into an olive or Deep Blue Sea, you’ll thank me for specifying that digestion of this
you find yourself morally obligated to devour God, the Devil, and the sort is never notionally impossible.
Playbooks 211
If you connect to a teen idol, maybe you pick up a
Binding to an Enemy
sparkly aura with a low-level Bond or Superior Skill This power relies most fundamentally on insight—it’s
at looking fashionable and awesome. If you connect to not about the words that you hear from the person
somebody’s dream of going into space one day, maybe you’re talking to so much as the channel that that con-
you’ll pick up “Martian” antennae and enhanced cold versation opens to that person’s heart.
and airlessness survival skills. (Or, because they’re If your target really doesn’t want to share their ideas
antennae, the ability to communicate with dogs.59) The or experiences, doesn’t want you to bind to them with
more of a stretch this is, the more you’ll have to practice this power, but is in communication with you, you can
to get the limb to work—but do feel free to go out on use the action system (usually, the mundane action
a limb here60, because sometimes antennae to commu- system) to arbitrate whether they reveal a glimpse of
nicate with pets with are just more fun than cold resis- themselves anyway.
2
tance and less farcical than zero-gee space jumping. The default assumption is that they probably do. It’s
You can adjust limbs like this somewhat over the possible for someone to keep up a good front in front
course of a discussion, or a later discussion—if you of you and avoid your access to their experience, and
want to fine-tune your Rinley-based tattoo or your being taciturn and “careful” helps with that, but it isn’t
golden wings, just talk to the person in question some always enough.
more! It may be possible to actively increase the limb’s
powers over time and discussions like this—if nothing
else, by building up an (in) Over Your Head, Calling, Sight of the Hopeful Heart
or Something to Deal With Issue over the course of Type: Imperial Miracle
those conversations, and then resolving it by creating a Cost:
more powerful limb using Limb to Create Hope below. ŭŭ 0 MP—Someone whose dreams you hold can tell
While you hold their experience, your body changes you what they’d want you to know.
and you gain a power. This manifests as… ŭŭ 1 MP—After a few minutes, know the rough
location/status of such a person.
ŭŭ ...an inconspicuous and probably pleasant ŭŭ 4 MP—Know this information immediately.
physical or attitudinal change and a tiny power,
like a level 2 Bond or level 1 Superior Skill, If you’re “holding” someone’s hopes and dreams you
which you must “store” in an unwounded Normal can have an insight into their life and circumstances.
Health Level. They can emote to you from wherever they are, although
ŭŭ ...a conspicuous but concealable physical or there’s a level 4 Obstacle in the way of your parsing this
attitudinal change and a larger power, like to get detailed information—I mean, there’s nothing
an Affliction, level 2-3 Superior Skill, or a inherently wrong with someone emoting, “Wow, I sure
miraculous ability that you can use 1-2x/scene, feel stressed about the kidnappers demanding that I
which you must “store” in an unwounded Tough go alone to 1642 Rue d’Angleterre!” but parsing the
Health Level. address out of that is difficult for you.
ŭŭ ...a disturbing and inhuman (though possibly If you’re willing to spend MP, you can use this
aesthetic) physical or attitudinal change, with power to locate someone whose dreams you hold or to
roughly the same power level as those stored in figure out how they’re holding up. Specifically, you’ll
your Tough level, which you must store in an learn their…
unwounded Divine Health Level.
ŭŭ ...rough location.
ŭŭ ...near-exact direction.
ŭŭ ...despair and hopefulness level.
You can keep checking as long as you sustain this

action without spending additional MP—it takes a few
59 I assume this is how antennae work.
60 No pun intended
212 Playbooks
more minutes (if you spend 1 MP) or a thought (if you ŭŭ “I wish that there’d be something at the end of
spent 4 MP) each time. this journey that’s worth the trouble.”
ŭŭ “I wish that by the end of this journey you’ll
Sun Lights the Path understand that you’re worth the trouble.”
Type: Imperial Miracle ŭŭ “I wish that the sun would keep you safe on the
Cost: course of this journey.”
ŭŭ 0 MP—The sun lights the path for someone
whose dreams you hold 1/week. In all three cases, start by figuring out what the path
ŭŭ 1 MP—Use this power a second or later time actually is—that is, where are they trying to go? Or, if
this week. they don’t know, where are you trying to illuminate a
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ŭŭ 2 MP—Use this power a second or later time in a path to?
handful of hours. Afterwards, in the first case, the HG usually handles
things by thinking about where the path in question
Invoke Sun Lights the Path when someone whose goes, and then (if necessary) inventing or moving
dreams you hold is lost or looking for something and something cool there.
any available sunlight (or light that can be described to The second option, where the target has to have a
resemble sunlight) will illuminate the path or thing. If beneficial spiritual experience or at least gain or main-
they’re lost or confused in a more abstract sense, this tain a sense of self-worth, is harder. For a PC target,
power manifests as a temporary level 2 Bond for them: their player can either work with you and the HG to
figure out what fulfilling the wish would take, or—if
ŭŭ Sun Lights the Path. a growing sense of self-worth doesn’t feel accessible
for the character as they stand, treat it as an outright
In particular, this means that the sun will light a psychic attack. For an NPC, the option of “the HG just
path for them even if that doesn’t necessarily solve assumes that it happens” opens up.
the problem they’re having—or even if it’s not clear The third wish typically creates an effect of some
to anyone at the table what a solution would look like sort, variable in the fashion of all wishes, that keeps
or what a given path being “right” would mean. If they your target safe while they follow the path the sun
then follow that path, they’ll at least get a potential points out for them; depending on how the HG wants to
bonus on their mundane actions, potential Strike for handle it, it can be up to the target to figure out how to
their miracles, and most importantly, if it turns out to make this protection work or up to enemies wanting to
be the wrong path, or a path that gets them into trouble, circumvent it to figure out how to do so.
they can earn 1-2 MP or some Will from that!
Sight of the Hopeful Heart [Powered Up]
Sun Lights the Path [Powered Up] Type: Imperial Miracle; [certain applications only]
Type: Imperial Miracle Bleak
Cost: Cost:
ŭŭ 0 MP—1/season, reveal an improved path with ŭŭ 0 MP—Know many things about someone whose
Sun Lights the Path. dreams you hold 1/season.
ŭŭ 4 MP—Use this power a second or later time in ŭŭ 4 MP—Use this power a second or later time in
a season. a season.
This power includes a free invocation of Sun Lights Once per story, you may invoke Sight of the Hopeful
the Path. Heart to know all kinds of things about someone whose
Once per season, you can use Sun Lights the Path dreams you hold. Specifically, this functions as a wish
to illuminate a better-than-average path for someone. on the order of
This functions, effectively, as your choice of the fol- “I wish I knew how to give you hope.”
lowing three wishes: This tends to just give you whatever information the
HG or the target’s player thinks might be relevant to
Playbooks 213
competently pursue inspiring hope in them. However, ŭŭ ...a level 5 Hero Issue.
if this starts getting into secret information or stuff they ŭŭ ...a level 4-5 (in) Over Your Head Issue.
don’t want to share, this may switch to Bleak rules— ŭŭ ...a level 5 Sickness.
it becomes a kind of corruption or breaking down of ŭŭ ...a level 5 Vice.
boundaries, and is resistable as such. ŭŭ ...an enemy that has just showily defeated you and
Once invoked this power usually remains in force your friends twice.61
until there’s a substantive narrative payoff or the story
ends—it’s not a one-time thing, where the HG or the The HG assigns the transformation to one of your
target’s player has to think up everything you might Health Levels—normally to a Divine Health Level, but
need to know right then or there; rather, it’s a continual the limb can use one of your subtler Health Levels if
flow of information to back up your ability to inspire appropriate. It displaces a held experience if necessary
2
them towards hope. The information will grow a little and can even displace a wound. However, if it displaces
out-of-date if you stop holding their experience but a wound, the change is temporary: it lasts only as long
(since some of it represents an instant of deep under- as necessary to fulfill its function, and then, unless the
standing) it won’t actually stop. wound would have healed by then, the change goes
away and the wound returns.
Limb to Create Hope / Limb to Devour Evil If you had an available, unwounded Health Level of
Type: Imperial Miracle the necessary level or above, you are absolutely allowed
Cost: to keep the change afterwards, for as long as you like.
ŭŭ 0 MP—Manifest a new limb 1/season. (Even into the next story, if that’s what you’d prefer!)
ŭŭ 4 MP—Manifest a new limb for a second or later
time this season. Mystic Quests
Type: Miraculous Action, Quest Miracle Cost: —
Once per season, when hope is distant and far away, It’s hard being the sun raised by people—growing up
when darkness threatens to consume you, you can in Fortitude, or even in the sky, can’t teach you how
invoke Limb to Create Hope or Limb to Devour Evil to actualize your real self. There just isn’t the social
and craft a new limb to resolve the situation. There’s context or support structure for it.
something more raw and primal to this than a wish— Even the self-help books are silent!
the key rule for this new organ or limb isn’t any of the If you want to learn more about being the sun prop-
wishing rules but rather that: erly you have to kind of feel it out, exploring nameless
This limb or organ must be instrumental and wordless sensations that hardly anybody else in the
in inspiring or invoking Hope, or in sup- universe shares and nobody really has language for.
pressing Despair, Resignation, or Death, in Here’s how that works.
a meaningful and well-grounded way. Over the course of a 15-XP Symbolic quest,
It has whatever powers the HG thinks it must have, you can…
and they’re as easy or difficult to use as the HG thinks
appropriate, to guarantee that that rule is followed. ŭŭ ...develop a unique extension to your normal
However, if the limb has an Imperial power that over- thematics and abilities that helps you with the
rides ordinary miracles or complex powers that need problem—probably unnecessary because your
time and effort to figure out, the standard wishing main powerset covers most of this, but it could be
rules apply. useful if you’re ever stranded in the Antarctic with
You can also invoke this power to resolve an Issue— no MP and nobody’s hopes and dreams to hold.
or, more precisely, a miracle that resolves an Issue ŭŭ ...dissociate from your quasi-human self—you
receives a 4 MP discount, and doing so with this power find yourself ripped from your life, given a new
often works well. It’s particularly common for you to form, insights, powers, and location, in some
invoke Limb to Devour Evil when you have… fashion that fits with your nature as Hope and the
ŭŭ ...a level 4-5 Calling. 61 not a formal Issue, but for the sake of kindness I’ll give you a 4-MP
discount on this specific use anyway.
214 Playbooks
Sun. Do you fly through the world as a bird of the experimenting with them sometime anyway. Later on,
sun? Manifest as a sun-dream in someone’s head? when you’ve reached Primordial 3, you’ll be able
Preach to the fire people of some distant land? to use this kind of quest to create powerful blessings
and mystical servants instead.
This quest miracle is usually a tradeoff between
control and power: if you just let divine hope and the Limb to Devour Evil [Powered Up]
light of the world work through you, then you’ll do Type: Imperial Miracle Cost: 0 MP
some pretty awesome things, but really, it’s just the When you’re facing some impossible threat from the
HG doing them. If you insist on total control over the Bleak Academy or elsewhere, and you invoke Limb
process, it’s like, you can maybe hear a few whispered to Devour Evil, you have the option to skip adding
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words of the world talking to itself, walk through a wall a freaky divine limb to your normal human body and
or two, or gain a temporary level 1-2 Superior Skill. make the sun itself go all freaky and use its sunbeams
In the time you are not yourself, you will almost as tentacles or whatever instead. Sustaining this kind
always hear a secret; when you return to being yourself, of thing for more than a few minutes hurts, a lot, but
abandoning the quest, you will almost always wake up you’re a goddess and you don’t have an actual limit to
somewhere you weren’t expecting to be. how long you can keep it up—the only special down-
These powers aren’t likely to be very useful, but side of this power-up is that you have to be prepared
they’re a part of growing up, so I’d recommend to play, and watch others play, the kind of trauma that
Mystic Quests
There’s something going on. You think it means... you... you think it... XP
r-relates to...
It is about growing up, when you are the sun.
once per scene/15 minutes) by declaring that you can feel... someth—
that, that there’s a, a thing, you know? A-a sensation, a connection. That
you’re having something happen, because you are the sun. Something,
it, it, it’s happening but... but you, you, you don’t know what. Taking
you away from your you. Turning you into, into another thing for a while
or or or or taking the part of you that’s the you away from the part of you
that’s the not; or maybe helping, helping with some, um, some thing that
needs to be helped. You, you don’t know. No, no manual. No, I mean, it’s
not a manual. It’s... a... it’s a thing.
You don’t have to say it that way. Certainly not at such length. But you
do need to free-associate for a moment about what’s going on, to claim
the XP... talk about feathers, talk about wings, talk about frogs. Talk
about tendrils writhing, twisting, and they all beyond all time and space.
About, about... about setting, fires with your eyes. And your arms hurt.
And your head, it’s ringing. And your ears. And, and there’s a stone,
well, uh, um, it’s like a stone, it’s beneath your tongue.
Talk about what you experience; taste the leeks beneath the earth—
and that ramble is what brings you in a bonus XP towards this quest.
Playbooks 215
results from seeing the sun start wrestling the moon Traditional Extra Arms and Tendrils
or picking up people with sunbeams and eating them The Child of the Sun may develop additional limbs—
or whatever. typically 1-2 extra arms or tendrils. I don’t recommend
more than that but I’m not ruling it out! If you’re a fan
Limbs of symmetry, it’s OK to start with a pair of arms or a
a guide to being a many-limbed solar deity pair of tendrils, and then—if you need another limb like
this later—convert one of them into the new form.
I don’t want you completely lost in terms of how the Normally you will imbue such a limb with a miracle:
physical look of your character might evolve in play. it either enchants what it touches or conveys some
So while this isn’t completely binding, and both a few sort of force. For instance, you could imbue a tendril
of my examples and some of what you might do in play or hand with cold, either to radiate an icy chill or to
2
might break from this pattern, I want to list the major imbue what it touches with the cold-nature. It’s also
changes that you’re likely to pick up. relatively common to have a limb that can reach into
Here’s the stuff that’s pretty common—although it’s an abstract space: memories, dreams, nightmares, or a
OK if you want to hold off on extra arms and tendrils handy nearby pocket of unspace that always has plenty
until you actually need them: of school supplies.
In terms of the health levels you’ll use—
ŭŭ 1-2 extra arms or tendrils Extra arms aren’t subtle. If they’re particularly
ŭŭ a mark in one or both eyes perfect, elegant, and normal-looking, you might be able
ŭŭ a divinatory hair-tendril or pair of antennae to slip an unobservant person’s notice—people don’t
ŭŭ a shoulder, neck, or arm tattoo tend to actively count the arms of the people around
ŭŭ 1-2 hair decorations, alterations, or headpieces them—but it’s still pretty unusual to use anything less
ŭŭ other jewelry than a Divine Health level on a pair of extra arms.
ŭŭ a cheek or temple tattoo Manipulator tendrils are a little subtler, since they can
ŭŭ a communication power in your left hand, a hide under or against your clothing or hair, but they still
holographic display in the right, or a combined usually need a Tough Health level at the least.
communication/display power in the right Tendrils
In general, tendrils are agile and tend to come with
Here’s stuff that’s a little less common, but still more an unusual level of physical competence—a tendril that
or less “normal” for you: picks locks or a pair of kung fu tendrils is more likely
than an extra hand that does the same.
ŭŭ distinctive nail polish At the Tough level, we’re generally talking about
ŭŭ a surrounding aura, radiance, or breeze one or two delicate-looking plant-frond like tendrils,
ŭŭ some mobile tattoo on your skin or floating usually anchored in your upper or middle back. They’re
symbol around your head typically golden-brown, shining gold, or the same red
ŭŭ specific clothing or sunglasses or glasses as your hair. They’re probably about as structurally
ŭŭ a changed body language or “look” to match strong as a typical human limb but look much more
someone whose dreams you hold delicate and they are often easy to mistake for tendrils
ŭŭ a third eye in your forehead from nearby plants, strands of hair, or sunbeams.
At the Divine level, tendrils are more noticeable,
Here’s stuff that’s pretty rare—when you choose generally a lot longer, and the fact that they embody
something like this, you’re customizing your character supernatural power rather than genetic abnormality is
a bit by saying this is the kind of thing you do: more likely to be obvious.
Particularly at the Divine level tendrils can be made
ŭŭ wings, often with an additional limb-like power out of abnormal things—tendrils that are lightning or
ŭŭ changes to your ears, or extra cat/fox ears fire, or at least made of “lightning spirit-stuff” or “fire
ŭŭ limbs that involve creating or casting forth thread spirit-stuff” make sense. Tendrils are more likely than
ŭŭ miscellaneous weapon-limbs (cannons, stings) hands to be capable of delicate reality manipulation.
216 Playbooks
Hands • a hand imbued (when the glove is removed)
Hands, conversely, are more likely to have the normal with a terrifying radiance of fear
human level of physical competence but also the power • a hand that reverts things it touches
to enact enchantments or blessings—to imbue things to a more traditional form
with qualities or essences. If you have a really strong • a hand carrying a sacred flame
limb or pair of limbs, that’s also likely to be arms that purifies what it touches
and hands, because they’re rougher and less delicate • a hand that makes things sadder or
than tendrils. more nostalgic with a touch
Arms and hands occasionally come with a shielding • a hand with a power to shelter and defend
power—the open palm can manifest a protective force. wicked things and to de-sanctify what it touches
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If this is a very strong protective power it also gen- • a hand that reaches into nightmares
erally has a weakness of some sort, which you or your
enemies may figure out in play. Marks in the Eyes
At the Divine level, extra arms are a common expres- Divinatory powers often come with a color change or
sion of force and power, a protective ability, or an subtle pattern or image in one or both eyes. This ties
enchantment ability. them to a Normal Health level. By default, your divi-
Examples: Normal Health Levels nation powers aren’t very good—I can’t put a specific
ŭŭ extra arms that are only there for an instant or two meaning to that without knowing the circumstances in
when you’re doing specific things with them like your game, I just mean that when the HG is coming up
opening a door with both hands full with the details of how your divinations work, they’re
ŭŭ near-transparent manipulator tendrils not likely to be very impressive.
At the Tough level, you might pick up a concealed
Examples: Tough Health Levels third eye or a radiance from the eyes—something that
ŭŭ a variable-length manipulator tendril made of a makes them distinctively alien but which you can cover
sunbeam with glasses or shades. At the Divine level, it’s rela-
ŭŭ a tendril particularly good at some kind of fine tively common for a third eye to open in your forehead.
manipulation (e.g. card tricks) Divinatory powers associated with these more obvious
ŭŭ a feathery tendril that can reach into someone’s alterations are not markedly more useful, but they tend
head and share their memories to be further-reaching and may be paired with some
ŭŭ a feathery tendril good for fishing around in ability to share insight with others or to enchant things
dreams and pulling out useful things with, as by glaring at them.
Nightmares’ Angel does with nightmares Examples: Normal Health Levels
ŭŭ you get a targeting reticule over your iris and
Examples: Divine Health Levels become more accurate
ŭŭ a pair of 10-yard-long kung fu tendrils usable for ŭŭ you get cat eyes and better night vision
martial arts ŭŭ you get an icon of the Dream-Witch’s mask over
ŭŭ a tendril tipped with a node of physically destruc- your pupil and can see into dreams
tive force ŭŭ you get extra-reflective eyes and can scan docu-
ŭŭ a tendril made of lightning ments faster, the words you’re actively reading
ŭŭ two showy arms and hands that can mold plasma becoming extra-visible to others in the reflections
blasts into being from the air ŭŭ a drop of blood-like color appears over your pupil
ŭŭ a really strong arm and iris and…
ŭŭ on an appropriate arm: • ...you become a super-investigator
• a hand that chills things it touches able to see the signs of crime
• a hand that can adjust the tem- • ...or to understand and analyze
perature of things it touches creatures of the evil world
• a hand that kills germs
Playbooks 217
Examples: Tough Health Levels Tattoos
ŭŭ your eyes glow, possibly giving whatever you’re Holding someone’s dreams often marks you with a
looking at some mild enchantment symbol that represents them. I don’t want to overdo
• a hidden third eye appears in your it and imply that you’re going to wind up covered in
left palm, with a similar effect colorful ink—that’s valid, much as avoiding tattoos
entirely is valid, but it’s not part of the default “look”
Example: Divine Health Levels for the Child of the Sun. That said, there are three
ŭŭ a third eye opens in your forehead. It can tele- common uses for tattoos:
pathically share the images it sees with someone
whose dreams you hold ŭŭ on the back of your right hand, when you’re
holding someone’s dream temporarily.
2
Traditional Hair Effects ŭŭ on a standard but visible site like shoulder, neck,
I’m including earrings and tiaras under hair effects or upper arm.
because their “look” interacts with the look of your ŭŭ on your cheek or temple, when they’re a precious
hair.62 You might pick up a pair of earrings from person to you.
Limb to Create Hope or Limb to Devour Evil but
holding someone’s dream tends to give you just a single Most tattoos associate with a Normal Health Level,
earring—it’s a thing that marks you rather than a deco- but if a tattoo moves or has a significant power (instead
ration in the abstract. of giving a small Skill bump associated with the person
It is normal and common for the Child of the Sun to whose dreams you’re holding) it might be attached to a
pick up a tendril of hair or a pair of hair-based or hair- Tough level instead.
like antennae with an analytical, divinatory, or commu- You’ll find many examples and suggestions for these
nicative/expressive function. These sense things, point tattoos listed under 101 Example Limbs, below.
to things, or express your mood. For instance, you
might have a hair tendril that points towards hidden Communication and Display
treasure or that twitches when danger approaches. Such The Child of the Sun occasionally sites commu-
hair tendrils are also useful for sensing subtle energies nication or holographic display type powers in her
and communications. “starting” left and right hands—either in the palm or
Examples: Normal Health Levels the fingernails. For instance, she may be able to write
ŭŭ adjusting your hair color/adding a highlight to long-range messages to someone by writing on her left
match someone whose dreams you hold hand, or produce sunlight-based light shows from the
ŭŭ a built-in hairpin fingernails or palm of the right.
ŭŭ a metal crown or tiara
ŭŭ an earring (typically only in the left ear)
ŭŭ something strange and organic in your hair, like a
flowering vine headband or a few feathers
ŭŭ extremely subtle hair tendrils, usually adding
expressiveness or pointing towards things
Examples: Tough Health Levels

ŭŭ a highly visible ahoge, hair-like head tendril, or
pair of antennae that points to things
ŭŭ a disturbing bit of headwear like a crown of thorns
Example: Divine Health Levels

ŭŭ living hair, often extremely long, occasionally
with some power
62 I almost included sunglasses in this category too!
218 Playbooks
Auras much as anyone in long-term involuntary separation
You may surround yourself with a subtle aura—nor- from one of their extant limbs would be, but it’s not
mally sunlight or a gentle wind, although it might be impossible or inherently problematic, particularly if the
something else if you’re holding an appropriate dream. separated clothes are put on ice.
This typically has minor environmental effects but it Examples: Normal Health Levels
can have a protective or major environmental effect. ŭŭ a black and red jacket
Examples: Normal Health Levels ŭŭ a pair of shades
ŭŭ an intermittent summer breeze, sufficient to move ŭŭ a tongue piercing showing a symbol that rep-
the temperature towards 27 o C resents some Main Character to you
ŭŭ a tendency to attract snow during sad monologues ŭŭ extra-water-resistant clothing
Playbooks
ŭŭ an effusion or waft around you like the Yatskaya ŭŭ an extremely efficacious handkerchief
temple incense that attracts cats and makes it ŭŭ a pocket that always has an extremely efficacious
harder to tell between reality and dream handkerchief in it
ŭŭ a friendship ring
Examples: Tough Health Levels ŭŭ somebody’s symbol in iconic form on
ŭŭ a shielding wind that protects you and people near your fingernails
you from projectiles and vapor
ŭŭ a moral radiance useful in strengthening people in Examples: Tough Health Levels
their convictions ŭŭ clothing that automatically adapts to match
ŭŭ a bubble of sunlight that protects you and people another character’s
near you from almost anything ŭŭ a jaunty adventuring coat that always has a little
bit of anything you could justify an adventurer
Clothing and Decorations having a little bit of in their pockets, in its pockets
Some versions of the Child of the Sun skip the tattoos ŭŭ a “pole star” crown with a gleaming central jewel
entirely in favor of a charm bracelet or a collection that helps people around you orient even in the
of other jewelry to hold the symbols of those whose deep Outside or amid great wracks of confusion
dreams they hold. ŭŭ a highly traditional outfit that helps you have
More generally, instead of adding limbs, you have the visions of the local past
option of acquiring clothing with minor or even major
supernatural abilities. The most common supernatural
clothing is supernaturally durable or has a pocket con-
taining a modest but inexhaustible supply of something
or other. Clothes that affect the local Region Properties
in some fashion (protecting against the Outside or
invoking simplicity or sophistication) are also possible.
You can’t remove clothes purchased as a limb—
Wait, hm. That may mislead you, so let me rephrase.
If you buy clothes as a limb, that doesn’t require that
they be physically attached to you. A spiritual connec-
tion is sufficient. So you can take clothing purchased as
a limb off. You just... can’t go around not wearing them.
If your limb-jacket becomes stained, for instance, you
can tie it around your waist to hide the stain or go home
and change into a “different” but identical jacket. If you
have a limb-handkerchief, you can give it to somebody
to blow their nose with, as long as they then give it
back. Extended forced separation from a clothing-limb
makes the Child of the Sun extremely uncomfortable,
Playbooks 219
Kinesthetics Wings
It’s possible for Jasper to pick up the overall “look” or Wings aren’t really in character for the Child of the
style of movement of another character as part of the Sun, but they’re so incredibly useful and cool that I
process of connecting to them. figure it’s pretty likely that you’ll pick them up even-
Certain characters have a more distinctive physi- tually even so. I mean, they’re wings. Your mom had
cality than others. The Prodigy has a highly-tuned wings, you know! Sometimes! So do some of the bird-
body: her fitness is a matter of conscious design, and faced spirits you used to know.
to look or move like the Prodigy has implications that Like tendrils, wings often have some force or element
you can evaluate in play. The Angel of Fortitude has imbued into them; when spread or beat they can radiate
an inherently unnatural and alien style of movement— it into the focal point of their arc. A protective power is
showy, peculiar, and sometimes vaguely like a puppet also common.
2
on strings. Certain members of the Yatskaya family Example: Normal Health Levels
move like cats—Caroline, certainly, if not necessarily ŭŭ at dramatic sunlit moments, you “seem” to have
Rinley—and the body language of vampires is specific, wings spreading behind you
identifiable, and terrifying.
When the Dream-Witch reverts to her dream-self, Example: Tough Health Levels
her movement becomes flowing and alien; this too is ŭŭ wings infused with sonic force—they aren’t
something you could replicate in play. solid, they’re a barely visible tremor in the air,
In cases like this, where it means something to look yet they’re capable of lifting you into the sky or
or move like a certain character, it’s reasonable to pick producing aggressive sonic attacks
up that look or that style of movement as the “limb” you
get for holding their dreams. Examples: Divine Health Levels
In other cases, where “I look more like them” or “I ŭŭ vast golden metal wings that can shelter you and
move more like them” doesn’t have an obvious mean- others from harm
ing—e.g., if the target is the Best Friend—then this ŭŭ glittering icicle wings that can freeze things
declaration isn’t really anything that interfaces with ŭŭ wings covered in nasty hooks that you can use
your powers. You can still say that it happens, but on its in battle
own it doesn’t qualify as a limb! ŭŭ wings made of twisting scrolls or floating kanji
Example: Normal Health Levels that can refine themselves to show you the name
ŭŭ look a bit more like the Prodigy or the Angel of something you’re looking at
of Fortitude
Ears, Nose, and Tongue
Examples: Tough Health Levels You mostly don’t modify your ears. It’s possible to
ŭŭ move more like the Prodigy or the Angel enhance your hearing at the Normal or Tough Level or to
of Fortitude gain extra ears at the Divine level, but it’s pretty weird.
ŭŭ reshape yourself to make yourself look substan- I don’t think that enhancing your sense of smell or
tively more like one of them taste is very common. In fact, I can’t think of anything
ŭŭ automatically mirror certain moves used by one of you’re likely to do with the nose at all!63 On occasion
them when they’ve used them recently the Child of the Sun will pick up some sort of fire-on-
the-tongue, though, either for exhaling gouts of flame
with or for use in speaking words infused with holy fire.
63 I mean, I can think of options. There is much that can be done with
noses! But none of them seem to fit even highly variant versions of the
Child of the Sun.
220 Playbooks
Miscellaneous Limbs 101 Example Limbs
It’s possible for the Child of the Sun to pick up a Over the course of your conversation with the
random collection of combat, mobility, and other limbs. Wishing Boy, you learn that he just wants the good part
Each specific variation is pretty rare, but it’s totally rea- of childhood to go on forever—endless happy summer
sonable for you to come up with something of this sort days hanging out with his friends. He doesn’t neces-
that you like that fits your interpretation of the character. sarily want to stay a child forever, so much as to have
Examples: Normal Health Levels the good part just... stay.
ŭŭ a smile that makes things a little more OK You’ve decided to hold that dream.
ŭŭ a voice adapted to cut through sadness So here’s some limbs that go well with that ambition,
ŭŭ a touch that doesn’t intrude or evoke that ambition, or call back to who he is—a
Playbooks
couple tattoos with symbolic interpretations of who the
Example: Tough Health Levels Wishing Boy is, and then some limbs useful for sitting
ŭŭ a wrist or neck-mounted spinneret that shoots out around chatting with him on endless happy summer
a red thread of destiny that homes in on someone days or for making that chatting happen.
you care about (up to a quarter-mile, rated for a
safe load of half a ton) 1. a shoulder tattoo of cattails before a river
2. a full-back tattoo of serpents and tree.
Examples: Divine Health Levels
ŭŭ an arm-mounted glass-shattering sonic cannon These options would have a power like:
ŭŭ four twenty-foot long wall-clinging “walking” ŭŭ Superior Skill: Enjoying Life 1
limbs growing out of your back ŭŭ Superior Skill: Goofy 1
ŭŭ shoulder-mounted stinger limbs ŭŭ Superior Skill: Peaceful 1
ŭŭ complex hundred-branching limbs that can hold a ŭŭ Bond: Wishful Thinker 1
whole area together
ŭŭ a miscellaneous amorphous limb that can twine 3. cute antennae like one of his favorite anime
itself into the shape of a memory characters, with Superior Expressiveness 2 and
ŭŭ an arm with a hand that holds a mirror that reveals possibly the ability to talk to some sort of animal
the true forms of things 4. an intermittent summer breeze, sufficient to move
ŭŭ the ability to reach into the ground and lift up a the temperature towards 27 o C
thousand hands from the ground in the area 5. a spare hand that can rummage around64 and turn
up an ice cream cone
6. eyes that give off so much sunlight that you
A Space Cadet can light up a three-block area just by lifting
You’re a bit of a space cadet sometimes. It comes your shades
of being from the sky. Forget “this strange human 7. an amazing “jacks tendril,” exceptionally good at
emotion called love,” half the time you’re confused by playing jacks
“this strange human apparatus called coinage” or “this
strange human activity called sneezing.” Over the course of your conversation with the
Best Friend, he talks about his dreams—dreams of
hanging out with you and Chuubo forever, dreams of
exploring the world, dreams (though he may not say
this explicitly) of being real and staying real and having
Sneezing
a destiny in a world where he knows that he might not.
Sneezing! You’ve decided to hold that dream.
WHAT IS IT ABOUT ANYWAY?
Sometimes you yourself sneeze—and you still don’t
get it! It’s madness! WHAT IS THE POINT? 64 in something nearby. What that is… is not entirely clear. There’s
always something in the way of seeing where exactly she’s getting the
ice cream cones from. This is meant to be an amusing handwave and
not fridge horror or innuendo.
Playbooks 221
So here’s some limbs that go well with that ambition, Some of these are tied to him thematically—to night-
or evoke that ambition, or call back to who he is—a mares, to the red wings he does not wear, to heroism
couple tattoos with symbolic interpretations of who the and to blood. Others might help him in his ambitions.
Best Friend is, and then some limbs useful to help estab-
lish his reality, or be his friend, or explore the world, or 17. an earring of strange “nightmare metal”
simply in some fashion related to ideas like these! 18. an arm tattoo or earring showing a burning feather
19. an arm tattoo of a music-score-like design in red
8. an upper arm tattoo resembling a picture of an 20. a few red feathers growing in your hair
atom, with a doubled circle in orbit around a
stylized star These cosmetic options would have a power like—
9. highlights in your hair that match the color of his ŭŭ Magical Skill: Nightmare Science 1
2
ŭŭ Superior Skill: Naturalist 1
These two cosmetic options would have a power like: ŭŭ Superior Skill: Arrogance 1
ŭŭ Bond: Seizhi and Chuubo’s Friend 1 ŭŭ Superior Skill: Endurance 1
ŭŭ Superior Skill: Communication 1
ŭŭ Superior Skill: Nervous Wreck 1 21. a moral radiance useful in strengthening people in
their convictions
10. a targeting reticule in one iris useful in spotting 22. “nightmare nail polish” on your right hand and
inconsistencies in the Best Friend’s stories (so maybe on your left with cute little skulls on it
you can warn him about them in advance!) that lets you imitate his trick of fishing around in
11. a pocket that always has a handkerchief to lend someone’s nightmares and pulling useful tech-
12. a hair-tendril that always points towards neat nology out
places to explore 23. a “nightmare hand” that’s even better at that
13. a friendship ring from the Best Friend that, while 24. ...or that maybe is just extremely, horribly scary
you wear it, confirms them as having a destiny for no clear reason when you take off the glove
14. a right-palm holographic display that you can use 25. a “damsel in distress doll” that dangles from your
to bring up proposed definitions of philosophical belt and is extremely easy to accidentally kidnap
terms relating to the idea of being real or not in your place, for facilitating lower-consequence
15. a third eye that can share its perception of the heroism on his part65
world with nearby individuals of your choice 26. water-resistant clothing for helping to contain
(useful for external confirmation of the Best outbreaks of his blasphemy
Friend’s existence and for sharing your percep- 27. a hand that holds a purifying/redemptive flame
tion of them.) 28. vast golden wings for sheltering people from harm
16. shoulder-mounted reality injector stings, which 29. red wings of fire, suffering, and blood
may or may not require extensive preemptive clar-
ification of the relevant philosophical terminology
to function. (They may just have an Outside-
normalizing venom, instead, which requires
somewhat less sophistication to understand.)
Over the course of your conversation with

Nightmares’ Angel, he talks about his dreams—well,
rants about them really. He goes on at some length
about showing them all, but if you read between the
lines there’s also bits about wanting to be a hero but
also preferring not to die.
You’ve decided to hold that dream.
65 It may or may not have a power that makes it more likely to be kid-
napped, but frankly, very few HGs can resist kidnapping something
like this even if it doesn’t.
222 Playbooks
Over the course of your conversation with the 40. an effusion or waft around you like the Yatskaya
Troublemaker, she talks about her dreams—which temple incense that attracts cats and makes it
really could be anything, but let’s keep it simple and harder to tell between reality and dream
imagine she talks about wanting to have meaning in her
life, wanting to connect to people, and wanting to live Over the course of your conversation with the
up to her name. Prodigy while you’re both loopy on truth serum, she
Stuff about destiny and family, in short. talks about her dreams—about a world where every-
You’ve decided to hold those dreams; and so you thing is OK, where people don’t hurt so very much,
pick up: and about somehow fitting in with others either in this
world or that one. (These are pretty baseline dreams,
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30. a wrist tattoo of a bluebird on its nest and she’s probably more likely to talk about things like
31. a charm bracelet bangle of the same image dreams of flight or solving some mathematical problem
32. a few strawberry vines and flowers growing or showing people her home town under more normal
naturally in your hair circumstances—but let’s stick with these for the sake of
maximizing the utility of the example.)
These options would have a power like— Anyway, you decide to hold her dreams.
ŭŭ Superior Skill: Sneaking and Scampery 1 Now, the way I figure it, holding the dreams of the
ŭŭ Superior Skill: Cat-Speaker 1 Prodigy is going to be a little different than holding
ŭŭ Superior Skill: Know Whether Rinley is the dreams of somebody from Town. She’s more kines-
Involved in This 1 thetic, more physical; more mental, too, come to that,
ŭŭ Superior Skill: Pick up a Little Cash from but not as emotional or mystical as most of the other
Here and There 1 PCs. And everything you get from her is tainted with
the aesthetics of somebody who comes, fundamentally,
33. the ability to “text” the Troublemaker (like in from the outside—from the big world out there, from
modern movies!) by typing on your left palm, your Dad’s world, rather than from the little world
and receive the texts she thinks to you by reading of Town.
from it So you might pick up “limbs” like:
34. a pair of twitchy cat ears, with either Cat-
Speaker 2 (if Rinley is an NPC and so bor- 41. a silver circlet for your hair
rowing one of her schticks is OK) or Superior 42. a black and red jacket
Hearing otherwise 43. darkened hair
35. a jaunty adventuring coat that always has a little 44. a koi tattoo on your temple
bit of anything you could justify an adventurer 45. a pair of stylish espionage sunglasses
having a little bit of in their pockets, in its pockets 46. a Russian prison-style hip tattoo of birds flying
36. “Rinley-vision,” marked by intermittent cat-like over the horizon
pupils and the ability to see things annotated 47. a Russian prison-style tattoo of a skull on your
descriptively with Rinley’s concepts of them shoulder or knuckle
37. a wrist or neck-mounted spinneret that shoots out 48. a changed “look” so your movements or general
a red thread of destiny that homes in on someone appearance resembles her more.
you care about (up to a quarter-mile, rated for a
safe load of half a ton) All these cosmetic options would probably come
38. a dream-cloak that makes the world weirder and with a power like:
more interesting around you, as if you were in the ŭŭ Superior Skill: Martial Arts 1
Near Outside (This might be an Affliction.) ŭŭ Superior Strength 1
39. a “pole star” crown with a gleaming central jewel ŭŭ Superior Speed 1
that helps people around you orient even in the ŭŭ Superior Skill: Math 1
deep Outside or amid great wracks of confusion
Playbooks 223
49. the ability to automatically mirror her outfit with 63. a tongue piercing of a red hand, or a
your own scarab symbol
50. the ability to automatically mimic any martial arts 64. a wire crown-of-thorns woven into your hair
move she’s done in the past few minutes
51. a smile that can make things a little more OK These cosmetic options would come with a
52. a tendency to attract snow during monologues power like:
53. a voice adapted to cut through sadness, such ŭŭ Superior Skill: Showmanship 1
as hers ŭŭ Superior Skill: Biker 1
54. a warm touch that doesn’t intrude or threaten ŭŭ Superior Skill: Feng Shui 1
her boundaries ŭŭ Superior Skill: Wickedness 1
55. a couple of long kung fu fighting tendrils paired
2
with short forehead tendrils that can feel out the 65. a scuttling tattoo of a scarab that moves across
movements of your enemies from the air your skin and has, perhaps, a level 2 version of
56. four twenty-foot long wall-clinging “walking” one of the Skills above
limbs growing out of your back, to enhance your 66. an extremely efficacious handkerchief, for
overall physical capacity cleaning the blood from his hands
57. the ability to physically reshape yourself into her, 67. a drop of blood-like color appears over your pupil
entirely and iris and allows you to understand and analyze
58. a really, really strong arm creatures of the evil world
59. the ability to fire off “sunbursts” with the 68. holographic fingernails on your right hand that
non-lethal equivalent to the rough force of a project an image of either the Angel’s evil island
Beretta bullet in the sky or of his father, Principal Entropy I,
60. a pair of tendrils imbued with the cold of a depending on how you hold them relative to
Siberian winter the light
69. two showy hands that can mold plasma blasts into
Over the course of your conversation with the being from the air
Angel of Fortitude, he admits to his dream of one day 70. a “sorrowful hand” that makes things sadder and
seeing his father again—although he also admits that more bittersweet when touched
it’s much more of a fantasy than a real desire, because 71. a miscellaneous limb that twines itself (like
underneath that dream are impossible ideas like a withered tree) into the shape of scenes
somehow getting his father’s acceptance or his father you’re remembering
turning out to have not been evil66 or learning that his 72. an evil hand that shelters the wicked and unsancti-
own birth had nothing to do with his father’s death. You fies the sacred things
know. Goofy things. Unacceptable things. He dreams
that the world were a thing other than it is—that not Over the course of your conversation with the
merely death but truth and wickedness and imperfec- Dream-Witch, she tells you her dream of running a
tion as well should lose their stings. successful café and having a happy life with the people
Goofy or not, though, you can hold that dream, and she cares about.
build limbs that represent him, or his biker-ness, or his Technically I suppose that’s not really the dream of
showiness, or that dream, or memories and reminis- “the Dream-Witch,” but just the aspiration of Miramie
cence and wickedness in general. Mesmer, who built herself out of the Dream-Witch,
You might pick up: who keeps some of the Dream-Witch’s memories in
her adoptive father’s archive’s metaphorical attic, who
61. a tattoo showing the formal symbol for the Angel sometimes dreams herself as the masked Dream-Witch;
of Fortitude, a red hand but that’s not the point—
62. a skull earring You’re going to hold that dream!
66 You can relate!
224 Playbooks
You might pick up limbs associated with her symbol- Oh no! There’s trouble!
ically, associated with that dream, or helpful in helping So you create a new limb to create hope, or to devour
her to fulfill it: the evil that you face.
73. a hair pin showing her mask in iconic form 86. an arm with a hand that can shape the temperature
74. fingernail polish with decals of that mask of the air around it
75. or a symbol of that mask forming over your pupil 87. an arm with a hand that holds a mirror that reveals
in one or both eyes the true forms of things
76. or a tattoo of that mask on your left palm or the 88. a shielding wind that protects you and people near
back of your right hand. you from projectiles and vapor
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89. a bubble of sunlight that protects you and people
These cosmetic options would come with a near you from almost anything
power like: 90. wings infused with sonic force—they aren’t
ŭŭ Superior Skill: Mysterious 1 solid, they’re a barely visible tremor in the air,
ŭŭ Superior Skill: Dreamer 1 yet they’re capable of lifting you into the sky or
ŭŭ Superior Skill: Art Appreciation 1 producing aggressive sonic attacks
ŭŭ Superior Skill: Melancholy 1 91. glittering icicle wings that can freeze things
ŭŭ Superior Skill: Self-Creation 1 92. wings covered in nasty hooks that you can use
in battle
77. ...or her mask might appear as a floating symbol 93. wings made of twisting scrolls or floating kanji
that orbits your head and helps you externalize that can refine themselves to show you the name
your memories into the form of crystals (that you of something you’re looking at
or others can look into to remember that thing) 94. the ability to reach into the ground and lift up a
78. germ-free/germ-killing hands, or an extra pair of thousand hands from the ground in the area
arms with hands that do the same 95. an arm-mounted glass-shattering sonic cannon
79. “accountants’ eyes” for spotting errors in a 96. a tendril made of lightning
café’s books—extra-reflective eyes that can 97. sharpened hearing
scan documents very quickly and pick out errors 98. a camouflage cloak that you can use to conceal
quickly, with the words you’re reading extra-vis- yourself and one other person
ible in those reflections and the errors you see 99. a light in your right hand bright enough to scare
highlighted in that reflection in red off hostile animals
80. hair antennae tuned to ley lines, useful in cor- 100. a gravity-altering left hand to lift an invasion
recting the feng shui of her café fleet out of the waters of Big Lake and strand
81. since she thinks the modern day is decadent and them in the sky
degenerate, you might pick up a highly traditional
outfit that helps you have visions of the local past
82. since she has a destructive power, you might
pick up a tendril tipped with a node of physically
destructive force
83. or a feathery tendril that can reach into someone’s
head and share their memories
84. a “tradition hand” (on a new arm) that reverts
things it touches to a more traditional form
85. or a feathery tendril for fishing around in dreams
around in dreams and pulling out useful things, as
Nightmares’ Angel does with nightmares
Playbooks 225
Actions and Issues Trouble
Here’s some things you’re often doing. Here’s something new! What’s
going to happen now?
Pastoral Stuff Discovery
Be simple, spontaneous, and natural.
Change in a way you weren’t planning.
Shared Action
Metamorphosis
Living a simple, honest life.
Shared Reactions You like new stuff!
But...
You like the world. You like people. You follow your Sometimes things get weird for you. Sometimes
2
own inner light, but part of that is to try to really hear the world, or your inner self, or a limb gone wrong,
and sympathize with what’s going on with the people or something—sometimes it tries to change you. This
you care about, or, well, meet. is specifically something that won’t go very far unless
You can get bonus XP for these scenes a couple of you’re interested in it: you’re really hard to corrupt
times a week. or involuntarily transform. But if you’re interested in
seeing where a change or evolution is going, that plays
Declarations out as a Metamorphosis Scene.
Explain where you’re coming from.
Then, how it’s going to be. Timeline 1: Playing Through
Decisive Action Your Childhood
The HG may want to play through your childhood at
Put your faith in someone (or some idea).
an accelerated pace—probably about 50x acceleration,
Science, Faith, and Sorcery covering a year in about the same time you’d usually
cover a week.
If you find yourself monologuing, explaining yourself, In a game like that, your history would look like this:
theorizing, or telling people that you’ll trust and believe Age 3: The sun dies, and is reborn.
in them, the trick to giving those words dramatic payoff Age 5: This is when the game would start.
is to have them lead to your actually doing something— Age 15: This is “the present.”
taking a risk.
Timeline 2: Playing Through
Your Childhood
Issues But maybe you don’t want all your backstory to be
If you pick up a Complex, it’s probably some- backstory. Maybe you’re playing through your child-
thing pretty goofy: you tend to be way too optimistic hoods, only you want your normal childhood, the one
and refuse to let go of hope, which can make your where you have a Mom.
behavior increasingly frantic as a deadline approaches. Talk to the HG about it and you can probably shift
Your most common Vice Issue is probably such a game to this timeline instead—
trying too hard to be human. Other possible Vices The one where you start playing in your childhood,
include reveling in your inhuman superiority, selfishly and Jade Irinka dies three years into the course of play.
acting out from loss and confusion, and being a jerk
to people with “Rider” blood—that is, your father’s Age 5: This is when the game would start.
people, with their paleness and their black eyes filled You can show up in Town as early as age 5, mostly
with night and falling stars instead of white, iris, in the summers that you spend with the Yatskayas, but
and pupil. also visiting on miscellaneous occasions. In this part of
the game, you aren’t the sun yet and don’t have magical
limbs yet but your mother might send magical “spell
cards” or “helper spirits” to you that serve the same
226 Playbooks
function as your magical limbs when you want to use Timeline 3: Starting in
the relevant powers. the Modern Day
In terms of quests... In a game that starts in the present, you’ll have a little
“The Light of Hope” and “A Mortal Life:” these flexibility in terms of when your Mom died and you
quests lose substantial urgency when you’re a kid and fell to Fortitude—she died at least 2 years ago, and at
your mother is alive, but they’re still valid quests. I most 10 years ago, and with a strong default of “when
mean, even as a child, you wanted to be like the sun, you were 8,” but it’s ultimately up to you (as a player)
and you spent time in the lower world figuring it out! to decide.
It just wasn’t as all-important as it becomes later when By default you landed in Fortitude 3-6 months ago,
you’re stuck in the mortal world and have to take over but you’ve got freedom here too. If you want to spend
Playbooks
for your mom! years or even a decade in Fortitude before the game
The Miracle: in the early years, you can gain your begins, that’s fine—just remember that the longer
1/chapter bonus XP towards this quest by talking to you’ve been in Fortitude, the more it says about you
people about the wonders of Celestia or interacting with that you’re still vaguely confused by and estranged from
your mom. the processes of mortal life. Did you spend the interim
time depressed? Catatonic? In denial? The prisoner of
Age 8: The sun dies and is reborn. the moon people?67 Hiding from your father? Having
If you’re doing this timeline, make sure you’re on weird adventures? Trapped in a well? Living a Spartan
the same page as the HG and the other players about and isolated life somewhere? Or has it just taken you a
whether it’s possible that it’ll go a different way in pretty long time to slowly figure out the world?
play. That said, this event is pretty unexpected when
it happens, so normally you won’t know enough to try
to stop it or change things unless the HG and players
spend time deliberately building a plot around this story
arc in play.
Flying Horses, Flying Fortresses,

Evil Islands, and You
No matter how high you fly, you can’t find Celestia,
the Sky Kingdom. At best you’ll find creatures of the
sky who remember flying with the sun-horses and the
fire-birds, seeing its central city from above or below,
or landing briefly on the angled roofs of some pal-
ace-yacht on a cloud.
Unless...
Well, unless it’s actually a good time, story-wise,
for you to get there, in which case you will discover
the trick to reaching the Sky Kingdom: it takes a mys-
tical/spiritual ascent as well as a physical one. This is
always a long hard journey and you must always take
part of the journey, in some sense, alone.
67 I don’t know what moon people are.†

† I guess they live on the moon or something?
Playbooks 227
2
228 Playbooks
[[CHARACTER SPLASH, identical to the one for the Angel of Fortitude lifepath.]]
Playbooks 229
Fact Sheet • you are a soft-spoken child wearing white,
You are the Angel of Fortitude, and your name is surrounded by a halo, and giving everyone
Entropy (the Second). You’re a mysterious biker. around you a sense of visceral horror and unease.
You’re an urban legend. Your hands drip eternally with • you are a werewolf.
blood. You consort with strange monsters. But rumor ŭŭ You’re the campaign default age instead of older.
has it that if someone’s really in trouble, the Angel of ŭŭ You are “the Bloody Ghost” or “the Awful Angel”
Fortitude can help them out. or something instead of “The Angel of Fortitude.”
ŭŭ You ride a mysterious horse, flatbed truck, or
Primary Quests bicycle instead of a motorcycle.
ŭŭ See disturbing omens and marvel at the potential
of these youngsters. Character Description
2
ŭŭ Find ways to use monsters and mutagens to There’s stories in Fortitude of a strange biker who
help people. travels with monsters. Blood drips from his hands when
ŭŭ Build a spiritual drainage system in Fortitude. he takes off his gloves.
Streets move sometimes when he walks or drives
Bonus XP When... by—he pulls them into a new arrangement.
You get a shiver of wonder or horror from the players. They say sometimes he’ll help people who are in
need. Old Mrs. Silva was dying and he poured a sort of
Powers respirating slime down her throat to help her breathe.
You’re a creature of horror and urban legend—as much Young Heath couldn’t get his dog to stop barking and
concept as person, able to fade in out of nowhere or the mysterious biker installed a volume control on
out of things that just happen to look like you, give an Heath’s whole house. And my friend Lilith swears she
unnaturally vivid impression, spotlight yourself, or do saw him this one time fixing a pot hole in the road.
things that viscerally get to people. So they call him the Angel of Fortitude.
You can shape the world in your places of power— He’s mostly a ghost story, but for now, let’s say—
and the streets of Fortitude are one such place. that’s you.
You rule a secret, evil world full of monsters.
The blood that drips from your hands is change- What Are You?
blood, a blank toxin, a metamorphogen—if you prime As the Angel of Fortitude, you’ll be playing a numi-
it properly, it can eat through stone or change the world. nous and sorrowful being. At night, you use the change-
Also, you have a motorcycle. Its name is Jenkins. It’s blood that drips from your hands to purify the feng shui
pretty rad. Possibly not as rad as that whole world of of Fortitude—
monsters thing, but, you know: If you’re not careful, of course, it sears away the
Rad. grass and flowers and mutates the insects instead. But
if you’re properly intent upon your work, it will clarify
Common Variations and refine the streets as you go by. You’ll straighten
Shake it up! For an atypical Angel of Fortitude experi- winding paths or twist them into gentle curves behind
ence, pick one or more of the following: you as you putter at low speed down the road. For fine
detail work, you’ll park your bike and work the earth and
ŭŭ You are Attaris II, a girl. stone and walls and gardens with your hands, adjusting
ŭŭ You are Entropy II, secretly a girl. and enhancing the overall life and beauty of the place
ŭŭ You have some other special effects instead of and bringing health to the families and their gardens.
blood dripping from your hands: During the day—well, if you’re in Fortitude, which
• a hundred shadowy arms. most days you’re not—
• a crown of thorns. You’ll hide your hands in thick and absorbent gloves
• a wheel of swords spinning near you. and act like a visiting human scholar. A drifter. You’ll
• snakes for hair. sip tea or sake, give advice or help to random people,
• half of your face is cybernetic. and take in the air.
230 Playbooks
You didn’t really intend to get a reputation as “The “It’s You!”
Angel of Fortitude.” You have a number of roles in a number of places.
It’s just, that old woman’s throat had closed up, and This probably won’t matter much in this campaign. I
meanwhile you’d been trying to figure out how a throat- mean, this campaign is set in Fortitude. That means that
dwelling slime horror that breathes for somebody but the stuff that happens elsewhere is mostly going to be...
also takes over their left eye could possibly fit into
the human world. Bam! Putting two and two together, ŭŭ ...fever-dream-like interludes between the bits of
you saved her life. Next thing you know, people start real story.
thinking you’re some kind of secret, mysterious hero. ŭŭ ...stuff you make up so that you can randomly
You’d think people would catch on to the fact that allude to it having happened.
Playbooks
you’re the Principal of Town’s biggest School, what ŭŭ ...stuff where the story takes everyone elsewhere
with the fact that both of you hang out with monsters in a group.
and have hands that are always bleeding, but honestly,
the idea that you’re the same person is just too weird. At But you should be aware, if the game’s scope widens,
most people occasionally catch on to the fact that mys- that your character is designed not so much to follow
terious visiting scholar—you, I mean—is the Angel, the PCs everywhere as to already be anywhere they
even when you’re not doing your thing. might go, with your own projects and such in every
place.
Where Did You Come From? Consider Horizon, for instance: that brooding,
Evil broke. gothic region haunted by paperwork, administrative
The King of the Evil World had been named headaches, delinquents, and the living dead. You’re an
Entropy—Entropy the First—and also he was the important person there. You’re the Principal, there,
Principal of Horizon’s School. He reigned over the running Town’s largest School. It’s not much to do
ogres, the nimblejacks, the ancient horrors, and the with your business in Fortitude, maybe, but it’s still an
unworldly tribes, and all upon an evil island that flew important role for you. You’re using that School to find
around the sun; and late in the aeons of his life he and later train students capable of reinforcing reality
descended to the earth and built a sprawling campus in and standing against the chaos that is beyond the world.
central Town. Or take an Evil Island, Flying Around the Sun.
Then the sun died, and the sun was reborn, and There, you’re the King. That’s your private evil world,
evil broke. full of at least 10,000 unique and awful horrors. It’s on
Evil shattered. Evil scattered. Evil split like a ham- the back of a flying soul-eating beast and you rule it all
mered egg—and from inside the broken shell that had from the black glass palace at its center. You’re kind of
been the King of the Evil World, you fell out. spiritually tied to the place, so you like the creatures
You do not know what it means that evil broke, except there, even though imposing order on them or making
that malice, contempt, and wickedness are no longer as them congenial rather than hostile to life and humanity
they were. You do not know the reason evil broke, save is almost impossible.
that it may have striven with too much diligence to do And then there’s the swamp you rule as a spirit king
a good (if necessary) thing. You do not know whether it in the Walking Fields, and your garden in Old Molder,
is possible that you can be a good and virtuous person, and so forth and like thus and so on...
or if it is a cosmic necessity that you carry forward and If the rest of the PCs ventured far out of Town and
express the lingering wickedness of your father. started investigating suspicious doings in St. Petersburg,
But— at some point or another they’d probably hunt down a
In the end, that’s not what’s important to you. You’re mysterious used car sales entrepreneur or mob boss or
a gardener and the world is your garden. If things are whatever entangled in events and that person would
out of order, you will fix them. If life ceases to flourish, turn around and the other PCs would say—
you will help it grow. If that makes you good, you will “It’s you!”
be good. If that makes you evil, well, at least your father And it would almost certainly be so.
would be proud.
Playbooks 231
Home and Family birth, even the immortal King of Evil had to die. If you
You are a mysterious dude whom people can find exist, there could be something in him worth saving,
drinking tea or sake at various shops during the day and you see; but where he exists, there mayn’t.
riding the streets of Fortitude, mostly at night. Really, So there wasn’t.
the only family you have, the only family you need, is Before you, there absolutely wasn’t. Maybe in the
your old beat-up motorcycle Jenkins. superficial minds of people there seemed to be but cos-
If you need more of a sense of home and family than mically there wasn’t any way that he could be of worth.
that, look at the stuff about the “evil world” below. Then the sun died. The sun was reborn.
The impossible was made possible: there could
Hints be worth in evil: and you became the King of the
Evil World.
2
“There is a seed of evil inside the human eye.
...Sometimes we see what we see and know what Hints (Part 2)
we know. Sometimes we see or know the evil world
instead. Sometimes we touch things. Or people. “Once upon a time, a witch and a glass-maker made
Sometimes we touch the evil world instead. There’s a dragon out of glass and taught it to hate the world.
something in our heads, some twitching antenna that It raged and it would have destroyed everything;
can tell when evil’s near, and that awareness wriggles only, it shattered, instead.”
into view. It’s like a flopping fish or a dying worm. It’s — Campaign Premise
like it’s distressed. Like evil is distressed that it has to
live in the same world as people as bad as us.” This story isn’t really about you—you’re not at the
—from Nobilis: the Essentials, Volume heart of it. You’re an older, weirder background char-
1: Field Guide to the Powers acter instead. Your job is to provide extra wonder and
terror, to guide these kids through the challenges they’ll
The “evil world”—that’s your father’s evil island, face, and to see a little farther ahead than most.
circling the sun—it’s always been a judgment. It’s You know that the little things matter.
always been a sensation. It’s always been a place for You know that not everything is an endless rush. Not
the things that we see evil into, because there isn’t any every question immediately has an answer.
other thing that evil means. Most of all you’ll know that it’s in facing their fears
People sometimes say that Hell is in the right—that that people find their wisdom.
the fallen angels were in the right, I mean. That’s the kind of character you are.
People don’t say that about the evil world.
It’s the evil world. It’s a place of evil. It’s not in
the right. At best it’s salvageable. At best it represents
something that maybe could be judged another way, Helping! Really!
differently, you know, later. If somebody needs help waking up in the morning,
...only, things are different now. you could put some sort of small unsleeping fish in
Your father was a creature of evil judgment. But their stomach. It’d probably help them swim, breathe
you’re not. You’re the King of Evil, but you’re not underwater, and dream the ancient lamp-eyed secrets
about desecration, destruction, and scorn. You’re more of the fish as well. But would their eyes bulge and their
about... the knowledge that there’s something redeem- skin grow slimy? You just don’t know! Maybe it’s
able in the wicked things. That they’re still pretty better to assign them an alarm clock crabbine instead?
wicked! ...but that there’s something good there.
That there may be a point, somewhere. A reason. A
virtue. Something in all that horror, somewhere, justi-
fying just a little of the pain.
That’s the reason you and your father can’t exist in
the same cosmos. That’s the reason that, to allow your
232 Playbooks
Quests
You and Your Father You start the game with three quests, and have the
You didn’t literally fall out of your father’s empty power to swap them out or pick up more—you can
husk. You just kind of showed up one day, and both pursue up to four quests at any given time.
of you knew why. You were his alternate. You were I’ve chosen three quests to...
his replacement. He was going to do something that ŭŭ ...serve as your basic, default character motivation
would kill him, and then you’d be him instead. in play (“Mentor Syndrome”).
And maybe—just maybe, knowing that, he could ŭŭ ...give you extra direction in the first few sessions
have saved himself. (“The Angel of Fortitude”).
Then you’d have gone out. Popped! Like a balloon ŭŭ ...tie you into the campaign plot (“Clean for
Playbooks
in outer space! a Day”).
But that didn’t happen.
He taught you as much as possible about what he Bonus XP
wanted, what he thought, what he remembered, and Once per fun scene, though at most once per fifteen
what he cared about. He had to pass on everything he minutes of play, you can earn bonus XP for your
could, or it would have been lost forever when he died. Mentor Syndrome quest by emoting shock—you
Then... make events, omens, implications, and the other PCs
One day he called you down into the School base- seem more impressive by reacting hard to them. The
ment. He handed you his bloody, knife-gashed gar- standard form for this is...
ments. Family connection-type music swelled, and he ŭŭ ...saying “Unprecedented... incredible!”, or,
said, “Son, I’m going to need you to run the world ŭŭ ...just emoting shock.
while I’m away.” As for the other quests, The Angel of Fortitude and
Then he jumped into the incinerator and flew up the Clean for a Day, you can earn a bonus XP for each of
chimney and was gone, and both your hands began these quests once per in-game week by picking a scene
to bleed. from that quest’s list of scene options to play out.
...or something like that, anyway. It’s all kind of
under a fog. Other Quests
You think it’s possible that somebody later used a If you’re interested in another quest or two, and you
memory-altering effect. have access to Fortitude: by the Docks of Big Lake,
ŭŭ ...Keeping a Good Place
ŭŭ ...becoming a Shrine or Park Guardian
ŭŭ ...deciding to live up to the role and become a
Dependable Person
ŭŭ ...keeping Up-to-Date on Fortitude affairs or
ŭŭ ...some sort of Generic Project.
Playbooks 233
Mentor Syndrome
Bonus XP
XP
There’s something you say, something you do, when you’re stunned
and overwhelmed by the good and bad turns things take. Something
you’ll do to be impressed, and thereby make the world around you
more impressive.
You can earn a bonus XP towards this quest at any time (but only
2
once per scene/15 minutes) when you use your catchphrase, or some
close variant, or just plain emote your shock, horror, or awe.
Do you...
ŭŭ ...gasp!
ŭŭ ...whisper, “Staggering... impossible!”
ŭŭ ...declare, “Unprecedented!”
ŭŭ ...or do you usually say something else?
You thought you had a handle on things. You thought you knew what
was up.
But the world, it seems, retains a certain limitless capacity for
surprise!
Mentor Syndrome
15 XP Quest You’ll be delighted and despairing in the presence
: Chibi-Quest of these marvelous children and the dangers that they
face—and you’ll earn bonus XP for this quest when
You’re here to see things that the other PCs can’t. you play that up, when you marvel at it, when you
You’re plagued by omens and visions now and let it all astound you. Say or emote something like
then—either provided by the HG or just kind of made “Staggering... unprecedented... incredible!” and claim
up by you. You turn around and for a moment every- an XP just from the experience. Really, any shocked,
thing being sold in every shop around you looks like a awed reaction will do.
glass dragon. You look up at the sky and see the shapes
of bad things coming. The tea leaves at the bottom of Rewards
your cup read: death. As a chibi-quest, this usually earns you a cool thing.
But more importantly you’re here to see the thing that Not a very cool thing, you understand—from a player/
the PCs can’t, that they’re too young and human and audience standpoint, it’s probably a little bit “meh”—
inexperienced to see—their own staggering potential. but it’s cool enough that just thinking about the fact
The shape of their future. Maybe not at first, maybe at that you have it or got it acts as a Recharge Token—
first you’re just a drifter who’s in Fortitude for reasons something that can replenish your cope and wish power
of your own, but as you come to know these PCs, you’ll sometime in the future, once.
get to understand that there’s a limitless potential worth Some of the possible Recharge Tokens include:
harnessing and training in them—and maybe in certain
NPC Main Characters as well. ŭŭ You get fiery stickers on your ride, slightly raising
its maximum speed.
234 Playbooks
ŭŭ You get a nice overall tune-up for your ride, with ŭŭ You get a bit of money or something useful from
no mechanical effect. somebody you helped.
ŭŭ You get blood-resistant coating on Jenkins’
handgrips. Just think about it! A tune-up without mechanical
ŭŭ You get an awesome new book. effect! That’d be enough to recharge any mysterious
ŭŭ You get a photograph you actually look good in. biker’s cope and spirit!
Playbooks
15 XP Quest ŭŭ ...a guaranteed small or partial victory at doing
: Chibi-Quest whatever you’re trying to do here.
ŭŭ ...a small story-specific “Perk” that upgrades
You rule an evil world. You’ve got mutagenic blood your powerset.
dripping from your hands. You have the power to shift ŭŭ ...creating a +1 Tool.
the feng shui of a place. ŭŭ ...teaching a level 2 Superior Skill to somebody
Let’s put all this to use. or something.
In this quest, you’ll find new ways to use your blood, ŭŭ ...awakening the “true form” or “true power”
new ways to improve a place with feng shui, new of a creature of the evil world, complete with a
ways to integrate the creatures of the evil world into miraculous power and the ability to control or at
Fortitude Below. You’ll start by just playing around, least shape how it’s used.
experimenting, with something like...
These powers and guarantees aren’t permanent—you
ŭŭ ...a kind of lizard that lives in the stomach and have to “stay on the quest” for as long as you want to
makes you hungry for insects. keep them, and you’ll normally have to drop the quest
ŭŭ ...a butterfly that interfaces with your brain and at the end of the season no matter what—but that
shows you strange chaotic patterns. doesn’t mean that they go away afterwards, just that
ŭŭ ...a horse made of shadows, which you cannot it all becomes kind of vague and in the HG’s hands
actually ride.68 thereafter.
ŭŭ ...a weird weapon from the evil world. For instance, at one point you used this quest to outfit
ŭŭ ...a young ogre tagging along with you looking for Old Mrs. Silva with a respirating slime. It saved her
a place in the lower world. life! Then you dropped the quest. That didn’t kill her or
ŭŭ ...mixing your blood with phosphorus to create a anything—it just means that you can no longer reliably
new kind of light. outfit people with respirating slime, and that the HG has
ŭŭ ...enhancing the fire and water energy in a place. the option of creating a crisis where Old Mrs. Silva and
ŭŭ ...diverting some of the flow of energy to the her slime part ways.
Kichi pools (pg. XX). It’s totally OK to finish the quest working on some-
thing different than whatever you started with—some-
You try out this and that to figure out how to make a times the butterflies don’t lead anywhere but the horse
useful tool or weapon from it for somebody or how to turns into something neat! That’s just a part of the vicis-
fit it into the sleepy life of Fortitude. situdes of life, not a reason to cancel a quest like this
and start again.
Rewards
The reward for this quest is a quest miracle—you acti- Variations
vate some wondrous potential in whatever it is you’ve You could focus on some other way of helping people.
been experimenting with. Maybe you could be a bit of a handyman, or a match-
The palette of available effects include (choose one)... maker, or you could work on improving the feng shui
68 because you are three-dimensional
Playbooks 235
of people’s homes in ever-changing, situation-spe-
cific ways.
Light
You could be the characters’ tutor, or take an active You are always looking up at light sources. It’s a bad
role as Principal, and give them regular assignments to habit. You should really make eye contact with people
carry out in Fortitude—things to study, charity drives more often. But you keep getting distracted by dra-
to collect money for, other public service projects, con- matic stained glass windows, sunlight, floodlights, and
tests, and the like. the other brilliances that outline your world. Maybe
In general, look for some way to be part of the the people around you aren’t really there.
support and ordering structures in the characters’ lives.
You’re going to be most effective when you’re working
in some fashion with the creatures of your Gardens
2
(pg. XX), because that’s what gives you the option of
unleashing a miraculous power, but you can use the
other powers on almost anything.
XP
Bonus XP
ŭŭ ...put yourself at moral or physical risk to protect a creature
of the evil world....had a meal utterly ruined by one of your
experiments....fallen into water, mud, or something else less than
perfectly pleasant because of one of your experiments.
You can earn one of these bonuses per (repetition of the) quest, for a
total of 5 XP.
Quest Flavor
ŭŭ ...coming up with something new to be working on, and
bringing it to Fortitude.
ŭŭ ...experimenting with blood, feng shui, or the creatures of
your evil world.
ŭŭ ...doing the grunt work for an experiment in progress.
236 Playbooks
Clean for a Day
35 XP Quest
1:
3: Shivers
5: Your bonus XP emotion is transport—wonder, horror,
or mystery sufficient to draw the players for a moment
This quest begins the story “Principal Entropy into the illusion that there truly is a bloody-handed
Playbooks
Builds a Fountain,” pg. XX. Angel in Fortitude, born of an evil god.
You want to get a shiver as the spell breaks (when it
You have a purpose in Fortitude. There’s a reason you does break) or some similar indicator:
ride those streets, study the feng shui of the place, and
sometimes make adjustments: ŭŭ somebody saying “Shiver.”
You think you can turn a good part of the Mayweather ŭŭ somebody sighing softly
Street area into a spiritual drainage system. ŭŭ somebody saying “Eek!” (to a more hor-
You want to get the little dried-up fountain in the ror-type moment)
plaza there working again. And get the energy flowing ŭŭ somebody saying “Ooh” (to a more won-
in all the streets around it to take all taints and poisons der-type moment)
and wickedness down to the water and out past the lake ŭŭ somebody gaping
into the Outside. ŭŭ somebody saying, “Gape.”
And then you’re going to wash your hands.
It might be enough for a whole day—you think. Each such shiver earns you one XP, and you can
You think if you work hard enough, you can make earn up to 1 shiver XP every 15 minutes.
that fountain pure enough, clean enough, and perfect This is a difficult condition so we’re going to help
enough that you’ll be able to have a whole day to eat you out a little. You can turn things over to the other
sandwiches that don’t have blood on them; and to write players—asking them to feed you a description of
letters that don’t have blood on them; when you won’t nightmarish, or awesome and resonant, or mysterious
have to clean the blood off the handles of your bike and deeds for you to do. Ask them, in short, to describe
you can touch someone’s hand without getting blood on for you a dream or nightmare of what the Angel of
it and you can rub your cheeks without getting blood on Fortitude might do; and if they actually have an idea
them; a whole sweet glorious day where you can just worthy of shivering at, you may go along with it for
relax and genuinely be. XP. If they want to interject with something like this,
It probably won’t make the Outside too angry, unprompted, and you both let them describe it and
washing all that impurity out there. You think. then go along with it, you can earn a bonus XP that
It’ll be OK. isn’t limited by the 15 minute rule.
Rewards Advice to Other Players: Shivers should be sincere,

In addition to a day or so of clean hands, this quest but, as usual, they can be exaggerated or conscious.
often gains you a small improvement to your Garden You’re allowed to push yourself towards seeing the
in Fortitude (perhaps a +1 Tool bonus to keeping things Angel of Fortitude as a figure of wonder and horror
clean or purifying things) or a miraculous vision mode if that’s what you have to do to keep their XP from
(a “Power Perk”) that helps you spot something like falling unpleasantly behind.
purity, impurity, dirt, hidden dirt, or the influence of
the Outside.
Afterwards, I suggest reviewing the notes on pg. XX
and moving on to “The Sidekick.”
Playbooks 237
Precious Memories
XP
Major Goals
ŭŭ ...you make peace with a recent setback where you lost a few days
of work.
ŭŭ ...you’re unexpectedly shy, vulnerable, or open with someone.
2
ŭŭ ...you have a vision to guide your work or an elaborate dream
sequence about the delights of clean hands.
Quest Flavor
ŭŭ ...working on this project, involving simple, honest effort.

ŭŭ ...working on this project, involving slightly larger-than-life or
magical incidents.
ŭŭ ...admiring the construction and atmosphere of Fortitude,
often while softly lit, obscured by fog, and/or with something
weird or unnatural nearby.
ŭŭ ...enjoying the softness of fur, plush grass, carpet, fleece, etc.
ŭŭ ...having trouble because your clothing’s a bit too big
for you.
ŭŭ ...trying and failing to hide your identity.
ŭŭ ...talking about your progress on the project and its positive or
negative effects on the local environment.
238 Playbooks
Abilities ŭŭ Your actions sometimes have a terrifying,
You have 8 Will and the following mundane abilities— supernal significance.
• You can shroud your actions in an “Auctoritas”
ŭŭ A Map in Your Head 2. You’ve an eerie sense for that protects them against miracles.
how places are laid out. • You can transfix others.
ŭŭ Tinker 2. You’re pretty good at tinkering • You can take an action so vivid it...
with stuff. ►► ...etches itself into others’ minds...
ŭŭ Vehicular Travel 1. You’re familiar with ►► ...or dredges up a topical flashback.
getting around. ŭŭ You have claimed various places as your

ŭŭ I Know Somebody 0. You might be familiar with “gardens.”
Playbooks
someone who can help out. • You rule “the evil world,” aka “an evil
island, circling around the sun.”
You also have two mundane abilities with special • You have power over the streets of Fortitude.
rules (detailed below): • Over in Horizon, you run Town’s largest School.
ŭŭ You may shape the substance of your gardens...
ŭŭ Superior Magister 1. You’re not quite human. • ...molding them with your hands, like clay.
ŭŭ Superior Land-Rule 2. The creatures of your • ...exerting yourself and magically shaping
gardens are safe for you. large sections of them at a time.
• ...creating new life from them and
See also Tireless. binding it to your service.
Connections Health
You start the game with a single free Connection— You have 2 Normal Health Levels, 1 Tough Health
Level, and 0 Divine Health Levels.
ŭŭ The Child of the Sun 1. What a charming child! This means that even without your Immortality
you’d be tougher than a normal human, but nothing to
You can also get a level 1 Connection to any other PC write home about—roughly action hero level, I’d say; I
by mutual agreement. wouldn’t want to go after you with a knife or a handgun
or anything, because you’re tougher than nails, but ulti-
Supernatural Abilities mately, compared to a typical PC, your Health Levels
Entropy II, Magister, has the following supernat- are only the most pitiful, fragile of shields between you
ural abilities: and death, transformation, or defeat.
Luckily, you have a better one: immortality.
ŭŭ You are the King of Evil, and not quite human. The King of Evil can’t die. The King of Evil doesn’t
• You will live forever, unless you die. even stay hurt for very long. There are some rules
• You’re tireless. mechanisms that can get around this, so don’t get too
• You have various small devia- comfortable, but while your powers are in good order
tions from the human norm. you can take a chainsaw to the stomach and just spit out
• Blood is always dripping from your hands. its metal teeth. Enchantments slide off you. Fire doesn’t
• That blood is a mutagenic, burn. You’re not an action hero. You’re the lord of the
world-changing venom. evil world.
• (P.S. your nose is a prosthetic but You’re supposed to have 2 Divine Health Levels,
that isn’t really a power) incidentally—those are what you’d want to turn to
ŭŭ You’re kind of dramatic. to soak up nuclear blasts and the like, if your immor-
• You can summon up a spotlight. tality went away—but the better part of your vitality
• You’ll sometimes show up for dramatic/ is invested in keeping the evil world under control. If
emotional rather than causal reasons. you’re ever really worried about dying, you could con-
sider freeing up some of that; see the details on pg. XX.
Playbooks 239
Miracle Points Perks
You have 5 Miracle Points (MP) that you can use to Characters in this game have a handful of Perks. You
enhance your miraculous abilities or use them more gain them or improve them by completing quests, and
often than usual. Once spent, you’ll regain 1 MP/week, you can have up to 8.
up to your normal 5. You’ll start with these:
You can gain additional MP through Issues, when
Region Properties or your Affliction get you into
trouble, or by spending a week diligently doing some-
Cool 1
thing that honors a Region Property or Bond. (e.g.
lending your bureaucratic talents to making sure things
You are the King of Evil. You’re hard to mess
don’t move too quickly in Fortitude.)
with. You scare people.
2 Your Hands, Your Blood

You have a point of Cool.
This means that anyone trying to hurt you,
embarrass you, corrupt you, co-opt you, or mess
You’re not human. You were never human. You are with something you’re actively watching or
something else—according to your father’s lexicon, a protecting takes a -1 penalty to their mundane
“Magister.” actions.
Your hands drip eternally with blood. This is a bad
habit that you inherited from your father. Sometimes it
runs from your palms. Sometimes it starts at the wrists
or fingertips. Sometimes it is hard to trace the source
of the flow on a given day. Accessory
This blood is a spiritual and metaphysical contami-
nant. It is no longer what it used to be—your father’s You have a motorcycle, Jenkins.
blood was intrinsically corrupt—but it is still a pecu- As long as you have this Perk you can use your
liar and dangerous mutagenic substance in quantity Health Levels (and implicitly your Immortality)
and mildly unhealthy or toxic even in small amounts. to keep it from being stolen from you, misused,
You have no nose. It’s not missing—it’s just natu- destroyed, or corrupted without your play-
rally not there. er-level consent—if someone tries to steal it, for
You have a tendency to find yourself standing in instance, you could wound one of your Health
light—as if it is drawn to you, and you to it. You may Levels to say, “No, they don’t steal my bike, they
look indefinitely into the sun and your eyes will take can’t, its battery is dead.”
no harm.
When you’re just hanging out or keeping a low
profile, you wear a false nose and awesome black Connection: [PC of your choice]
gloves with sanitary pads on the inside. For your
1
actual work, though, you take them off and reconcile may take a free level 1 Connection to any other PCt.
yourself to leaving a trail of blood.
1
What a charming child!
240 Playbooks
“It’s like a home to me.”
School
The Evil World This Perk represents your Garden in Horizon:

School. 1-2x/book, you can invoke this to have
This Perk represents your Garden, the Evil the HG describe something that’s going on
World, aka, an Evil Island, Circling the Sun. there—just a few sentences to help set the tone
1-2x/book, you can invoke this to have the HG of the place.
describe something that’s going on there—just a In addition, the Garden receives the fol-
few sentences to help set the tone of the place. lowing benefits:
Playbooks
In addition, the evil world receives the fol- ŭŭ a level 1 Auctoritas against the influence of
lowing benefits: the Outside
ŭŭ a level 1 Auctoritas against the influence of ŭŭ a +1 Tool bonus to connecting to the ghost
the Outside world or vice versa68
ŭŭ ŭŭ a +1 Tool bonus to discovering
ŭŭ strangeness69
68 available to anyone who knows to claim it.

The Streets of Fortitude
This Perk represents your Garden, the Streets Ghosts

of Fortitude—specifically, the paved streets, The ghosts that attend and work at your School are
and the space between the residential streets and usually invisible and intangible. It’s very hard to tell if
the houses. 1-2x/book, you can invoke this to they’re working or taking their classes seriously.
have the HG describe something that’s going on Other times they fade into reality. Then they look a
there—just a few sentences to help set the tone lot like living people except that they don’t have faces.
of the place. They just have a few black “emotion” lines on their
In addition, the streets of Fortitude receive the face that help you see their moods. They tend to travel
following benefits: in packs.
ŭŭ a +1 Tool bonus to breathing freely68 The longer you know a ghost, the more often you see
ŭŭ them, and the more realistic their facial features are.
ŭŭ It’s definitely possible to know a ghost long enough
that it looks like a person, but you’re not sure whether
or not you can know a ghost well enough that it loses
the ability to turn invisible around you.
Playbooks 241
Creature of the Light Tireless
The process of your birth is not remembered. Type: Miraculous Action Cost: 0 MP
Attaris is only a shadow on your consciousness. Your Being a Magister confers other benefits as well.
arrival at your father’s School was ambiguous. And For instance, like everyone else, you have 8 Will to
how it should come to pass that the King of Evil, of all spend each week to enhance your mundane actions—
people, would spearhead the salvation of the world— but you also have access to another pool of 3 Will,
It is a story whose passions have been lost to the your “miraculous Will,” which replenishes every time
world; there is only what little is known by the geeky, you take an in-genre XP Action or share a scene with
gangly kid who showed up afterwards and got stuck someone who does.
with all the blood from his father’s hands. All that’s left Basically, each day tires you a little less than it oth-
is that you existed, and suffered, and then transcended... erwise would.
2
although you know that there must have been more.
It is not remembered; but it is recorded. In the game Well-Lit
rules, it is written as the miraculous story Arc, or set of Type: Imperial Miracle Cost: —
Arcs, Creature of the Light 2. You are a creature of the Light and have the right to
That history is what makes you who you are—not invoke Well-Lit and demand dramatic lighting from
human, but a Magister. the world.
Here’s how it works. The normal effect is that you’re simply in the best pos-
sible spot to be well-lit—you’re supernaturally perfect
(Superior) Magister at being in an ideal being-spotlit location, whether that’s
Type: Superior Skill Cost: — standing in a beam of moonlight, making your way to
You are something beyond human. You are a creature the center of a stage, having starlight sparkle all around
of the causa causans, the uncaused cause, the divine you, or having a giant beast with lamp-eyes look sud-
spirit that kindled itself into being and makes all other denly your way. If you’re trying to do this “naturally,”
things to move. You command a teaching authority, a then it’s possible that the best reasonable lighting isn’t
magisterium, with respect to the ordinary beings of the all that great.69
world; before you were a Principal, before you were the However, if you like, you can outright declare that
Angel of Fortitude, you were a Magister of the Light. there’s:
I mentioned earlier that you have two Skills with
special rules. ŭŭ ...a ray of sunlight to strike you full-on, even
This is one of them. at night.
Your level 1 Superior Magister Skill is a Skill in ŭŭ ...a stage light out of nowhere.
seeing the big picture; resisting social power plays ŭŭ ...a nimbus of mundane or arcane light
and manipulation; and getting under people’s skin, around you.
metaphorically, cutting past their defenses to terrify ŭŭ ...a blinding glare behind you.
them, impress them, or appeal to them. It’s a Skill at
bypassing magical barriers meant to keep humans out. And that’s an Imperial miracle.
It’s got a fair bit of environmental hazard resistance and Why does this happen? It’s usually up to the HG.
general endurance bundled into it, too, although you’re The two most common explanations are “break from
more likely to use Immortality for that. reality” or “shocking coincidence”—although, like
All that stuff works like a normal Skill, and it’s only most powers requiring unexpected work from the HG,
a level 1 Skill to boot— the HG has the right to handwave this or make you
But this is a Superior Skill, which means that it figure out the explanation yourself.
makes you just a little bit alien and can give you a point
of Edge in an otherwise fair conflict based on any Skill The Auctoritas Magister
whenever you can bring it into play.
69 In keeping with this, as part of maintaining the illusion that this is
“natural,” this version of the power counts as a level 4 miracle and not
an Imperial miracle—if you’re just in the best possible spot, someone
with access to miracles could conceivably stop you from being well-lit.
242 Playbooks
Type: Imperial Miracle You depart in the same fashion at the end of the
Cost: scene, fading back into something that is revealed to
ŭŭ 0 MP—Starting mid-scene, swathe 1-2 actions in not have actually been you after all.
the Auctoritas Magister.
ŭŭ 1 MP—Starting mid-scene, swathe an extra action Transfix
in the Auctoritas Magister. Type: Miraculous Action
ŭŭ 2 MP—Starting mid-scene, swathe yourself + Cost:
your actions in the Auctoritas Magister. ŭŭ 0 MP—1/book, transfix those around you with
ŭŭ 4 MP—Swathe yourself + your actions in the your mundane actions.
Auctoritas Magister. ŭŭ 4 MP—Do so a second or later time per book.
Playbooks
Even miracles struggle to contain you. If necessary, you may become magnetic, arresting, hyp-
Starting mid-scene, you may invoke the Auctoritas notic: you may fixate the attention of others.
Magister to protect your mundane actions from the Invoke Transfix to add a glamour to a slow and
influence of miracles and the Outside. This power shel- careful mundane action—something without sudden
ters them behind an “Auctoritas” (a defense against mir- movements—and you can transfix those who are
acles) with rating equal to your Creature of the Light: observing you, making it effectively impossible for
It ignores miraculous interference with [Strike < your them to pay attention to anything else.
Creature of the Light.]
To a limited extent this protects your person—if Obsession
your action is defensive, or if something would hurt or Type: Miraculous Action
transform you in such a way as to impede your action, Cost:
then the Auctoritas Magister protects you from miracles ŭŭ 0 MP—1/week, invoke Obsession.
with [Strike < your Creature of the Light.] ŭŭ 1 MP—Invoke it a second or later time in a week.
If you’ve spent 2+ MP, then your body and mind are ŭŭ 2 MP—Invoke it a second or later time in a
directly protected and you can just plain walk through matter of hours.
miraculous fire, ignore miraculous lightning, and reject
the idea of being transformed miraculously into a frog Invoke Obsession as you act and your actions may
for as long as you sustain the Auctoritas Magister. obsess, entrance, or otherwise provide a profound
emotional effect on a selection of desired witnesses. It
Appear etches its way into their mind. This is functionally a
Type: Miraculous Action, Major miraculous attack.
Cost: If this defeats one of your targets, taking their last
ŭŭ 0 MP—1/week, appear to someone you have a Health Level, you may sketch out the details of the
Connection to. effect; otherwise, it’s up to each target to decide how
ŭŭ 1 MP—Use this power a second or later time in they process the impact of whatever it is that you do.
a week. You may invoke Obsession and Transfix simultane-
ŭŭ 4 MP—Appear in seconds instead of minutes, or ously, paying the higher relevant cost.
even less than that if dramatically required.
Nor may locks and cages seal you out.

Invoke Appear and you may transport yourself
to anyone you have a Connection to, materializing
over the course of a few minutes from whatever is
most evocative of or likely to have been mistaken as
yourself. If there’s nothing at all appropriate you can
manifest from the omens of, and building sense of, your
presence, instead.
Playbooks 243
Open the Vault target in some fashion, just specify that and what should
Type: Imperial Miracle happen over the course of the quest. There’s a strand of
Cost: the urban legend and the horror story in your nature, I
ŭŭ 0 MP—1/week, invoke Open the Vault. suppose, because if what you’re really hoping is that
ŭŭ 1 MP—Invoke a second or later time per week. they’ll know not to summon you, and they’ll be told not
ŭŭ 2 MP—Invoke a second or later time in a matter to summon you, but they’ll call your name three times
of hours. anyway and then are never seen again?
Well, that won’t always work, because people can
When interacting with someone, invoke Open the defend against miracles, but for someone with a
Vault and name an emotion/experience and your Creature of the Light Trait 2 it’s a perfectly legiti-
actions dredge up a flashback from your target— mate quest.
2
A specific experience, or a mélange of experiences,
best fit to evoking the desired mood. A Keeper of Gardens
Your target’s player normally emotes the experience, The story of your life since your ascension to Principal
although they can abbreviate it (potentially as far down is better documented. It is known that the first focus of
as “stuff”) if they can’t think of anything interesting. your attention was the Evil World—taming it, limiting
Your target can take an IC action to keep these feel- it, imposing the “Code Novae” on it:
ings from becoming obvious in-character, or, if appro-
priate, use an ongoing Intention to do so; this, however, The Code Novae
faces an Obstacle equal to your Arc Trait, Creature of ŭŭ None may harm another more than three times
the Light. proportioned to the victim’s sins.
ŭŭ Trying to understand or connect to something is
Slipping into the World never wasted.
Type: Miraculous Action, Quest Miracle Cost: — ŭŭ All things may find their recompense in love.
Is there somewhere you need to go? Someone you need
to reach? When you had finished, at the cost of the greater
Spend a 15-XP quest thinking of them, dreaming of part of your health and power, you came below and
that distant place, feeling out the way to get there with you struggled to tame the School, to wrestle back the
your mind and heart, and you will manifest there: bramble and overgrowth of it into a proper garden.
Over the course of the quest itself, rumors will spread The work is neverending; draining; and the pieces of
of your coming and signs of your impending presence it you have accomplished thus far are enfleshed in you
will appear. Your name may be written in graffiti on the in the Perks above and the miraculous story Arc, A
walls or chanted by the outcasts and the fey. Your target Keeper of Gardens 1.
will see you occasionally from the corner of their eye, Here’s what that’s given you.
or see someone who they think is you but when they
get a little closer, or confront “you,” it’s obviously not.
Then... when you complete the quest... you are there,
pre-equipped with a temporary level 2 Connection to
someone or something and pre-integrated into the place Your Current Arc
you wanted to get to or the life of the person you wanted You’re working on the next Arc in this sequence now—
to reach. Are you their doctor? Their new manager? Towards “A Keeper of Gardens 2,” which’ll earn
Their cousin-in-law? The homeless beggar or the hot you a ninth Perk slot, facilitate your shaping of your
dog salesperson working on their street? The horror or gardens, and give you the power to create more pow-
hoped-for ally that has been visiting their dreams? erful creatures therefrom.
If the target is a person they also get a temporary
level 2 Connection to you.
This can be an attack miracle, too, if you like; if you
want to feed off of them, if you want to consume the
244 Playbooks
Slipping into the World
Bonus XP
XP
You are manifesting in a distant place. Signs and omens of your
presence are already appearing; hints—and later you’ll appear fully
integrated into that world, whether that means being a shop-owner in
a demon city, a gardener in a royal palace, or a child’s come-to-life
imaginary friend.
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Ideally there’ll already be play happening in that place.
If there is, you can earn an XP for this quest (up to one per 15 minutes/
scene) by reacting to something that’s going on there with an ominous
indication of your impending arrival. Let’s boil this down to something
simple: the HG can add detailed supernatural effects, but to earn the XP,
you just stage-whisper some variation on a standard catchphrase, like:
ŭŭ “Soon.”
ŭŭ “I will be in this place.”
ŭŭ “Ominous emanation.” optionally followed by a noise repre-
senting ominousness (e.g. “womwomwomwomwomwom” or
“zzzzt” or “oo woo oo”)
ŭŭ “I... am coming.”
ŭŭ “I am... already... here.” or
ŭŭ “Red runs from my hands.”
If there isn’t already play happening there, so you can’t just omi-
nously interject to it, you can still use this quest. You can earn an XP
towards it (up to one per 15 minutes/scene) by reacting to something
that happens here with a sudden vision of being there. Again, you’ll
pick a standard catchphrase, and you’ll quote it or some variant to earn
the XP:
ŭŭ “Soon.”
ŭŭ [in reaction to something you see, or touch, or feel] “It is like
this, there.”
ŭŭ [aloud, in character, with steepled hands]
“womwomwomwomwom”
ŭŭ “The gate of the world... opens.”
[because your attention was far away] “Sorry, say that again?”
ŭŭ “Red runs from my hands.”
Playbooks 245
Immortality You’re not human. You’re the King of Evil. You just
Type: Miraculous Action, Major don’t die.
Cost: However:
ŭŭ 0 MP—Damage or enchantment has only tempo-
rary, cosmetic70 effects on you. ŭŭ You can suffer from the Sickness Issue—but
ŭŭ 1 MP—You totally recover and shrug everything whether it’s lycanthropy in your blood or ghost
off 1-2 times mid-scene. possession or mind control, the power in you is
ŭŭ 2 MP—Starting mid-scene, you shrug off attacks likely to seep out and corrupt that, making the
and other effects like they’re paper tigers. actual negative effects cosmetic at worst and the
ŭŭ 4 MP—You’re basically unaffected by the world total impact more or less under your control.
around you. ŭŭ You can be confined as long as it’s interesting and
2
doesn’t keep you out of play. If there is interesting
If someone decides to mess with you, to corrupt you stuff going on, it’s not a predicament.
or to break you—well, they may be able to embarrass ŭŭ Extremely deadly stuff, like nukes, volcanoes,
you a little, or muss your clothing, but it is obviously Imperial miracles, and other Major miracles of
impossible that the King of the Evil World should die. similar Arc level can still hurt you. Your wounds
It’s pretty unlikely that such a King would even will still be much less severe than a reasonable
suffer harm. person would expect, and they’ll still heal in two
That much is essentially written into the substance chapters or less, but if you drown in molten steel,
of What Is. you’ll be staggering, feverish, and coughing up
If you are shredded by a giant fan blade, your struc- steel phlegm for hours and hours after.
tural components won’t be harmed, and your soft tissue ŭŭ Occasionally I’ll introduce an effect that lets you
will pull itself back together. If you are stranded on the take some action at the cost of “a terrible wound,”
dark side of the moon, you will grow airless, pained, or that seals a wound so that no effect can heal it.
and cold, but you will not die nor will you cease. If you’re doing something like that to yourself,
You are the Angel of Fortitude, and you are forever. Immortality will not heal such wounds.
So if...
Timing and You

ŭŭ ...someone hits you?
ŭŭ ...you forget to eat for three months? When you have a power that works mid-scene or
ŭŭ ...you’re hit by a nuclear barrage? starting mid-scene, that means that you use it after
ŭŭ ...people are pouring molten steel over your head? some meaningful stuff has already happened in the
current scene.
“Such a little thing is of no matter to me.” When you have a power that works after a few
In general, you can recover from almost any predica- minutes, that means that either a few things have to
ment—in real-time, at the 2-4 MP level; over the course happen while you’re setting this up, or nothing is hap-
of a few minutes with none of your enemies watching pening at all. Ideally this covers about five minutes of
you, at the 1 MP level; or between scenes, if you’re not game time in a languid scene or five minutes of real
willing to spend MP. That means that even if you’re time in a scene of fast-paced play, but that doesn’t
disintegrated by a cosmic beam or stuck to the side of have to be precise.
a red-hot metal plate by a spear of stone, you just need
a little time to pull yourself back together and get out
of it.
70 It can look bad. It can look really bad, right down to “Entropy is
currently an ooze of living blood dragging around the remnants of
its bones.” Or it can be just kind of kid-friendly TV pseudo-wounds
like a lightly wounded arm and mildly torn clothing. It’s up to how
you want to handle it—just remember that unless you spend MP, you
should treat it as legitimately impairing until the end of the scene.
246 Playbooks
Arc Powers Students and Faculty
Immortality is your “Arc power”—you get it for Most of your garden-related powers apply to the
being on one of the Arcs that grant Immortality. If you students and faculty at your School. Bear in mind,
change to a different Arc, it’s replaced by whatever however, that dropping out or quitting is a valid
power that Arc offers instead. pre-emptive defense against the worst excesses of
I suggest you stick to Arcs that offer Immortality— this sort. It’s even, to be honest, a reasonable instanta-
there’s a decent selection of them, including both neous subconscious response if the Principal of one’s
Creature of the Light and A Keeper of Gardens, and School decides to twist one into a living pretzel—it’s
if you let yourself die to anything but a transcendent important to stay in school! But it is also important not
plot device sacrifice it’s probably going to be plain bad to be a pretzel.
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for everybody. One must balance competing imperatives, I think, if
one is to prosper in this life.
Your Gardens
Type: Special Cost: — You can claim a pretty big garden, but it should be
You are a keeper of gardens. You build and shape the at least an order of magnitude smaller than a Region
world to your grand designs. In each of the regions in scope.
where you have built a rôle for yourself you cultivate Once claimed, you can adjust a Garden’s boundaries
something special, something cool, something magi- or details by spending a Recharge Token.
cal—a garden. In Horizon it is your School. In the sky
you rule “the evil world,” an evil island on the back of The World, Like Clay
a flying beast, circling around the sun. Type: Imperial Miracle
In Fortitude it is a garden of streets—your working Cost:
materials are: ŭŭ 0 MP—Mold the things of your Gardens by hand,
given a few minutes’ concentration.
ŭŭ paved streets ŭŭ 0 MP—Once per season, mold a large portion of
ŭŭ things between the residential streets and houses, your Gardens.
such as: ŭŭ 4 MP—Mold a large area of your Gardens a
• sidewalks second or later time per book.
• street lamps
• fireflies Invoke The World, Like Clay and you can shape the
• grass things of your Gardens as if they were malleable clay.
• walls After a few minutes’ concentration, you may...
• street signs ŭŭ ...mold nearby elements of your garden by hand.
• roof edges ŭŭ ...once per season, mold a neighborhood-sized
• mailboxes area by essentially gesturing and emoting what
ŭŭ things relating to water flow, particularly storm you want to happen—pushing a hand down in the
drains and gutters air to flatten buildings, waving and wiggling your
fingers to brush them aside, and sketching in the
To properly claim a garden requires a Perk—specif- air to create new structures.
ically the Perk,
In both cases this power uses your normal mundane
ŭŭ “It’s like a home to me.” abilities—most likely, “Tinker”—but it elides the
normal Obstacle and waives the limits of human power.
However, if you find yourself stranded somewhere The World, Like Clay is a metaphysical, super-
without Garden access, you can put together or reclaim natural action and not just psychic matter-molding so
a Garden temporarily with a 15-XP quest miracle. function will tend to follow form. If you stretch out a
street lamp, the top stays lit; if you squish the top bulb
Playbooks 247
to nothing, the whole thing probably ceases to be wired The Change-Blood
for power. If you give a mailbox a pair of eyes, it may Type: Bond, Level 2 Cost: —
come to life; if you give a dandelion puff wings it may Your blood became toxic the day you took over your
fly away.71 father’s throne; became as metaphysically virulent as
The HG may elect to impose Obstacles specific to his own, albeit in a different way. It’s a poison. It’s an
this power—not, perhaps, the Obstacle 4 of “nobody acid. It’s a catalyst. In a way, too, and this is why I’m
can bring a mailbox to life by squishing part of it to look putting it under your Keeper of Gardens power set, it’s
like eyeballs” but at least the Obstacle 1-2 of “bringing a fertilizer. A gardener’s tool.
things to life is very hard.” In short, these are Obstacles It changes things.
for things that the HG imagines that even a metaphys- This is normally a pretty mild effect. That’s important,
ical world-sculptor might have some difficulty with, because it’s always dripping from your hands, and if it
2
and reflect the overall tenor and tone of the game. were a major effect you’d be in trouble. But it’s not
a major effect, not usually. Most of the time it’s more
Superior Land-Rule like—maybe if people come into too much contact with
Type: Superior Skill Cost: — it they get a bit of a rash. Maybe now and again a door-
You’re good at wrangling the native creatures from your knob you bleed on changes its design, or the red sinks
gardens—keeping tabs on them, keeping them from permanently into the brass.
getting into too much trouble, and protecting yourself If it’s physically concentrated, though, or if you’re
from their violent potential. This Skill is meant for using your powers or just consciously charging it
things like “I have an eye-eating dog-squid following with your will, your blood can blight or mutate plants,
me around, but hilarious hijinx where people’s eyes get sicken an enemy, or eat through wood, stone, or flesh.
eaten don’t necessarily ensue.” It is classified formally as a blank toxin, meaning that it
This is your other Skill with special rules— enhances the malignancy of toxins and viruses it mixes
It’s not just a level 2 Skill, but potentially 2 Edge on with and exaggerates the structural weaknesses of the
top of that towards winning any conflict predicating on things it touches rather than bringing its own distinct
your ability or inability to control the creatures of the effects to the table as a poison. Used consciously as
evil world, wrangle your students, or control any feral part of your other powers, though, it functions more
animals resident to the Fortitude streets. as a metamorphogen, loosening the structural form of
In rules terms, this Skill is easiest to use when there’s things prior to your establishing a new one.
some social context for it—when the environment and
situation support your authority and are relevant to ŭŭ Invoke the Change-Blood when you’re using
it. You’re the King of the Evil World, so that helps in the properties of your blood as a practical tool
dealing with the creatures of the evil world—but it’s to overcome an Obstacle or win a conflict and
even better if you can get them to come to you for you can add the Bond rating (2) to your Intention
protection and help, or at least to associate with you level. You can only add this bonus from one
willingly. You’re the Principal of School, so you’re such Bond.
extremely good at student-wrangling in School or on a ŭŭ Invoke the Change-Blood when you’re using the
field trip, but you’re at much less of an advantage when properties of your blood to enhance a miraculous
you’re just bumping into them on the Fortitude streets. action and you can add the Bond’s rating (2) to
You won’t lose the use of the Skill itself in a situation your Strike. Strike from a Bond doesn’t add to
like that, but you’ll lose the 2 Edge bonus. Strike from other Bonds, but it does add to Strike
from MP and Strike intrinsic to a miracle.
ŭŭ Invoke the Change-Blood when your state of
having blood always dripping from your hands,
and theologically potent blood to boot, adds
misery to your life. This can give you up to
the Bond rating (2) in Will or in MP. You can
71 In fairness it may do this even if you do not give it wings. That’s its also get this MP if you spend a whole week in
precognitive fitness!
248 Playbooks
dedicated use or study of the effects and powers Guide
of the blood. Type: Imperial Miracle
ŭŭ It is notionally possible for you to replace food, Cost:
water, sleep, and even air with either the con- ŭŭ 0 MP—1/week, construct or invoke a guide from
sumption of your own blood, the consumption the substance of your Gardens.
of things transformed by your blood, or stressing ŭŭ 1 MP—Do so a second or later time in a week.
out over how awful it is that you’re bleeding ŭŭ 2 MP—Do so a second time in minutes.
everywhere. Notionally. In practice, this kind of
thing gets unpleasant almost as fast for you as for You may impute the personality and knowledge of a
a normal person, though, and the Obstacles can “guide” into something you’ve just shaped from a
Playbooks
range as high as 4. Garden with the World, Like Clay.
You create a living creature that is sufficiently aware
The Great Magic and knowledgeable to...
Type: Imperial Miracle
Cost: ŭŭ ...instruct, guide, or lead others through
ŭŭ 0 MP, 1 Health Level—Once per season, create a its Garden.
new Property for a garden. ŭŭ ...instruct others in some other principle or rule.
ŭŭ 4 MP, 1 Health Level—Do so a second time in a
given season. For instance, you can construct a roly-poly bird that
knows people should look both ways when crossing
This is the power that tamed the evil world. the street, can analyze whether they’re doing so, expe-
With The Great Magic, you may reshape the nature riences distress when they don’t, and can even philos-
of one of your gardens, wounding one of your Divine ophize on why that might be important; or a pageboy,
Health Levels to add a new Property thereto. Eventually pagegirl, or hopping lamp from the substance of your
this becomes a natural part of the garden, although this realm to lead people from one place in it to another.
can take weeks, months, or years. In the meantime, You may use mundane means to summon an existing
your wound does not heal normally; rather, you must guide, but it’s only guaranteed to still exist and be reach-
voluntarily abandon the magic before the wound can able by you if you use this power to summon it again.
heal, and even then the Health Level does not return for
the remainder of the book.
You do not receive the normal mechanical effects for
Seeing Yourself from
a wound when you use this ability, although you may the Outside
treat turning this power off as some sort of spiritual You’re acutely aware of your role in the world. You are
damage and take a wound at the time that you do. a creature that takes shape, in part, from the expecta-
At the start of the game you have successfully bound tions and perceptions of others.
the evil world to one of the three laws of the Code Put another way—
Novae and wounded both your Divine Health Levels to The masks and roles you put on, from King of the
hold it to the others. By default, you’ll get one back in Evil World to Principal to the Angel of Fortitude,
the first Christmas of the game72 and another the Easter matter to you. Doing them right is important to you.
after.73 I don’t mean that you break the fourth wall, because
you don’t. At worst you internally narrate yourself as
a bit of a TV or literary hero. But the thing is, all that
aside, as the Angel of Fortitude, you are consciously
playing a character, of sorts, and you know this to be
true.
72 Not counting any that you rush past when playing through the char-
acters’ childhoods
73 It’s actually up to you.
Playbooks 249
Actions and Issues Issues
Here’s some things you’re often doing. Your most common Complexes are melancholy,
brooding, and obsession with a cleanliness you can
Pastoral Stuff (almost) never have. Your most common Vice is
Drinking tea or sake. excessive kindness and even bias towards the residents
Slice of Life
of your evil world. You may also have an occasional
problem with “the end justifies the means” or “I know
Helping people out. what you need better than you do.”
Shared Action
The King of an Evil World
Sometimes you’ll come out to Fortitude just to enjoy You inherited a world of horrors, or maybe just an
2
the ambience. Soak in the world, drink, and do simple, island of horrors, from your father.
honest things. You can get bonus XP for these kinds of It’s your home.
actions a couple of times a week. You’re tied to it, spiritually. You can’t help loving
or at least feeling close to the horrors of that place.
Declarations Maybe the right thing to do would have been to drown
Monologuing, before a decision. the whole thing in Big Lake as soon as you received
Decisive Action
rule over it—but you couldn’t do that. You couldn’t
convince yourself that that was right.
Proposing a theory—then trying On the other hand, all the flesh-eaters, the soul-eaters,
a risky experiment!
the mind-twisters, the sadistic creatures, the monstrous
Science, Faith, and Sorcery things on that island that shouldn’t be—you couldn’t
just do nothing about them, either.
There’s nothing like a good monologue to warm you up So here’s what you did.
for a big moment! First, you’ve put a leash on the evil world. You’ve
bound it karmically. The things of the evil world
Trouble can’t hurt anyone more than three times as much as
Sometimes you have to break a few they deserve.74 Luck, timing, heroes arriving to save
omelettes to make a proper egg. people, whatever: anything of the evil world that tries
Wicked Action to hurt something too much worse than it deserves will
somehow fail.
You’re prone to the occasional moral slip. Second, you’re trying to prove that if you work hard
enough—if you try hard enough to redeem each of the
Reshaping the World creatures there, to find a place for it in the world—that
it’ll definitely bear fruit. That there is worth there,
Someone watches you reshape the world
however deeply buried.
Foreshadowing
These steps won’t fix everything. You know and
Explain what you’re doing, understand that. Sometimes the cycle of violence
leading to a dramatic action means that people will insist on killing one of your evil
Decisive Action subjects, and sometimes justice or pragmatism means
you just have to accept that and turn away.
It’s not actually difficult for you to do your work as But your actions here are intended to be enough to
the Angel of Fortitude, nor is it really “simple and make it murky, at least. So that if some PC says, “Forget
honest,” so the interesting part of that work is probably
if someone sees and is absorbed into watching it. 74 Why “three times as much?” Because it’s gross if an innocent kid
gets their leg torn off by a ripping tree, but it’s also gross to wag your
finger at a jerk who gets their leg torn off and say, “You must have
deserved that exactly!” It’s much nicer if you can say, “You know,
you’ve probably done some bad stuff, but even so, tough break, man.
Can I graft a bug-like leg beast on there to help?”
250 Playbooks
the plot: there’s nothing more important in this life than Family Feelings
blowing up Entropy’s evil island,” you can probably You love the ogres. They eat people, but you love them.
say, “Whoa, whoa, whoa, unless it’s ruined at least a You admire the passion of the nimblejacks. They are
third of your world, bub, that’d make you the evil ones.” awful and twisted and cruel but their hearts are so fierce!
Anyway. You’ve learned to appreciate the stoic squamousness of
the elder things. Most of all, though, you’re utterly fas-
Features cinated by the endless biological diversity of the horrors
An Evil Island, Circling the Sun of your realm—if only you could find a good use, a
ŭŭ We want what we cannot have. good place in the human world, for each and every one!
ŭŭ We are prey to false impressions. You’ve become particularly close to the ogres Hugh
Playbooks
ŭŭ The truth is darker than you know. and Zoë Rosewood. They served your father loyally and
ŭŭ Nothing lasts forever. now they are teachers at your School. You’ve learned
+ The Code Novae to think of Sa’a Lingurth, the beast that flies your evil
ŭŭ Do no more harm than threefold what’s island around, as a gigantic soul-eating floppy puppy.
earned.75 She’s adorable and innocent in her way!
ŭŭ It cannot be a waste to try to understand or to
connect.76 Shake it Up!
ŭŭ All things may find their recompense in love. For a slightly different Angel of Fortitude experience:
Here’s some key features of the evil world: ŭŭ You rule a Halloween kingdom and not an
evil island.
ŭŭ It flies around on the back of the soul-eating beast
Sa’a Lingurth. She’s like a giant, adorable puppy. The Principal of Town’s School
That looks like a blowfish/catfish/eel/whale/manta Another thing you inherited from Dad, of course, was
with mouth-tentacles. And eats souls. the ladder school in Horizon—one of several elemen-
ŭŭ There’s a great black glass palace in the center. tary and middle Schools in Town, and the only high
ŭŭ The longer they stay there, the hungrier anyone school worth the name.77
gets—for something, anyway, not necessarily
for food. Why Does the King of the Evil World Have
a School?
In terms of its population, it numbers... There’s something wrong with the world.
It is in danger.
ŭŭ ...about 700 ogres. They’re really strong. They It’s not just in danger of not existing any more. It
have acute senses of smell. They like tearing is in danger of never having existed. It is in danger of
people apart. Your father made them out of rocks, drowning entirely in the Outside, in the multicolored
dead trees, and the sensation of being torn apart void beyond the edge of Town, and fading away, until
by predators and treated as meat. even the concept of the world ceases to mean anything
ŭŭ ...about 300 “nimblejacks,” shriveled cruel fast at all.
creatures descended from a fallen angel. Your father had a plan.
ŭŭ ...about 900 adrenaline-junkie humans. He was an evil man but it was fundamentally a good
ŭŭ ...around 10,100 miscellaneous horrors. plan. That may be why he broke. His plan was to build
a school and train up students who could resist the
Outside—who could be the seeds of new reality, either
77 The other options for post-middle education include small part-time

classes of 5-25 students taught by a single tutor; a handful of voca-
tional schools in Horizon; and St. Vita’s Academy for Wayward Girls
in Soma Village outside the formal boundaries of Town. If the PCs go
to secondary school in Fortitude, they’ll probably be in one of those
75 not yet a permanent feature 5-25 student classes. Maybe you’re even their tutor, or will sneakily
76 not yet a permanent feature replace their tutor, if they’re interesting enough.
Playbooks 251
to supplant or reinforce the world that is. He would find Six shards of your father have enfleshed themselves
students capable of being an axis mundi, the central as masked members/rulers of the Student Council: the
pillar of an existence; students capable of forming or “Six Sins.” Each is a potential rival for your posts as
becoming barriers to seal away the nothingness; stu- Principal and King; each has unique powers and their
dents capable of cultivating and guarding the worlds or own vision for how the world should be re-created.
world-fragments that flourished from this work. He’d If it weren’t for your loyal staff members Hugh and
train them up to do that, and later on, they would. Zoë Rosewood (they’re ogres), and if you weren’t
This was his S.E.E.D. program and his S.E.E.D. plan. insanely good at being the Principal, your School
You think it’s a pretty good plan so you kept a moder- would eat you alive...
ately revised version of S.E.E.D. going and you stayed And one day it still might.
invested in the School.
2
Shake it Up!
Key Features of the School and of Running It For a slightly different Angel of Fortitude experience,
Key features of the School include...
ŭŭ Your title in Horizon is Headmaster,
ŭŭ ...the baroque, ridiculous, gothic oversized-ness of Headmistress, or Magister (and not Principal).
the place. ŭŭ You’re the campaign default age and not the
ŭŭ ...the fact that a large number of often-visible and Principal at all, although you will probably take
often-invisible ghosts are in attendance. over the student council if the game starts dealing
ŭŭ ...the demographics: with stuff in Horizon or your School.
• ...roughly 1500 administrators, almost
all ghosts, and ridiculously, annoy- Other Places and Identities
ingly nitpicky about paperwork. You’ve been known to keep a garden in Old Molder,
• ...roughly 750 ghost teachers man- though I’m ignoring it for the sake of this campaign,
aging 11500 ghost students. and to rule a swamp in the Walking Fields under the
• ...roughly 450 living teachers name the Muddy King.
managing 7500 students. Once, your enterprises even extended to Soma
• ...a small night school with 25 vampire teachers Village, but you were sharply rebuked—“if [you] had
and 350 vampire students, plus various a nose,” as you said to Hugh Rosewood, “it might have
continuing education students and others. been bitten off.” The exchange program you’d set up
Key features of running it include... with St. Vita’s Academy was rejected by its trustees,
ŭŭ ...the labyrinthine Administrative Complex, your house in Soma Village vandalized, and... some-
whence you disseminate memos and administra- thing... set up a wind to tug and shove at you when you
tivia through pneumatic tubes. travel that Region’s paths. It’s something that you might
ŭŭ ...the ten-foot tall book of laws, where any look into one day, of course, but since it’s not actually
important regulation or initiative must ultimately sealing you out of the Village, just annoying you,
be written in your blood. you’ve thought of it as a rather low priority for redress.
ŭŭ ...the mysterious Basalt Gates underneath the There’s a rumor at School that class president John
School, holding out some ancient evil. Wicked is actually just you in a secret identity and an
ŭŭ ...the fact that at least a third of the staff seem to even goofier rumor that the same is true of the head of
be there to keep you from getting anything done the Fortitude scrapbooking club.78
rather than to help you, although you don’t know
for sure which third. Possibly as many as 10% are
actually there to try to kill you if you—follow?
Deviate from? You’re not entirely sure!—your
father’s plan.
78 It would be really funny if you were secretly Fortitude regional coun-
cilmember and jam guru Amelia Kozlov, but that’s probably taking
things just a step too far.
252 Playbooks
Timeline 1: Playing Through Timeline 2: Playing Through
Your Teenage Years Your Teenage Years
The HG may want to play through your teenage years at This timeline is for playing through your childhood,
an accelerated pace—probably about 50x acceleration, if the HG and/or the player of the Child of the Sun
covering a year in about the same time you’d usually decide to complicate things a little and have Jade Irinka
cover a week. die in play.
In a game like that, your history would look like this: In a game like that, your history would look like this:
Age 7-10: The first few years of your existence are Age 8-12: You show up. You... start existing. You’re
ambiguous. You may have existed or you may have drawn to Horizon’s School, to the Administration
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been part of the penumbra of your father’s presence. Building, and as soon as you get into your father’s
You remember interactions but they occupy an uncer- office, you both realize who you are. He’s the King
tain state. of Evil, and he’s going to do something that gets him
killed; and you’re the shard of his reality or fate or
Age 10: The sun dies, and is reborn. Your father departs something that’s going to replace him.
and passes on the ousia of the King of Evil to you. He starts teaching you what you’re going to need to
know. It’s... not nice.
Age 10-12: You’re overwhelmed by responsibilities The bits where you tour the evil world—they can be
and the moral problem of the evil world. Eventually nice. Sometimes. But your home environment—it isn’t
you mostly figure things out and impose your new good. And the worst bit is that you really want it to be
rules thereupon. good. You tell yourself it’s good. You pretend that he’s
At some point in here you try to establish a garden in worth saving, and that he cares about you.
Soma Village. It does not work out well.
Age 12: This is when the game begins.
Age 12: This is when the game would start. You’re Consider picking a temporary special effect other
probably ducking out on your responsibilities, at least than the change-blood:
in part, by getting a motorcycle and riding around
in Fortitude. ŭŭ a hundred shadowy arms
ŭŭ a crown of thorns
Age 22: This is “the present.” ŭŭ a wheel of swords spinning near you
ŭŭ you are a soft-spoken child wearing white,
surrounded by a halo, and giving everyone around
you a sense of visceral horror and unease
Evil
ŭŭ something else
Naturally if the creatures of the evil world got loose and
went too far you would help the people of Town obtain Even if your power is still the change-blood, your
their revenge—but it would hurt. I mean, imagine if a hands aren’t bleeding yet; at worst, you have a fre-
liver-eating pain mouse escaped, slipped out from under quently bloody cough.
your influence, and started eating livers painfully. That’s The Angel of Fortitude: this quest is mostly
bad! Of course you’d help Town kill it. unchanged, except that your motivation is generally a
But... you probably knew that mouse. You probably “lesson” that your father is teaching instead of a per-
hung out under a waterfall with it one hot day on your sonal desire to experiment with and find a use for things.
evil island, sharing bits of liver from the liver worms, Clean for a Day: you’re not looking to clean your
and maybe even talking long into the night about the hands—instead, you’re trying to build a place that can
gangling awry ways of plans of mice and pain and men. let you free of your father’s pressure on your mind and
Killing it would bring a tear to your immortal eye. soul for a day. Or maybe your project starts as a place
to be free of his observation for a day, but becomes a
place to let out some of the emotions or hate or guilt
Playbooks 253
or grief or anger or pain or whatever after he dies. The Timeline 3: Starting in
quest mechanics work in a substantially similar fashion, the Modern Day
regardless of these details, but you might want to replace In a game that starts in the present, you’ve been the
the concept of “draining Fortitude’s impurities into the King of Evil for most a decade—everything you need
Outside” with “invoking and bending the power of the to do is old hat, and your present visits to Fortitude are
the Outside as part of the work.” You can talk about a very calm, conscious affair.
your home situation as one of the viable weekly actions
for this quest.
You can pick up Clean for a Day in its proper form The Reason for your Name
at a later point in the game. Your name is derived in the same fashion as the name
for thermodynamic entropy—a term for the transfor-
2
Age 15: The sun dies. The sun is reborn. mational content of a place or context, from the Greek
Around this time your father calls you down to the εντροπία, roughly meaning “turning towards.” In your
School basement and a strange and surreal transfer of father’s day this represented corruption, destruction,
power takes place. (See pg. XX). and decay, because he had a bleak relationship with his
own transformative potential. You like to think you’re
Age 15-17: It’ll take a while to get the evil world under more antithetical or antagonistic than poisonous—that
control; you and the HG should bear in mind that there’s you spur the world towards synthesis or greatness
some potential for interesting stories here. more than desecration and final endings. Either way,
you’re explicitly not thermodynamic or informational
Age 22: This is “the present.” entropy, nor are you the god or lord or angel or prin-
cipal thereof.
You could probably find a ton of connections
Marshalling an Army between what you represent and what those kinds of
In theory you can summon up an army of horrors from entropy represent. You could probably paint yourself
your evil island. as some sort of metaphysical entropy—but that’s like
In practice this relies on your mundane Skills and Chuubo deciding to eat more so that he can be chubby
there’s a pretty large Obstacle against managing Chuubo or Seizhi reading up on epilepsy just in case
them in large numbers. For instance, if you want to he starts becoming seizing Seizhi. It’s not cosmic
unleash thirty ogres riding a gigantic scarab against necessity forcing you to be entropic Principal Entropy,
the Headmaster of the Bleak Academy, you’re prob- it’s just a convenient analogical shorthand for thinking
ably going to need 4 Will just to get it done. Then he’ll about yourself and reasoning about the world.
use some clever battle strategy and beat your mundane
action and next thing you know the ogres are fighting
one another and the panicking scarab has thrown
them off.
The point is, it’s not easy. Then again, it’s not
actually impossible; build up your mundane Skills
or get an appropriate power or recruit someone like
the Prodigy to be a marshal for your troops and your
10,100 horrors can become a very scary resource to
have indeed.
254 Playbooks
The Dream-Witch
[[CHARACTER SPLASH, identical to the one in the Dream-Witch lifepath.]]
Playbooks 255
Fact Sheet Common Variations
You are Miramie Mesmer, the Dream-Witch. You Shake it up! For an atypical Dream-Witch experience,
lost yourself when the glass dragon broke. You’re not pick one or more of the following:
sure whether you’re looking to kill or save the world,
but you’d at least like to get your memories back. ŭŭ You aren’t actually the original Dream-Witch—
you just have her soul stuck in you. A glass shard
Primary Quests of her flew into your eye and you either died
ŭŭ The degenerate state of the world troubles you. or changed.
ŭŭ Running a little art shop, garden, and/or café, even ŭŭ You’re Reynard Mesmer, a boy.
though your dark past keeps slipping out. ŭŭ You’re not Miramie Mesmer—you’re...
ŭŭ Wrestling with your desire to retreat from every- • ...Mayu or Reynard Vasili, bound
2
thing and hide in your magical sanctuary. to the wind and the earth.
• ...Morgan or Reynard Kichi, a
Bonus XP When... student of water divination.
...other players toss you a bit of XP to comfort you or • ...Miramie or Reynard Sosunov,
help you bear your burdens. a student of dream magic.
• ...Miramie or Reynard Titov, imprisoning the
Powers monster you used to be under the Titov shrine.
You’re very good at dreaming. You have some Skill ŭŭ Your biggest life concern isn’t money—it’s...
at magic. Your hidden sanctuary is magical and can • ...this degenerate modern age!
strengthen your heart and bring order to your life. • ...hypochondria.
You can activate special powers in a few friends, • ...insufficient access to Earth’s manga, movies,
treasures, and places. television, light novels, and action figures.
Also, you can focus at things and judge them • ...the fact that neither you nor the archive
unworthy of existence and they... stop. You know. are widely known and loved everywhere!
Existing. • ...the way that Outside dust gets everywhere
you are, just like for the Wishing Boy.
• ...the way you keep having awful nightmares,
The Empty Child and the so you’re jittery from caffeine and half-dead
Dream-Witch from lack of sleep most of the time.
Be careful when introducing the Dream-Witch to ŭŭ Your destructive power, the World-Breaker’s
another campaign that already has a Strategist-shard; Hand, doesn’t really destroy things—it just
for instance, Horizon-based campaigns may have the banishes them into the Outside.
Empty Child, who retreats into his white room when
his dreams start killing him. While he’s a separate
character who can definitely exist in the same cam-
paign as the Dream-Witch, their thematics and powers
are probably too similar to enjoy having both as PCs
or even a PC and a major NPC.
256 Playbooks
Character Description six months, a year tops, between your waking up to
You were a prodigy of despair and hatred. You studied find yourself Miramie Mesmer, an ordinary girl—and
at the Bleak Academy. You were a rising star of the the night you wandered accidentally into the Wishing
College of Emptiness and Dream. Then you came to Boy’s dreams.
Town. You met young Hideo Hayashi and you thrust a That night you felt it. You weren’t sure if you wanted
shard of your dreams into his brain to make him yours. it, but you could feel it. In his dreams is the largest piece
Together you crafted a glass dragon. of who you used to be. The largest chunk of glass, of
You taught it your hatred. You poured it all into power, of memories, of hate.
the creature—all the reasons that you had to loathe If you could unlock it—
the world. You sent it out and you watched and you You’d be Melanie Malakh again, prodigy of despair
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couldn’t remember why. and hatred, scion of the Bleak Academy, ready to make
You held the arm of Hideo Hayashi and he hated you an ending to the blasphemy that is the world.
and you couldn’t remember why. Maybe that’s not what you want. Not exactly. But
And then everything broke. you can’t just leave that stuff locked up in there. You at
You remember the coldness as a bit of glass went into the very least have to get some of the memories back.
your eye. (There’s still a scar.) You remember sleeping, You have to know.
and dreaming, and waking, and everything being
strange for a very long time. Home and Family
The dragon—it shattered, didn’t it? As the Dream-Witch, you live in Fortitude.
The dragon, and your power, and your reasons. Specifically, you live in Professor Hideo Hayashi’s
archive, a sprawling mix of library, records house, and
And After halfway house for unusual people like yourself. The
After that you spent a long time asleep or maybe even archive’s nestled against a hill, so it can be five floors
dead. You trudged through stacks of books and records tall even without looming over the rest of Fortitude. It’s
like a ghost or a dream. You wore a kimono and a mask. completely disorganized and built around a crankshaft
Over time you hid the bits of yourself that you didn’t whose purpose you don’t know and the roof is like
like, scattered them through a place of chaos, and you a parachute or sail—a thing of ropes and waterproof
built a room from the sweetest memories and keepsakes fabric that billows in the wind. The whole building
that remained to you and you played among them there. gives the vague appearance that it’s going to turn into
Then one day you came out of your fog and every- a ship or hot air balloon or windmill or something at
thing had fallen apart. any moment, but so far, it’s never done. Upstairs, if you
Your Hideo had grown up and he didn’t work glass wander long enough or make just the wrong turns, you
any more. He just pored over old books in a run-down might find yourself stumbling out of the world and into
archive and took strange people in. Nobody spit on the Outside or, with slightly different wrong turns, into
you in the streets or praised your willingness to act the scattered pieces of who you used to be.
to destroy the world. Even the glass dragon was just There’s always itinerants spending a few nights
a footnote in history. People wore different things and or weeks at the archive, in the guest rooms or just
read different stories. Everything was different and it napping among the stacks, but your more permanent
was all in decay. “family” is...
So what could you do?
You decided to live an ordinary life. You’d make ŭŭ ...yourself.
money for Hideo’s archive, get it cleaned up, learn its • ...Professor Hideo Hayashi.
ways. Maybe if you could help him find what he was • ...Kiri Sato, whom you think of as “the
looking for he’d love you again, or at least not hate you, smart one,” always off reading about
and maybe he’d even go back to working glass. possible illnesses and dangers.
You miss his work. It was so beautiful. ŭŭ ...Sakura Anastasia Kuga, who shares your sense
You were following up on that decision, but you that the modern world is falling apart, even
didn’t really get the chance. It wasn’t more than maybe
Playbooks 257
though neither of you is old enough to make that Dreams
attitude convincing. As the Dream-Witch, you’re obviously all about the
ŭŭ ...Danny Kortov, who’s always getting lost in dreams. You show up in them, you spend time in them,
the basement. and you like to express your dreams in art—paint-
ŭŭ ...that practically feral girl whom you see around ings, calligraphic poetry, masks, and even sidewalk
now and then. chalk paintings.
In dreams you wear a mask and a grey and white
You can call them family, can’t you? kimono. If you stretch out you have an amorphous,
Certainly Hideo. I mean, he took you in. He fed you ghostly lower body. Either way you trail off into shadow
when you were hungry. He moved into the Archive and you don’t have proper feet.
where you’re pretty sure you were wandering around Mostly your dreams are just your dreams, but
2
when you were just a bit of ghost and dream. So you not always.
think he’s your family. He hates you, but he’s your It’s not easy but you can get into other peo-
family, and maybe... he cares about you, too? ple’s dreams.
It’s hard to know. It’s hard to talk to him. He’s so There are roads between the dreams of any two
cold and bitter and he got old79 while you were off people who are closely connected—e.g., you and
being dead, he’s like twice your age now, and you don’t everyone who has a bit of the glass dragon in them, or
know how to talk to him about anything that matters you and anyone you love.
any more. It’s not easy, like I said. To travel those roads is a
difficult spiritual experience. There’s something like an
Obstacle 4 in the way if it’s someone you’re close to or
Obstacle 5 if you want to burst out into the dream-world
The Archive of Fortitude as a whole or into the dreams of somebody
Why is the archive so weirdly designed? you don’t know well. Plus, you’ll need at least a level
I’m actually expecting you to use either the Issue 3 action to be anything more than a faint presence at
rules or somebody’s random insight/claim/“of course!” the far end.
moment to figure that out in play. You have an advantage, though. You have a power of
As for what I think is going on— destruction buried in you, and you can use it to grind
The archive’s design is mostly thematic. It’s a place away at the paths between dreams—or, if you put at
of dreams, so it has some visuals that resemble a ship least 3 Strike into it, to blast them open with a single
design, it doesn’t have a firm roof, its omphalos or move. Over time you’ve gnawed down a path into the
world-pillar or axis mundi is a thing that looks like dreams of the Wishing Boy that’s only Obstacle 1 to
it’s intended to start turning, and up near the top it walk. Even master dream-magicians like the Sosunovs
becomes confusing and fades into the Outside. would be jealous (or possibly try to kill you) if they
So the simplest answer, if you can’t stand not having saw that!
an answer right now, is that it faded into being out of
somebody’s dream.
But I don’t think that’s why. I think that if your game
goes on long enough, it’ll turn out to be “because of
somebody’s awesome scheme” or “because it actually Masks
makes sense, considering X, Y, and Z,” where the
Note that there’s a genre rule—enforced by a kind of
scheme or the X, Y, and Z have emerged in play.
miraculous power—that makes it harder to recognize
anybody while they wear a mask. Thus, if somebody
wonders how much your masked dream-ghost looks
like your real body, the answer is probably, “How
could you possibly tell? There’s a mask!”
79 I don’t just mean like, 22 or whatever. This guy is thirty-seven. He’s

like... Professor age.
258 Playbooks
Quests Other Quests
You start the game with three quests, and have the If you’re interested in another quest or two, and you
power to swap them out or pick up more—you can have access to Fortitude: by the Docks of Big Lake,
pursue up to four quests at any given time. I’d recommend looking at the quests for...
I’ve chosen three quests to... ŭŭ ...becoming a Shrine or Park Guardian.
ŭŭ ...being recognized as a Sacred Child.
in play (“Under Siege”).
(“Art Shop and Garden”). Why Did the Glass Dragon
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ŭŭ ...tie you into the campaign plot (“The
Break?
Hidden Room”).
This is another thing to figure out in play. By that I
don’t mean that the HG has or comes up with an
Bonus XP
answer and you spot it. Instead I mean: eventually, you
Once per fun scene, though at most once per fifteen
or someone else will be resolving a quest or Issue or
minutes of play, you can earn bonus XP for either of
finishing up a monologue or something and you’ll just
the first two quests just by bringing them up—which
see why the glass dragon must have broken. Maybe
you can do as simply as flashing the relevant sign, e.g.:
that insight is personal. If not, if it’s something that
has to be objective and “true,” then the answer gets
ŭŭ holding up your aggravation sign, or flipping it
run by all the other players for a sanity check, veto,
from “OK” to “Twitch. Twitch.”
or additional twists. Either way, that’s how I mean the
ŭŭ holding up your dark past sign, or flipping it from
answer to be found.
“Innocent” to “Suspicious”
In terms of larger principles, I assume that the glass
dragon broke because it was fragile, not so much
Sometimes, if it’s funny and appropriate, you can
because it was glass (unless you’re in a kind of goofy,
earn the bonus XP by flipping the sign the other way.
silly game) but because of something that was meta-
You can earn a bonus XP for the third quest, The
phorically or emotionally or thematically or symboli-
Hidden Room, once per in-game week by picking a
cally important.
scene from the quest’s list of scene options to play out.
In terms of what actually happened, I’d guess
that either...
ŭŭ ...there was a “Defining Moment” where

someone argued for the world’s existence.
ŭŭ ...a hero fought and broke it.
ŭŭ ...something was inside it, corrupting it, infecting
it, and it fell apart.
ŭŭ ...it was something goofy like “the ‘moving
glass’ technique didn’t scale up to handle the
stresses of flight well.”
ŭŭ ...somebody gave their life to break it.
ŭŭ ...it didn’t want to kill the world.
ŭŭ ...it broke as part of a very long, slow plan to kill
the world.
ŭŭ ...it broke because of a fundamental metaphysical
failing or contradiction in its design.
Playbooks 259
“Under Siege”
Bonus XP XP
This quest comes with a division of states—there’s the version of you
that’s making it, that’s handling it, that’s doing OK.
And then there’s the you that is not.
2 minutes) by flipping the card, showing that you’re moving between

states—that you’re starting to be a little overwhelmed by the harshness
of your life and whatever peeves you, or that you’re coming out of it and
becoming OK again.
“Under Siege”
15 XP Quest If there’s not a place to keep it in front of you where
: Chibi-Quest others can see it, you may just hold it up with the
“Twitch. Twitch.” outwards to signal your aggravation.
You’re plagued. You’re harassed. There’s something If you can’t even hold up a sign because you’re, e.g.,
fundamentally wrong with the world. Maybe it’s that playing online or forgot your stuff or you’re handcuffed
you don’t have enough money. Maybe it’s this degen- to your chair playing with a CIA interrogation team80,
erate modern age. Maybe it’s that people around you saying “Twitch... Twitch.” can suffice.
aren’t reading enough, or that they’re always getting
hurt and suffering, or that people are too lax with their Rewards
use of terms like “ironic” and “literally.” Completing this quest earns you a Recharge
Whatever! Token—a thing or moment that either exemplifies or
Try out various hobby horses and pet peeves and find balances out your peeves so thoroughly that you can
one that works out well at your particular gaming table. call upon it, once in the future, to refresh your supply
Once you find a good one, try to stick with it for 5-15 of cope and wish power. For instance, if your principal
sessions, but when it gets old, feel free to move on and worry is money, you might get an unexpected payday
experiment with some other options again. or a completely unfair shortfall. Either way, thinking
You can earn a bonus XP for this quest when you show back on that moment in the future will one day give
that you’ve been pushed too far on this or otherwise you strength.
bring your peeve and sense of persecution-by-the-world
and everything-is-falling-apart into play. As a specific
tool in this, I’ve prepped an aggravation sign for you
reading “Twitch. Twitch.” on one side and “OK” on 80 Playing Chuubo’s Marvelous Wish-Granting Engine is generally
the other. If the play environment allows, you may want considered a better interrogation technique than torture because it
fosters camaraderie between interrogator and captive, helps keep the
to keep this in front of you with the “OK” side face up
mind flexible and the imagination healthy, breaks down the death-
and flip it over when you’re claiming the XP. grip of irrational ideological and tribal identification on the part of
all participants, and it’s fun for the whole black ops compound!
260 Playbooks
OK Innocent
Twitch Twitch Suspicious
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Art Shop and Garden
35 XP Quest face up and flip it over when you’re claiming the XP.82
1: If there’s not a place to keep the sign in front of you
where others can see, you may just hold it up with the
2: “Suspicious.” Side outwards to mark the fact that your
3: secrets are getting out.
For simplicity that’s it—presumably you spend a lot
As nice as restoring or organizing the Archive itself of time doing chores related to the art shop and garden,
would be, the biggest concern is money. So you and and dragging in the other PCs, and stuff, but I don’t
Sakura and/or Danny are working to restore an old want you or the HG to have to keep track of other bonus
manor down the street from the archive. If you can get conditions besides just the sign.
the pond clean and pretty and the garden neat and the
old-style rooms in viewing order and set up a little art Variations
shop81 and maybe a café, that should bring in some cash! You can totally be working on something else—on
Your goal here is to get at least some of the other PCs restoring and organizing the archive itself, or setting up
to either help out or hang out. Then, alas, bits and pieces a place on your own, or earning money through odd
of your dark past and dark secrets start to come out... jobs, or something.
You can earn a bonus XP for this quest when your If you’re the otaku version of the Dream-Witch, you
mask of normalcy slips around the PCs or important could be focused on setting up a local con. If you’re the
NPCs, whether that means that your secrets are traditionalist version, you could be working to restore
exposed, you go to crazy lengths to protect them, or just an old church or to revive some forgotten tradition—
that a few more hints as to who and what you really are did you know that in the old days, people used to have
get out. Specifically, you’ll mark this by emoting suspi- celebrations in honor of the “god of nightmares,” re-en-
cious or innocent behavior. I’ve prepared an innocence/ acting some sort of conflict and reconciliation between
suspicion sign for you with your mask of “Innocent” him and the goddess of the sun? Why have important
on one side and your mask of “Suspicious” on the traditions like this been forgotten?
other. If the play environment allows, you may want Incidentally, the reason I want your past to come out
to keep this in front of you with the “Innocent” side over the course of this quest is that I don’t think keeping
your secrets for a long time will actually be very fun.
82 You can also earn an XP from flipping the sign the other way, but
81 (for your masks or paintings and Sakura’s handmade sashes and you’re capped at 1 sign-flip XP per scene and you’ll normally start
fans) each new scene innocent. Still, it could happen!
Playbooks 261
Art Shop and Garden
Bonus XP XP
This quest comes with a division of states. Sometimes what you seem
to be is a normal, if kind of stressed-out, kid putting together and then
running a little shop and garden. Other times you seem suspicious. Out
of place. A possible host for the Dream-Witch!
2 have on the table in front of you in play to show which state you’re in.
states—that you’re starting to seem a little suspicious, or, conversely,
that you actually seem kind of normal.
Technically the division between these two states is in others’ eyes:
you can’t actually control whether you “seem” suspicious or whether
you “seem” innocent. But I’m going to assert that the act of having a card
in front of you that says you’re one or the other is going to do a pretty
good job of giving that impression!
So even though you obviously don’t really want to tell Rewards

everyone you meet, “Oh, yeah, I’m the leftover detritus Completing this quest usually earns you either a
of a nasty world-ending villain, and I’m haunting the new Perk:
Wishing Boy, and that glass dragon thing in the cam-
paign premise? Me and my guardian, we built that!”— ŭŭ “It’s like a home to me.”: the art shop and
well, I don’t think your job in play is to protect those garden is now one of your Treasures and people
secrets, but to find ways to leak them without breaking visiting them can use them as a +1 Tool towards
character. Don’t worry about keeping players and char- (choose one)...
acters from figuring it out; instead, play “a girl with • ...feeling happy.
dark secrets, which are X, Y, and Z” as broadly and • ...feeling at peace.
definitely as possible. The ideal case is if the other PCs • ...taking shelter from [their] past.
all suspect everything pretty soon, but remain uncertain • ...getting along with others.
or uncomfortable confronting you about it until it’s a • ...connecting to the spiritual world.
good dramatic moment for you to face the music. • ...being comfortable.
(Depending on the PC loadout, they may not actually • ...(making) last-minute saves.
care, but that’s a separate matter.) • ...overcoming attempts at sabotage.
• ...something else (as appropriate).
262 Playbooks
Or you can pick one of these benefits: ŭŭ Birthday: You may celebrate a birthday and start
ŭŭ a new level 1 Connection to (someone or some- aging naturally. To whatever extent it matters, you
thing)—and it’s permanent! It doesn’t use a may choose to start anywhere between the cam-
Perk slot. paign default age and the campaign default age
ŭŭ +1 to such a Connection + 3. (This is separate from the official birthday
ŭŭ +1 to a Connection Perk number you celebrate, which could easily be 1,
40+, or 100+ depending on how you decide to
Or possibly even: think about things.)
The Hidden Room
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35 XP Quest out again to find that ten or fifteen years have once
1: again slipped you by.
2: Rewards
The typical reward for this quest is a Perk called a
This quest begins the story “Shards of Glass,” pg. “Bond”—some decision that you made or inner strength
XX. that you found during the course of the quest that sticks
with you and strengthens you when you act according
This world!—everything falls apart. It’s all unworthy. to its precepts.
It’s hard to deal with everything and over time, things Afterwards I suggest reviewing the notes on pg. XX
get messier and messier and the world gets stormier and and moving on to “Fascination.”
more chaotic around you and you start finding bits of
glass and multicolored dust everywhere and masks start
appearing on the walls even though nobody hung them
there and the voice of Melanie Malakh starts whis- Using the Archive
pering in your mind. The archive is Town’s storehouse for things like birth
When it gets to be too much, you retreat into your and death certificates, minutes of regional council
hidden room up near the top of the archives. The books meetings, celestial and weather and fishing and crop
start to fade into a labyrinth and the labyrinth into the observations, diaries and scrapbooks that people don’t
Outside—but if you go left instead of right, just when need any longer, records of mercantile shipping with
things start getting trippy—the path is almost invisible multiple investors, court rulings (not that there’s much
in the leaning stacks—you won’t wind up in the Outside. of that kind of thing), backup yearly bank records, and
You’ll wind up in a place that’s just yours, instead. to a certain extent used or donated books and other
Then go past the scary remnants and memories of memorabilia. It’s not the only place in Town that stores
who you used to be, and make another left, and there— stuff like that—in particular, there are other libraries—
delicate, beautiful, organized, and bathed in sunlight but Professor Hayashi’s archive is the place most likely
through a beautiful window of Hayashi glass—is your to have a random box of your great-great-grandpar-
private little library. Your hidden room, full of all the ents’ notes on stuff like the best preparation of mack-
memories and ideas and keepsakes and bits of being erel, Vadim saying nasty things about Renata Sue (and
that make you you. her having come down with dropsy even)! and what it
You think that’s how you made yourself into yourself looked like when the sun first shone over Town.
after the glass dragon broke. The archive is terribly disorganized, so searching
You think this is where you came from. for the information you want relies on either luck or
You’re afraid to spend too much time there. You’re persistence.
afraid of it being too good, too distracting, too peaceful,
too neat. It refreshes you, but you’re afraid of coming
Playbooks 263
The Hidden Room
XP
Major Goals
ŭŭ ...others stumble on your hidden room.
ŭŭ ...you establish a reason why you need the hidden room—why it’s
sustaining you, why you’d be at risk without it.
2
ŭŭ ...you establish a reason why the hidden room is hurting you,
breaking you, damaging your ability to live an ordinary life.
Quest Flavor
ŭŭ ...guiding someone through the Archive.

ŭŭ ...talking with somebody about your hidden room.
to reality.
ŭŭ ...get in a row with somebody over/about your
hidden room.
ŭŭ ...refusing to retreat to your hidden room, even though things
are very bad.
ŭŭ ...retreating to your hidden room.
A Wistful Sigh You can earn up to 1 comfort XP every 15 minutes of

Your bonus XP emotion is pity, empathy, or comfort. real time. Plus, another player can dare you to let your
It’s when people become aware of your struggles, of mask slip a little—to show something of what’s trou-
your personhood, and wish to toss you a little comfort bling you, or to let a problem of previously unspecified
in a cold and uncertain world... in the form of an XP. level be troubling—and if you do, and they’re feeling
They express this with... sympathetic after, you can earn a bonus comfort XP not
ŭŭ ...a wistful sigh. bounded by the 15 minute rule.
ŭŭ ...saying, “Sigh,” or “Ahh.”
ŭŭ ...saying, “Tragic.” Advice to Other Players: the desire to comfort the
ŭŭ ...an understated statement of togetherness: Dream-Witch should be sincere, but it doesn’t have to
• “...nice weather, isn’t it?” be terribly profound. You don’t have to feel like her life
• “...listen to those [ birds, crickets, is tragic—you just have to feel like expressing, “We’re
waves, whatever ].” all in this together.” Or “I hear you.”
• “...let’s all do our best.”
• “...I hear ya.”
• “...come on,” while extending a hand.
264 Playbooks
Abilities Treasures
You have 8 Will and the following mundane abilities— You’re spiritually connected to:
ŭŭ Grace 2. You move well, you move quietly, ŭŭ Professor Hideo Hayashi.
you’re good at traditional things, and you look ŭŭ the Wishing Boy (or Girl).
good in formalwear. ŭŭ an as-yet-undiscovered/undefined treasure made
ŭŭ Alertness 1. You’re vaguely aware of of glass, or an as-yet-undeclared PC.
your environment.
ŭŭ Crafts 1. You’re familiar with making masks and These are your Treasures and doing things for
shaping glass. or with them will give you access to certain special
Playbooks
ŭŭ Domestic Tasks 1. You’re familiar with cooking, powers, discussed below.
cleaning, and the like. As you earn rewards from various quests other people
ŭŭ Arts 0. You’re not comfortable when you experi- and objects may join this collection. For instance, your
ment too much with your art. starting quest “Art Shop and Garden” could add the art
shop and garden to your Treasures list.
Note that while your Arts Skill is 0, you can actually
use either Grace or Crafts for a lot of your art—you Special Abilities
can make traditional masks, calligraphy, and straight- As the Dream-Witch, you have the following
forward glasswork just with those. It’s only when special abilities:
you’re trying to be innovative, creative, and/or wild that
you’re forced to use your level 0 Skill. ŭŭ The “World-Breaker’s Hand.”
On the other hand, sometimes that’s what a piece • You can unmake things, including
needs, a bit of wildness, and at that you are maybe just intangibles, just by deciding to.
possibly not as good. ŭŭ You’re a very strong dreamer.
You have two mundane abilities with special rules • You’re good at handling surreal,
(detailed below): dream-like environments.
• You can send your dream-self out
ŭŭ Changeling 2. You’re not human, but you’re able to visit your “treasures.”
to seem human. • ...and lend them your spirit (skills,
ŭŭ Superior Dreamer 1. You’re a lucid dreamer, and knowledge, and power).
good at coping with strange things. ŭŭ You have a little bit of skill in magic.
ŭŭ You can claim a small number of people,
Connections places, and things as your “treasures,” and...
You start the game with four free Connections: • ...hear/feel/sense when they need you;
• ...with effort, send your spirit out to
ŭŭ The Wishing Boy 3. You have a mysterious visit them, even while awake.
connection to the Wishing Boy. ŭŭ You have a hidden room that can replenish the
ŭŭ Nightmares’ Angel 1. You just feel like he’s a wishing power of your heart.
good person under the attitude. • You’ll emerge from it with new cool stuff and
ŭŭ The Archive 1. You’re familiar with the Archive. afterwards the world around you will be orderly
ŭŭ Fortitude 1. You’re a Fortitude girl. and exceptionally sane for a little while.
You can also get a level 1 Connection to any PC by Your ability to show up in the dreams of the Wishing
mutual agreement. Boy and others is a combination of dramatic appropri-
ateness and just plain knowing how it’s done; see pg.
XX.
You also have two unique weaknesses:
Playbooks 265
ŭŭ Wounds and other unpleasant effects also cost you Miracle Points
“MP”—the wishing power of the heart. Life is You start the game with 7 Miracle Points (MP)83 to
hard for you. enhance or activate your miraculous abilities.
ŭŭ When you have the Sickness Issue, you are Recovering MP is hard for you, but...
haunted by the dust of the Outside and the legacy
of Melanie Malakh. ŭŭ ...a new season restores your MP to full.
ŭŭ ...you can gain additional MP from Issues.
Health ŭŭ ...you can gain MP from retreating to your
You have 2 Normal Health Levels, 1 Tough Health Hidden Room, up to a maximum of 8.
Level, and 2 Divine Health Levels. This is the “normal”
level of toughness for a character in Chuubo’s You can gain temporary MP, with no partic-
2
Marvelous Wish-Granting Engine: you can survive ular maximum:
a lot, but not so much because of physical toughness as
because you’re a shell, ghost, or remnant of something ŭŭ ...when Region Properties get you into trouble.
more terrible than life. ŭŭ ...when a Bond gets you into trouble.
For instance, if somebody stabbed me in the stomach, ŭŭ ...when your Who You Were power gets you
I’d be incapacitated. You, though, you’re more likely to into trouble.
be horrified at how messy it is; and what has the world
come to anyway that people just go around stabbing but MP that you get from Who You Were will fade at
people in stomachs? And then you’ll probably just the end of the scene.
declare the terrible wound unworthy of existence and
unmake it, and bam, there goes the mess and the pain.
That said, even though you can just unmake wounds,
you still don’t like taking them—unless the wound is
super-clean like a cut from a two-dimensional sword “Mono no Aware”
or super-minor like a black eye, undoing the wound
I wanted to capture a bit of bittersweet melancholy
won’t leave you healthy, just... more ambiguous in just
with your XP emotion—shared awareness of the
how you’re hurt. You’ll still “wound” a Health Level
impermanence of things, a sense of ahh-ness looking
from the game-rules perspective, though maybe a
out at the world, that thing that I may or may not actu-
smaller one—
ally understand that Japanese cultural tradition calls
And, as part of your Strategist-Shard weakness,
mono no aware.
that’ll cost you 1 MP, down to a minimum of 0.
I figured that that’s really too complicated to aim
for as a baseline. But please understand that you’re
allowed to drift your understanding of “pity” in that
direction. You’re not aiming for a ridiculous excess of
suffering and pathos like the Prodigy, you’re aiming
to capture the struggles and need for comfort that are
part of an ordinary life.
83 5 MP, which is normal, plus 2 from your “Accursed” Arc, below.
266 Playbooks
Perks Bonds
Characters in this game have a handful of Perks. You Your starting Perks include a couple of Bonds.
gain them or improve them by completing quests, and The biggest thing about Bonds is that you as a player
you can have up to 8. always decide how they work IC. The HG can veto a
You’ll start with these Perks: given use, but can’t force you to bring the Bond into
play. So, for instance, it’s not up to the HG to decide
what it means that you must honor that debt; it’s up to
Bond 1 you.
Your Bond Perks will help you take appropriate
I must honor the debt I owe Professor Hayashi.
actions, or reward doing stuff that gets you into trouble.
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For instance, your Bond to Professor Hideo Hayashi
can be invoked...
Bond 1 ŭŭ ...for +1 Strike on a miracle that honors that debt.

ŭŭ ...as a +1 Tool on a mundane action that honors
I am drawn to [an as-yet unnamed PC or that debt, but only if there’s a person or Obstacle
hidden treasure made of glass.] opposing you.
ŭŭ ...to earn 1 Will or MP when honoring that debt
gets you into trouble.
In addition, having a Bond that names someone

or something makes that person or thing one of
1
may take a free level 1 Connection to any other PC. your Treasures.
Not Quite Human

Connection: the Wishing Boy Not all mundane Skills are equal—you have two Skills
You have a mysterious connection to the Wishing Boy. that stand out from the run-of-the-mill options, even if
3 they’re not quite the stuff of miracles. These are:
Superior Dreamer
Connection: Nightmares’ Angel
1
You just feel like he’s a good person under the attitude. You’re good at handling surreal, unreal, chaotic, and
dream-like environments. You often dream lucidly;
you can fall asleep or wake up pretty much at will; and
Connection: the Archive you’re good at fending off mental attacks. In addition
to the baseline level 1 Skill, you have a point of Edge
1
You’re familiar with the Archive.
in any mundane conflict that’s about anything like that.
This is a difficult Skill to use in the waking world,
although it may help purify and enhance the imagery in
Connection: Fortitude art or stories based on your dreams.
1
You’re a Fortitude girl.
Changeling
Type: Magical Skill Cost: —
As the Dream-Witch, you have the capacity to seem
human even though you’re not. You used to have eyes
like night and falling stars: now they’re brown. You
used to look identical in dreams and in person—you
Playbooks 267
used to be a ghost-girl, and not just a person whose magic. Heck, you can even swap it out for another
dream-self resembles a ghost-girl. Now you’re not. magical Skill in general if you don’t like this one!
This is a magical Skill, so technically it can do any- You won’t have to change your character concept to
thing. However, most things you’d want to do with it do this—I mean, you won’t suddenly not fit into your
will face large Obstacles. For instance, if you wanted to family if you decide not to have the Changeling Skill.
use “I can seem human” to throw lightning at somebody,
well, that’s rules-legal, but you’re facing an Obstacle of Emptiness and Dream
5. That doesn’t mean you can avoid explaining how that Once upon a time you were someone else. You lived a
works, either—I mean, you can do it, changeling-style, different life. You knew things, and did things, and had
but you’ll want to give the HG something to work with things happen to you.
or they’re not going to make it a big part of how they You’ve forgotten most of the story of that time but
2
describe the scene or decide on future outcomes. If the game hasn’t—it encodes it in a miraculous story
you just want to make yourself prettier or something, Arc, or set of story Arcs, Accursed 2.
though, something more obviously fitting the nature of That history is what gives you many of your powers
the Skill, the Obstacle might be only 2-3. and your weaknesses today.
The normal uses of this power are: Here’s how they work.
ŭŭ [Obstacle 1] Conceal your eyes behind an appear- Sickly

ance of normalcy. Type: Special Cost: —
ŭŭ [Obstacle 1] Fit in with the local humans; conceal You are prone to trials and your life is a sorrowful thing.
the behavioral signs of foreignness. Once per session you may do all of the following,
ŭŭ [Obstacle 1] Conceal scars. in order:
ŭŭ Declare yourself under attack by corruption
ŭŭ [Obstacle 2] Conceal and partially suppress or trauma.
wounds and sickness. ŭŭ Declare a suitable:
ŭŭ [Obstacle 2] Mimic a particular individual’s • (Suffer) Corruption
appearance and mannerisms. • (Suffer) Trauma: XP action—basi-
ŭŭ [Obstacle 2] Fit seamlessly into a family, so that cally, you experience surreal effects and
they forget you were not theirs. then your corruption, sickness, or ongoing
psychological damage gets worse; and then
ŭŭ [Obstacle 3] Poison someone with a shard of ŭŭ ...automatically pick up a point of the
dream, driving them into a psychotic break and Sickness Issue unless your Sickness Issue is
filling their eyes with night and falling stars. either at 5 or has just recently been resolved.
This power is functionally a narrative one—from an
Many of these effects become quasi-permanent with IC perspective, it’s not the power to be sickly but the
regular use—you don’t have to sustain the magic, but power to be right about how much your life sucks.
in theory you might find the effects fading and have to
renew them. XP Actions
Some of these powers you’re not sure yourself how Each in-game week, every PC has the opportunity to
much you’ve used—did Hideo take you in because take two “XP Actions” and earn the group XP. Usually
of magic or because he decided to? Are you actu- these will be the three XP Actions “in genre” for a pas-
ally you, or are you just mimicking you? Or are you toral game:
even just somebody poisoned with a shard of “your”
former dreams? ŭŭ Shared Action
If you’re playing a variant version of the Dream- ŭŭ Shared Reactions
Witch, feel free to swap Changeling out for another ŭŭ Slice of Life
magical or superior Skill—for instance, if you want to
be a Kichi, you could replace it with the Kichi Family
268 Playbooks
You’ll try to connect to people while doing chores ŭŭ When you come out of the hidden room with
or talking, or you’ll be out in the world and you’ll 5+ MP, at least one of which came from the
have a moment or mood that sticks with you. As the hidden room, you’re ready to face the ordinary
Dream-Witch, you’ll also have options like “skip one world again:
of my XP Actions this week” or “I immediately (Suffer) • You may sustain a 0 MP Major miracu-
Trauma as an XP Action!” lous action that keeps you you and makes
There isn’t really much in-world benefit to either of everything around you clean and orderly
these things— and free of direct Outside influence.
Invoking Sickly, in particular, is pretty ambiguous in • You’re carrying something cool, like old Spanish
whether it’s good or bad, but it does let you shape the coins to sell for money or an amazing hairpin.
Playbooks
flow of play. • In your left eye there is a night-black
shard of glass, through which comet-like
bits of light sometimes flicker.
Arc Powers
Sickly is your “Arc power”—you get it for being on Your world remains clean and orderly, you remain
one of the Arcs that grant Sickly. If you change to a you, the glass remains visible in your eye, and you’ll
different Arc, it’s replaced by whatever power that have difficulty growing as a person until either you
Arc offers. That could be Sickly, but for most Arcs gain a point of Sickness, somebody uses a power
it’s either Immortality or the MP-regeneration power to poison you with doubt, or you spend down to 4 MP
“Frantic.” or fewer.
The rest of these powers are permanent, whether or While most people need to explore the Archive
not you’re currently on the Accursed Arc. to reach your hidden room, you can get there from
any collection of books, records, and art large and
barrier-filled enough to wander through. When you
The Hidden Room leave again you’ll always emerge into the Archive in
Type: Miraculous Action, Major Cost: — Fortitude. If you are outside Fortitude, and there is a
Somewhere in the archive is a hidden room spiritual barrier between you and Fortitude, you may
containing—you. need to overcome that barrier with Strike in order to
A place where you built yourself into being, choosing enter the hidden room. For instance, someone must use
bits of memory and glass to define yourself. A place of a miracle with 2+ Strike for you to enter the hidden
peace and sanctuary where you could wander among room from a library of the Outside, and probably 4-5
only things that remind you of yourself and not, well, Strike to enter directly from the Bleak Academy.
her. Other characters may accompany you into the hidden
If you hide out there for a while: room, and exit into the Archive. Other characters may
even use the hidden room to gain MP and acquire an
ŭŭ When you spend one of your weekly XP-earning aura of Outside-repelling order. However:
actions there, gain 1 MP (max 8).
ŭŭ When you skip one of your weekly XP actions to ŭŭ Only one person can gain MP from the hidden
be there, gain 1 MP (max 8).84 room at a time.
ŭŭ When you fail someone, miss an appointment, ŭŭ Most attempts to enter the hidden room without
or otherwise let something bad happen or cause your presence and consent fail.
something bad to happen because you were in the ŭŭ Someone else using the hidden room might come
hidden room, gain 1 MP (max 8). out as you, or conversely make it so the next time
you use the hidden room you come out changed to
84 If most of the game is XP-giving actions, this doesn’t actually cost be more like them.
the players anything—you’ll just move on to someone else earning
XP for the group. On the other hand, if the HG has a lot of stuff going
on that isn’t earning XP, then maybe having lonely Slice of Life and
(un)Shared Actions in there is a better option. Though, such a lonely
option! It might earn you something called Isolation.
Playbooks 269
ŭŭ People who try to get into the hidden room really important characters can take a wound instead
without you escorting them occasionally get of just dissolving into nothingness. A few can laugh
hurt.85 off the effects in other ways—trying to unmake the
Child of the Sun, for instance, would be an exercise
The World-Breaker’s Hand in frustration.
Type: Miraculous Action, Bleak
Cost:
ŭŭ 0 MP—1/week, declare something unmade.
Making Answer to the Bleak
ŭŭ 1 MP—Unmake something a second or later time The possible answers and antidotes to Bleak powers
per week. are described more fully in the Chuubo’s Marvelous
ŭŭ 2 MP—Unmake something a second or later time Wish-Granting Engine RPG, but in a pastoral game
2
in a matter of hours. like this one they boil down to:
ŭŭ 4 MP—Unmake something a second or later time
per scene. ŭŭ Sometimes you have to work harder to blow up
stuff that people really love or put a lot of steady
You’ve inherited some of Melanie Malakh’s power to work into.
break the world. Just focus on something you can per- ŭŭ Someone looking you in the eyes, or the closest
ceive, within about a quarter-mile of you; judge it as reasonable alternative, and compassionately and
unworthy of existence; and bam! It shatters and turns to honestly telling you what they’re feeling and
dust and then into nothing at all. witnessing as you destroy stuff they care about
This power of unmaking is overwhelming—in fact, can sometimes break or even roll back the effects
it’s worse than you’re probably thinking, because it’s of this power.
not strictly limited to things. You can kill the sound of
footsteps, the shine of a streetlight, the shadow of an The first is generally measured in-system: you’ll
ant, the amusement value of a puppet, or the hand of have to spend MP or bring a Bond into play to beat
the puppeteer. You can take the weight from a door or it. The second is narrative: afterwards, the HG takes a
a window from a house, and it’s basically up to you moment, or has you take a moment, to ponder whether
at the time whether that leaves a hole or just a “there truth and compassion poisoned the emptiness of the
isn’t a window there” after. You can kill time before Bleak and brought about a kind of eucatastrophe.
an appointment, tone down the salt on an over-salted
meal, or snipe a single feather from the wing of a flying
tern. You can even do this stuff remotely when visiting Strategist-Shard
someone in the guise of the Dream-Witch’s Shadow Type: Special Cost: —
or A Waking Dream, below. As a special rule, any effect that causes a wound, or
This is the power of the Bleak Academy—a power fails to cause a wound because you do not have the
of unmaking, of the Outside. So if you blast something relevant wound type available, also costs you one MP.
that people love or need, or toy with someone to excess, If you run out of MP while you have the Sickness Issue
they may be able to invoke the rules for fighting the at level 1+, this weakness interacts with the Who You
Bleak Academy to stand against you. Were Affliction below to drive you into the comfort of
Note that you’re really not into maiming or mur- your hidden room.
dering people,86 and that even if you try most of the
Who You Were
85 the risk of failure and the risk of something going wrong are cosmo- Type: Affliction, based on your Sickness Issue
logical constants; if a character manages to eliminate either risk, they Cost: —
simply can’t get into your hidden room.
86 I’m belaboring this because I think it’s totally legitimate to look at Your old self overshadows you. Even if you wanted
what your powers can do and figure out from that what you’re sup- to just be Miramie, you’re stuck with it—you are the
posed to do in game—but in this case it would lead you astray. You’re Dream-Witch. You are spawn of, or what is left of, the
not supposed to go around casually making people’s lungs vanish
when they upset you. You’re supposed to be terrified of the possibility Bleak Academy magister Melanie Malakh.
that one day you might.
270 Playbooks
Anytime you have 1+ points in the Sickness • stop you from talking to people
Issue, the following rules apply: about these matters.
• transform your mind or body into someone else.
ŭŭ Your simple honest work—the stuff you put your
heart into—attracts the remnants of your past. Such effects need [Strike ≥ your Sickness] to succeed.
You keep finding dream-witch and glass dragon When this Affliction causes actual, meaningful
and Bleak Academy motifs in your art. Nameless trouble to you, the HG may give you up to your
memories get stirred up. The dust of the Outside Sickness in MP. However, you must use these MP
is drawn to you and you imagine hearing Melanie immediately; they fade at the end of the current scene
Malakh’s voice. At around Sickness 3+, this kind (or, if the current scene ends almost immediately, at the
Playbooks
of stuff gets actively supernatural: you might end of the next scene where you take action.)
stumble over random dolls of Melanie Malakh,
masks might appear on your walls, the HG might In general you’ll pick up your first point of Sickness
play Melanie Malakh’s voice in your head as if either from Sickly, from trauma, or from people
it could be real, and full-fledged Outside storms messing with you, and then later points will come from
might cross Fortitude’s borders to hunt you down. the consequences of this Affliction. You can also start
Your inner issues are externalized. the vicious cycle if someone tries to corrupt you, or if
ŭŭ Your Miracle Points are your lifeline. If you you just get naturally sick!
have Sickness 1+ and 0 MP, you have the
following choices: Minions
• Somebody uses a miracle with [Strike Type: Miraculous Action, Quest Miracle Cost: —
≥ your Sickness] to help you out. This is one of the crafts of the Bleak Academy—a
• You break down in a sobbing, power of Melanie Malakh.
shivering, useless mess. Over the course of a 15 XP quest you can create a
• You fade into the appearance of your dream- minion—a shikigami, imp, helpful spirit, floating-mask
self (mask and all) and head to the hidden spirit, or animated object—that is not terribly useful for
room at all possible speed. You are allowed to most things but which accurately expresses something
pause briefly for things like picking up a baby in your heart.
laying on the street, blowing out a lamp that’s You can then...
about to set a room on fire, or knocking on a
doctor’s door and pointing the doctor towards ŭŭ ...kill it once it fully manifests, purifying your
a dying friend, but for anything less important heart of that thing.
or more time-consuming than that you’re ŭŭ ...use it as a sympathetic link to some part of yourself
limited to meaningful glances and turning away. you wish to magically strengthen, or to some inner
Maybe a few distracted noises or moans. demon you want to face and learn to live with.
ŭŭ ...use it as a messenger.
If you don’t do anything like that, the HG can ŭŭ ...use it to siphon 1-2 MP from a willing or
send you into delirium-dreams, cast you in a state of unsuspecting associate who keeps the shiki close
delirium into the Outside, or have an NPC evil side of to their heart or sleeps beside it; later you can
you take over. wring it out for the MP and use it again.
ŭŭ ...empower it to perform simple chores
ŭŭ The HG will invoke Who You Were to protect and functions.
you from effects, with the specific exception of
your hidden room, that: The minion itself usually appears at or near the
• stop the effects above from taking place. beginning of the quest; however, it is not until the quest
• stop you from investigating the glass completes that it becomes useful or performs its proper
dragon or Melanie Malakh. magical function. Afterwards you may stay on the quest
to “sustain” the miracle; while you do so, the minion
Playbooks 271
is effectively a part of your character and you have a Miraculous Ease
say in what happens with it. Afterwards, it’s still a loyal Type: Miraculous Action Cost: 0 MP
minion that’s linked to you, but someone could, e.g., You have a limited access to your pool of miraculous
subvert it with the appropriate coin. Will (pg. XX).
That is, like everyone else you have 8 Will to spend
Twisted Spaces each week to enhance your mundane actions—but if
Type: Miraculous Action, Quest Miracle you are taking actions either for, with, or to express
Cost: — your feelings for87 the Wishing Boy or the Archive
This is another of the crafts of the Bleak Academy—a of Professor Hideo Hayashi, you also have access to
power of Melanie Malakh. your pool of 3 miraculous Will.
Over the course of a 15 XP quest you can create a Miraculous Will replenishes when you complete, or
2
gate, labyrinth, or pocket world—a twisted space are in a scene with someone who completes, an in-genre
where things do not behave properly. These things too XP Action.
express something in your heart, and navigating that
space often teaches you something or giving you an The Dream-Witch’s Shadow
insight; if that insight is the actual point and value of Type: Miraculous Action Cost: 0 MP
the miracle, then the labyrinth or world or gate will tend When you are asleep you can project yourself into the
to become available at the beginning of the quest and company of one of your Treasures.
you’ll finish navigating it for the first time after you’ve You float around its physical body.
spent 15 XP; otherwise, it will generally wait to appear You can perceive through its senses. If it has none,
until the completion of the quest. you can dimly sense the world around it. If it’s asleep,
You may stay on the quest after completing it for as you can perceive its dreams. You can speak to it mind-
long as you wish to retain power over the twisted space to-mind, in total silence.
and to ensure that it does not fray; as with minions, Most importantly you can do this from any distance.
the twisted space is effectively a part of the character When you project yourself more than a block or
while you do so. During this time you could even two you become “present” where the treasure is. Any
defend a conjured gate with your own Health Levels, miracle that would normally target your important trea-
for example, if you so chose. sure can optionally affect you instead or in addition to
it. This ought to but doesn’t have to make sense—if
A New Path you’re projecting your dream-self to the Wishing Boy,
Later you built a new way of being for yourself. You for instance, and someone uses a miraculous action to
recreated yourself from almost nothing—represented stab him with a sword, they can automatically stab you
as the Arc, Sentimental 1. with a sword instead of or in addition to stabbing him.
You learned a Craft—it’s up to you what this is, They don’t have to explain how that works. They don’t
although I assume it’s either glass-making, mask- have to make sense of it. Ultimately that’s all on you.
making, painting, archiving, or interacting with people. Further, even after you stop using this power, you can
You learned to claim something as one of your still be remotely targeted in this fashion until the end
Treasures if you have: of the scene.
ŭŭ a level 3+ Connection to it.
ŭŭ a Bond that mentions it by name.
ŭŭ a Perk that binds you to it like:
• Bond (as long as it mentions it by name).
• Connection (as long as it’s level 3+).
• Accessory.
• “It’s OK, I’m here.” (pg. XX)
• “It’s like a home to me.” (pg. XX)
And now you have these powers in addition to 87 Or “in.” Being in, say, the Archive works, too. There just didn’t seem
to be a proper grammatical form for specifying that outside of a foot-
Malakh’s: note that didn’t immediately raise questions about why and in what
circumstances you would be in the Wishing Boy.
272 Playbooks
Miracles of Emptiness
Bonus XP
XP
You have something going on in your heart. So you’re making a minion
or a twisted space as a way to explore/deal with it—
To bring those inchoate feelings out and sort through, overcome, or
understand them.
And there’s something that you keep turning your attention to while
Playbooks
you do this. Something outside you, which could mean the minion, or
the twisted space, or something in the world around you... maybe even
a memory. Like, “The plants are so green here” or “I remember how he
used to smile” or “These stones are so cold.”
Like: “It smelled so good”—and if someone asks what that was, “there
was this soup place that I used to eat at.”
Like: “It was so nice”—and if someone asks you, you mean, the
summer, that’s now past.
It doesn’t have to have anything to do with making a minion or a twisted
space; rather, both the magic and the catchphrase are things you’re doing
to show your heart’s all tangled up.
per scene/15 minutes) by saying that or something of the kind.
Lend Spirit to whatever extent they actually drew upon your

Type: Special Cost: — knowledge and your abilities! Thus, if someone wants
While you are using The Dream-Witch’s Shadow you to remember a secret of yours from when you lent them
may choose to extend your abilities and knowledge to your spirit, they’d have to write it down.
the important person or thing that you’re visiting.
This gives the following additional benefits to the A Waking Dream
person or thing in question: Type: Miraculous Action
Cost:
ŭŭ They resist or outright ignore attempts by others ŭŭ 1 MP—Visit a Treasure astrally/spiritually
to influence their thoughts or actions, unless you while awake.
are also under that influence. ŭŭ 4 MP—Do so a second or later time in a matter
ŭŭ They gain a small amount of added mobility, of hours.
at the HG’s discretion—for instance, if you
had a glass figurine as one of your Treasures, You may detach a bit of your spirit and send it to
you could make it move, but not as nimbly as a someone even while awake. While you do so, you’re
human might. aware of both your environment and theirs. You can’t
ŭŭ They may call upon your abilities, powers, MP, Lend Spirit while using this power, but if you support
and knowledge in addition to their own. what they’re doing, their mundane actions gain a +1
Tool bonus and (all else being equal) 1 point of Edge.
People and things you lend your spirit to do not retain
the knowledge, abilities, or powers that you share with
them after you stop lending them your spirit. In fact,
their memories of events afterwards become muddled
Playbooks 273
The Treasure’s Call If you want to do this, and you don’t have an
Type: Miraculous Action Cost: 0 MP appropriate Arc-related Craft, you can probably get
You can “hear” or “feel” when one of your Treasures away with it as long as you involve your Craft into
needs you or is desperately trying to reach you, no things somehow.
matter how far away or out-of-communication it might Regrettably this training isn’t permanent—instead,
be. you keep the quest card active once you finish it, and
You do have to invoke this power—but it costs 0 MP, the power remains active until you use that quest slot
so you can safely assume that it’s active any time... for something else.
ŭŭ ...you’re not super-busy juggling two activities at A Maker of Wonders

once, and Type: Miraculous Action, Quest Miracle Cost: —
2
ŭŭ ...either: Over the course of a 15-XP quest, you may work with
• ...you know OOC that a Treasure one of your Treasures, transforming it physically and
is trying to reach you; or spiritually to unleash its “true form” or “true power.”
• ...a Treasure is trying to reach you and the Or, if the Treasure is already magical, you activate,
HG remembers that this power exists. revitalize, and control its powers without necessarily
initiating a transformation.
If both you and the HG forget this power exists, or if The power you grant and the control you take remains
you get really busy, a Treasure’s call can go unheard— active and accessible until you set aside the quest.
the assumption is that you got distracted and forgot to A Treasure typically has a single defined power—
occasionally “listen.” otherwise it wouldn’t be the Treasure’s “true form”
or “true power.” That said, just like you can use fire
A Keeper of Treasures for many different things or train an athlete in many
Type: Miraculous Action, Quest Miracle Cost: — different sports, you can often adjust the details of the
You may spend a 15-XP quest training or improving power that you create or grant as a part of enacting
something. This can make an animal unnaturally this quest.
responsive an alert or a place more convenient or func- If you want to create a new artifact—a wondrous
tional. In both cases, that’s a +1 Tool. mask, bit of glasswork, or whatnot—you can generally
Going beyond responsiveness, you can use your Craft do so with a 45-XP quest. In addition to creating the
in some fashion to teach animals or people borderline Treasure itself this acts as a quest miracle to activate
supernatural techniques. For instance, you might put and tame its power. See Glass Magic in the Chuubo’s
them through bizarre cinematic martial arts training, Marvelous Wish-Granting Engine RPG for an
magical training, use your Treasures in some weird example of how this might work.
fashion to improve them, or have many long, heartfelt Later on, if you pursue the Sentimental Arc further,
conversations about what they’re really capable of until you’ll be able to spend MP to instantly activate a spe-
“what they’re really capable of” turns out to include cific version of a Treasure’s power.
ventriloquism, charm, traditional Damascene smith-
craft, or whatever else you’d like. This gives them the
equivalent of a Superior Skill 2. If you want to teach
your dog hang-gliding or a person how to become
unnoticeable using the Shadow Step, this is the appro- Weakness
priate technique.
Your Strategist-Shard weakness pretty much sucks.
Sorry! It’s part of the price of your World-Breaker’s
Hand.
274 Playbooks
A Keeper of Treasures
XP
Bonus XP
You’re using your Craft to train an animal or person in something—
either making them unnaturally responsive to your needs, which acts as
a +1 Tool for you or them or whomever is appropriate, or granting them
a borderline-supernatural Superior Skill 2.
Playbooks
once per scene/15 minutes) by explaining away what you’ve been doing
or trying for in the current scene as part of that training. Pick a stan-
dard phrase to indicate this, and then just say that phrase or some close
variant when you want to claim the bonus.
This is usually pretty straightforward: if you’re teaching your dog
qinggong (light foot technique), try, “I’m teaching my dog qinggong,”
“It’s for her training,” or, at the outside, “Gravity is an illusion.” I’d
recommend against something specifically said to the dog, like “C’mon,
girl, up!” because you might be buying tools or treats for the training,
and explaining why you’re carrying around a bunch of planks and ankle
weights with “C’mon, girl, up!” only works if your dog is on the scene.
A Maker of Wonders
XP
Bonus XP
You’re awakening a power in one of your Treasures. This is usually
something you already see as there—it just needs some work to bring
it out.
What are you teaching them?
once per scene/15 minutes) by explaining away what you’ve been doing
or trying for in the current scene as part of that training. Pick a stan-
dard phrase to indicate this, and then just say that phrase or some close
variant when you want to claim the bonus.
The suggested phrase is something that’s kind of a smiling reflection
on the power and how natural it is. If you’re teaching a dog to fly, you
could try, “That dog is born for the sky.” If you’re teaching Seizhi to
breathe fire, you could say, “Dang, what a firecracker!”
If you’re creating or claiming a new Treasure with this quest, as when
you build a magical mask or mirror from scratch or befriend Seizhi
Schwan by training him, this quest costs an additional 30 XP.
Playbooks 275
Falling from the Path
Lately—
Professor Hideo Hayashi
You’ve been drawn back onto the Arc Accursed.
You’re on it right now. There’s something dangerous While I’d like the Professor to be a bit enigmatic, I also
in you and it’s calling to you. That’s why you currently don’t like NCNPCS.79 So I imagine that if pressed by
have the power Sickly. the PCs, Hideo will actually explain at least roughly
You’ll have the chance to change your mind. why he stopped making glass and/or why he took you
As the end of the Hidden Room approaches, you’ll in.
have the chance to decide: So this is one mystery where I won’t just say “figure
it out in play.” If you get the chance to work it out in
ŭŭ ...are you actually on the Arc, Accursed? If so: play, great, but if you have to have an answer now,
2
• You’ll end the Hidden Room by assume this stuff is true:
making a change in your life.
• You’ll keep the same powers for now, but ŭŭ Melanie Malakh brain-whammied him.
when you complete the Arc you’ll get +1 ŭŭ He may also have had legitimate feelings for her.
MP and you’ll be able to use the World- How would he know?
Breaker’s Hand 1-2x/scene for free. ŭŭ He remembers building the glass dragon, making
ŭŭ ...are you on the Arc, Sentimental? If so: beautiful glass as she worked spells into it, but
• At the end of the Hidden Room, a respon- his memory of what happened after that is almost
sibility falls on you out of nowhere. as sketchy as yours.
• You’ll trade in Sickly for Frantic. ŭŭ He feels responsible for what happened, and also
• When you complete the Arc you’ll learn for you.
to casually evoke miraculous powers ŭŭ It all hurts and sucks for him and he doesn’t
from your Treasures and you’ll broaden really want to deal with it.
your access to miraculous Will. ŭŭ He’s “Professor” Hayashi because people started
calling him that after he got back from college
abroad, where he studied archaeology, lingui-
Frantic stics, history, or library science, or maybe even a
Type: Special Cost: — physical science like chemistry.
You’re never so resilient as when you’re terrified. ŭŭ He’s running the archive because he got intere-
You may take the (Be in) Trouble Action any sted in poking around Town’s past and the stories
time you can meet its condition. Doing so earns you of explorers of distant lands.
1 MP, up to a maximum of your starting MP. Each
additional group XP that you earn from this Action also It’s probable that there’s more to it. He’s presum-
earns you an additional MP. ably looking for something in the archive. And maybe,
The Dream-Witch does not start with this power, right or wrong, he believes that you’re that character
but can pick it up at the end of the first quest by variant where you’re not “what’s left of Melanie” but
switching to a Sentimental Arc. rather “some victim who got glass stuck in their eye
and died or broke and became you.” Maybe his head
is as messed up and broken as yours. Maybe he’s an
evil professor from the Bleak Academy.
But—if the HG has to decide on this stuff because
the PCs are interrogating Professor Hideo Hayashi
right now, and the HG doesn’t know the answers, then
it’s OK if there’s no there there beyond the stuff I just
listed above.
79 Needlessly cryptic NPC syndrome
276 Playbooks
Actions and Issues yourself out, and makes it even easier to peek into peo-
Here’s some things you’re often doing. ple’s dreams. (But you won’t see memories there yet.)
When you fade into reality you won’t have an actual
Pastoral Stuff face. You’ll just have a mask, or, if you take it off, a
Talking through what’s going on in your life blank head, maybe with normal hair, and a few black
Shared Reactions “emotion” lines that show your mood.
Hanging out in the world and experiencing stuff Normally you won’t really remember much or say
Slice of Life much. Your memories only stick within the context of
Living a simple, honest life Shared Action an Issue—if you finish out your Calling, you’ll forget
You’re a Fortitude girl—you spend a lot of time the simple, honest things you’ve done with people. If
Playbooks
appreciating the world around you, doing simple honest you finish out your (in) Over your Head Issue, you’ll
things, and talking to people you care about about the forget the theories, decisions, and gambles that got you
stuff that’s going on in your life. there. But you’ll still be drawn to the PCs (for the sake
You can get bonus XP for these kinds of actions a of better gaming.)
couple of times a week. The longer people know a ghost, the more easily they
can see through your invisibility, the more you’re drawn
Dreams to them, and the more realistic your facial expressions
Observe dreams, show off memories in dreams become. If they know you long enough they’ll start
Foreshadowing seeing your actual face—well, Melanie Malakh’s actual
Most of the time when it’s not just Slice of Life, stuff face—any time you don’t have your dream-mask on.
that happens in dreams is there to... stare at. To marvel
at. To be awed by. This tends to foreshadow forth- 5 years old: This is when the game would start.
coming themes, game focuses, and events. Normally you’ll be a mostly amnesiac ghost-girl
for 2-3 years. However, that assumes that the HG is
Trouble playing through things quickly: that you’re just a ghost
Get worked up over everything falling apart for a session, maybe two. If it takes longer, or if you get
Obsessive Action bored of this, you can finish building a new self in your
Things really are falling apart and hopeless hidden room and emerge at any time.
Adversity
Being overwhelmed by money and aesthetic issues 5-8 years old: You “wake up” and become Miramie
is a standard part of your character, as is having creepy Mesmer. You try to fit into the archives, or you’re
stuff from your past come up to mess with your life. adopted by one of the shrine families. You try to build a
Some character variants may have further obsessions new life for yourself.
or troubles.
5-11 years old: 3-12 months later, you find a chunk of
Timeline 1-2: Playing Melanie Malakh in the dreams of the Wishing Boy.
through your Childhood Over the next 1-2 years you gnaw an easier path into
The HG may want to play through the PCs’ childhood at his dreams and he begins to notice you there.
an accelerated pace—probably about 50x acceleration,
covering a year in about the same time you’d usually 15 years old: This is the present.
cover a week.
In a game like that, your history would look like this: (The major difference between timeline 1 and time-
line 2 is when the old sun dies, which isn’t very per-
The Wishing Boy or Girl is... sonally relevant to you. In timeline 1, it was when the
5 years old: You are a dream-ghost. Instead of Wishing Boy was 3 or so. In timeline 2, it was when he
Changeling or another magic, you have Ghost Magic. was roughly 8.)
It lets you slip in and out of the human world more
easily, turn translucent and semi-intangible, stretch
Playbooks 277
Timeline 3: Starting in
the Modern Day Ghost Magic
In a game that starts in the present, you probably Ghosts don’t really have powers—they’re just people,
emerged into the world less than a year ago. You’ve who are ghosts—but a few of them are a little better
been haunting the Wishing Boy’s dreams for the last at being ghosts than others, and this qualifies as a
3-6 months. magical Skill.
Standard Obstacles for this Skill include:
The Ghost World ŭŭ [Obstacle 0] Laugh an eerie, echoing laugh.

ŭŭ The Ghost World is cold and empty. Raise someone’s hackles. Stare ominously.
ŭŭ The Ghost World does not change. ŭŭ [Obstacle 1] Find someone who’s looking for
2
ŭŭ The Ghost World echoes in the world of life. you. Walk silently. See into the living world
ŭŭ The Ghost World is full of memories. without bringing it closer. Adopt special “ghost
ŭŭ The Ghost World sees shadowy images and expressions” that human faces can’t. Fade away
reflections of the real. from the living world when nobody is watching.
ŭŭ The Ghost World is unfinished. ŭŭ [Obstacle 2] Fade away from the living
ŭŭ The Ghost World is incomplete. world, even in plain sight, as long as the people
watching you don’t know you very well. Turn
Ghosts and people are naturally estranged from one translucent and mostly-intangible, able to pass
another. They do not interact. The human reality and through things of the living world without a
the ghost reality do not touch—ghosts interact with “firm” equivalent in the ghost-world. Slip into
ghosts, and ghost-books, and ghost-roads, and the like. someone’s dreams. Stretch out your legs into an
Humans interact with humans, and human-books, and attenuated vapor, allowing you to float off the
human-roads, and the like. But the division between ground or stretch up to five feet taller.
the two worlds is not whole and entire. Sometimes ŭŭ [Obstacle 3] Reach into the living world from
eerie sounds drift through from the ghost-world, or the the ghost world without materializing. Interact
brighter lights of the human world will shine through with specific objects while mostly intangible.
amidst the ghosts. Sometimes empathic sensations Steal someone’s life energy. Drag a living person
will transmit. In certain moods and in certain places a temporarily into the ghost world.
human will be primed to sense ghosts, or vice versa.
The more they sense one another, the more real they
become to one another, until first one starts to see the
ghosts, and then to share a physical reality with them.
It’s a setting conceit that the living world is “more”
real than the ghost world, and thus the living are more
real to the ghosts than the other way around. When a
ghost sees a human, there may be a shimmer or distor-
tion between them, like the ghost is looking upwards
at the world through water; when a human sees a
ghost, the ghost itself seems indistinct, unfinished,
and incomplete. The ghost world is a lower, vaguer
reality, more prone to time-skips, emptier of sensation,
less mutable, and more possessed by dream-logic. It
is even possible that the ghost world is nothing more
than the memories of the real.
278 Playbooks
Fortitude PC
[[CHARACTER SPLASH, BLANK, as in the Fortitude PC Lifepath]]
Playbooks 279
Fact Sheet will rise to drown you, it will carry you away to noth-
You were just an ordinary person, until a shard of ingness and you will die.
magical glass found its way into you.
Even now you’re still mostly an ordinary person—a Knight
mortal, and, like every mortal, on the road to death. Are you interested in taking on an important role in the
Even if you’re magical, even if you’re a vampire, you cosmos? Or maybe just Fortitude? Being a member
won’t escape it. of the Fortitude Regional Council? A Magister of
You’re going to die. I’m so sorry!! the Bleak Academy? A Really Great Beekeeper? A
Guardian of Time?
Primary Quests Or maybe do you want to just kind of make up your
ŭŭ Do your thing. own powers as you go?
2
ŭŭ Get involved with the main characters. What’s stopping you?
ŭŭ Proceed, as a mortal does, towards your inevi-
table death. Here’s your story.
You have a vice, right? There’s something that’s
Bonus XP Condition standing in your way. And it’s kind of your destiny here
You’ll pick your own bonus XP emotion: to overcome it, heroically, comically, in a saccharine
ŭŭ Are you a bit of a jerk, provoking fist-shaking fashion, whatever.
outrage? And you’re living your life, and there’s your vice,
ŭŭ A bombastic character, trying to hook the other and it’s between you and your dreams.
players on your catch-phrases? And there’s this person.
ŭŭ Someone people worry about? Their game-label is the Walker in Darkness. They’re
ŭŭ Someone people can be confident in? your friend, or your enemy, I don’t know, but whatever
Or will you invent a new bonus XP condition, or they are they’re most importantly your metaphorical
share one with one of the existing characters? dealer. They support or enable you in your vice, you
know? They like your vice. They sneer at your dreams
The Eight Paths of being anything more.
Lately you’ve been dreaming of Jade Irinka a lot, of
Bindings that lost, murdered angel of the houses of the sun.
Are you interested in becoming a Wounded Angel? They sneer at that, probably, too.
Do you want to master forbidden secrets, wield the They’re probably what kills you. I don’t know for
horrific powers of the Outside—but for good, or at sure. It might not be them. It’s probably quick, brutal,
least neutral, ends—and pick up incredible miraculous and surprising, either way.
powers at the cost of terrible wounds?
Are you a dangerous gambler? Otherworldly
A meddler in forbidden things? Are you interested in gaining a deep connection to
Then here’s your story. some element of the natural world?
Or maybe in coming back from the dead as an
You’ve found a place at the edge of Town where you immortal with the power to turn into a giant monster
can hear the voice of the Outside. It’s important to you. of some sort?
It’s helping you somehow—teaching you a magical Then here’s your story.
song, protecting you from a bully, inspiring you, or
helping you train an awesome pet (a pipe fox, fairy You are dying. I don’t know why. It’s something
dragon, or nixie dog, say) conjured from your dreams. big enough that random PCs with their random super-
Pretty soon—shockingly soon, like, as soon as you powers can’t fix it, not easily. Maybe it’s just a par-
finish your starting quest, if nothing else has killed you ticularly tenacious curse. Maybe it’s an illness that’s
yet? That voice will turn on you, a tide of the Outside powered by some great bleak entity’s will. Maybe you
don’t even know why you’re going to die, you just
280 Playbooks
know that you will: you’ve been having dreams that PS: At some point early on I think you’ll want to
serve to foreshadow it. establish a relationship or friendship with someone
You won’t accept it. Even if Heaven itself demands very much alive and very much in love with life, for a
your death: possible angst twist later on when they die too.
You won’t accept it!
You’ll experiment. You’ll struggle. You’ll use deviant Aspect
science or strange sorcery. You’ll fight to save your- Would you like to become an omnicompetent Ace? A
self. But I’ll be honest. It won’t help. Brutally quickly, master of kung fu or mortal life? A rival to the Prodigy?
like, probably only a couple of sessions into the game, I don’t think you’ll start out that way.
you’ll die. In fact, I think you’ll start this quest as anything but.
Playbooks
But that’s OK. Maybe you even planned it. Because it You won’t be vibrant. You won’t be omnicompetent.
turns out that the best way to beat anyone, even death, is You’ll be tired. You’ll be worn down. You’ll be used up.
to let them think they’re winning. Let death be the uke You could be young, but if you’re young, you’ll be sick
to your nage. You die. You wander lost in the Outside, and frail. Maybe you’ll have that anime disease where
maybe, for a while. you cough sometimes and everyone gathers around
Then you return. Wiser. Stronger. A creature your bed or whispers in the corners to show that they
of miracles. are very sad. Or maybe you’re not young, maybe you’re
a Jotun as old as mountains, and you’re ready to lay
Storyteller down your head and rest.
Are you interested in becoming a creature of tricks and Or you could be someone who wants to be a rival to
fables? Or maybe a high and holy thing, a living angel, the Prodigy, someone who’s probably even pretty cool,
an austere and alien god? but all it takes is an encounter with these living gods,
Then you may start kind of ordinary, but vibrant— these Main Characters, to finally realize how absolutely
alive—and wearing red; normal you’ve been—
And yet, with a bittersweet fascination with death. That you’re never going to be that awesome.
Or if not with death in the abstract, if not with death In fact, you’re never going to be any more awesome
in the body, then with death personified— than you already are. This is it. You’ve peaked. This
You’re the kind of person with a poster of the young, or this old, and you’ve peaked!
Headmaster of the Bleak Academy on your wall, You’re stuck. You’re blocked. Dang! This is as far as
maybe; or of Gaiman’s Death, or the traditional skel- you’re going to get.
eton-in-robes, or even of Fortitude’s own Kuroma And maybe it’s right in the middle of a rant like that
Yatskaya, who summons down “King Death” into that the truck squeals around the corner down the rain-
his skin. slick hill and hits you, bam.
The poster has lipstick on it, maybe, but only if you You’re dead.
wear lipstick.
(Otherwise that’d be a little weird.) Shepherd
You don’t want to die in the physical sense, exactly. Would you like to walk a Shepherd Arc, learning
You don’t even want your life to end. You’re just caught to bring out the power in other things?
up in the romance of death, of “the sweet-smelling Then here’s your story.
roses of the night” and the like. You’ll start as a desperate, messed-up kid trying to
But you’re going to die, anyway. cling to something that you’re losing.
...afterwards some of the shine will be off the rose, I To a friend or pet that’s dying. A broken family.
guess. Afterwards death will not be quite so interesting. I don’t know.
You might still be fascinated by it, ethereal, drawn to You have this brief, furious prologue, maybe less
darkness and to places of death, but it will have lost a than a session even, just enough time to meet the PCs
few shades of mystery. and show what you’re fighting for. And you don’t think,
not even once, that you’re at risk of dying yourself.
Playbooks 281
It’s not that you don’t accept the possibility. It just But before that, you are...
wasn’t on your radar. You’re not full of wish power—you’re not one of those
Then bam. people who can make the world bend just by trying
Did you get brushed out of your life by a shadowy hard. You’re not full of the bleak emptiness of the
horror? Just point and click, bam, you’re gone? Did Outside either.
you get accidentally crushed by someone who thought You’re not a natural part of the bigger-picture story
erroneously that turning into a giant snake would help? of Town.
Did you accidentally challenge American military When the story starts, you’re just a normal person.
hegemony and become a target? Did your glass-shard Even with a bit of the glass dragon in you—just a
power go out of control and set your whole body on normal person!
fire? Did you get torn apart by a nightmare creature that You didn’t even think you had a destiny. Not really.
2
hoped that by doing so it would earn your life and your You figured you’d live your life, and do your thing, and
reality and could then take your place in Town? if you worked hard, then you’d probably live a good
You’re someone who’ll learn to bring out the long life and find your happiness.
awesome, miraculous power that’s living under the You were wrong.
surface practically everywhere in Town... but first, Appropriate character archetypes from Fortitude:
you’re going to be its meat. by the Docks of Big Lake include...
Emptiness ŭŭ ...the Shop Fox.

Would you like to follow an Accursed Arc and ŭŭ ...the Vampire.
master the world-breaker’s hand? ŭŭ ...the Shrine Maiden/Priest.
To become an accursed creature with no true place in ŭŭ ...the Other One, (aka The Citizen
world and sound? of Fortitude.)
Then here is your story. ŭŭ ...the Immigrant from Earth.
You’ll feel your death coming long before it comes.
It’ll be a bone-deep sensation in you. You can feel it Add a unique adjective somewhere if two or more
coming. It’ll be like it’s eating you from the inside. people pick your option, e.g. dividing into “That
You’ll know that it’s going to happen. Annoying Shop Fox” and “the Handsome Shop Fox”
You’re going to die. or whatnot.
Mystic
Are you interested in following a Primordial Arc?
Becoming something alien, elemental, and divine?
Then here is your story.
You’re going to start the game in kind of a bleak place.
You’re not necessarily dying—it could be a freak
accident when it happens—
But you’re living as if you’re already dead. You’re
messed up. You’re broken. When you die it’s almost a
relief to you.
Only, then, there’s the miracle. The awakening. The
truth that leads you back to Town.
282 Playbooks
The Shop Fox
Campaign: The Glass-Maker’s Dragon shop foxes in Town and maybe 7?—two small families
Academics Skill: Typically Good and a drifter?—in Fortitude. You’re glamorous and
Sports Skill: Typically Excellent exotic and weird and so your life is a constant stream
Favorite Foods: Tenko love deep-fried tofu (on its of double-takes, unearned admiring sighs, people
own, in soup, or used as a rice pouch), red beans and assuming that your life is easy because you’re a Tenko,
red-bean sweets, and sake. They have a love-hate and people trying to touch your ears and tail. Stop that,
relationship with pickled snails—they’ll wrinkle you people!
Playbooks
their nose after each one, but a few minutes later Good grief!
they’ll eat another, and then another! They also like
fish-cake and “spider”-cake, apples, blackberries, Home and Family
licorice, and lollipops. The default Shop Fox is a kid pretty close to the cam-
Blood Type: O- Tenko are universal donors, though paign age. Your parents have a little shop in Fortitude.
the blood feels “heavy” in a human’s veins. One of them works pretty hard every day to keep the
Animal: Fox shop going. (This could be your Dad, or your Mom.)
Age: the standard Tenko PC is the campaign default The other mostly lounges about on a cushion in the
age (15, though the HG may play through ages 5-14 back room and smokes a long pipe, but has magic,
at an accelerated pace). brains, and courage to face the big crises.
As for you, you help out!
You’re the Shop Fox, aka the Tenko. It’s up to you to decide whether your lounging parent
Your ancestors include humans and fox spirits. You is naturally frail, incredibly spoiled, or just has to look
have fox ears as well as your regular ears—the fox ears as lazy as possible to keep their magic strong.
are larger, and a little higher on your head. Your hair is You have cousins and other relatives over in the
probably brightly colored and you’re probably pretty or shopping district but you don’t see them very often.
handsome. You may or may not have a fox tail. You’re
probably thin and a little bit short and you probably
dress in old-fashioned Japanese or Chinese clothing.
The Tenko believe that their fox spirit ancestors still
look out for them—that’s why a human-Tenko child is
almost always just a Tenko, when the mating is fertile
at all, but also why if you cut off your fox ears your tail
will fall off, your magic will wither, and you’ll become
all the way human.
Long ago fox-eared people had a reputation for good
luck, powerful magic, and good counsel. But these days
your people aren’t very important—fox-eared people
are more likely to be shopkeepers or traveling enter-
tainers than sorcerers, exorcists, or the idle rich.88 But
it’s still a pretty good life: you have access to family
wealth and magic and the Tenko look out for one
another.
The downside is mostly that you stand out.
It’s not like there’s really any negative bigotry
against you—but you’re visually distinctive and you’re
a member of a pretty small minority. There’s about 150
88 That’s why you’re called shop foxes!
Playbooks 283
The Vampire
Campaign: The Glass-Maker’s Dragon Home, Family, and Coming Back from the
Academics Skill: Poor Dead
Sports Skill: Terrifying As a Fortitude vampire, you probably came back from
Favorite Foods: Rage, fear, agony, anxiety, despera- the dead for Fortitude reasons. You didn’t want to leave
tion, despair; blood. As a vampire, you can live off your parents or kid sister or kid brother or whomever
of ambient negative emotions or drink them directly you left behind stuck with all the chores. You had jam
from someone’s mind. If you drink “pillow-teeth to make. You had a wall to fix. You didn’t want to miss
tea,” it may be harder for you to drink blood—it’s that boat trip out to the coast off Rio to catch marlin.
2
still edible and even delicious, but the tea makes Your Mom made your favorite stew and the smell of it
your teeth too spongy to tear into a human wrist woke you up.
or neck. Or maybe you were just lonely.
Blood Type: AB+—well, metaphorically, anyway Maybe it’s just that you were dead, and you were out
Animal: Bat there being dead, and you got to thinking about life and
Age: I’m assuming you’re a relatively young remembering life and so—
vampire—you’ll look the campaign default age, Well.
and be 1-10 years older. That makes you 16-25, You came back.
in a typical game; if the HG plays through the There’s some people who say it’s nothing to do with
characters’ childhood, you may even start the game any of that. They say that you have to be made by
“alive.” another vampire, or cursed by an evil curse, or maybe
even that it’s just if you eat too much octopus you’ll rise
You’re the Vampire. up from the ground.
You rose from the dead. Now you’re a broody incar- But anyhow, there’s really two solid options for a
nation of teenage romantic angst: attractive, deeply Fortitude vampire. Your family’s here. You died while
troubled, elegant, strong, courageous, loyal, and... kind away, probably, you maybe died in Horizon, or maybe
of a jerk, particularly to people you care about. out in the Walking Fields, or in the Outside somewhere,
A vampire feeds on either blood or negative emotion maybe you even fell and sank into Big Lake. But your
(worry, fear, pain.) family was here, so you came back, all broody and
For a combination of moral and social reasons, most corpse-y and fearful of the sun.
vampires in Town drink pillow-teeth tea. It softens Or you don’t have any family anywhere, and one day
their fangs and makes them squishy like marshmallows you looked east towards the sunrise and you thought,
so that there is no possible way they could rip open a “That way. That way, even though it hurts. I’ll find
human neck. It also prevents cavities! somebody there.”
Sunlight sets vampires on fire.
I’m going to assume you’re one of the vampires who
is relatively tough here—strong enough to get by with
just a parasol during the day and to interact with the
Child of the Sun without getting burned. (As long as
she doesn’t smile directly at you or something.) Even if
you do catch on fire, it probably won’t kill you, not for
a while. I mean, it’ll suck! But you can heal.
284 Playbooks
The Shrine Maiden/Priest
You’re the Shrine Maiden or the Priest. You belong to drink pillow-teeth tea, open practice and display of
one of the shrine families of Fortitude—are you from: Christianity feels vaguely cruel and self-righteous.
You can read more about the individual families in
ŭŭ ...the Kichi Family, with a simple, traditional Fortitude: by the Docks of Big Lake.
purity and access to their sacred divination pools?
ŭŭ ...the Sosunovs: pale, delicate, sensitive, and The Shrine Maiden/Priest (Kichi Family)
vaguely Buddhist, with dream-magic powers? Campaign: The Glass-Maker’s Dragon
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ŭŭ ...the Titovs: making you brittle and psychotic Academics Skill: OK
and giving you a really messed-up family life? Sports Skill: Healthy
ŭŭ ...the Vasilis, binding yourself to some elemental Favorite Foods: Rice, fish, frogs, fruit
force like wind, fire, or summertime? Blood Type: A
ŭŭ ...the Yatskayas, as a languid cat lover who might Animal: Egret
be able to summon a spirit into your flesh? Age: Campaign Default
Or from a less magical shrine family, like:
ŭŭ ...the Hayashi Family, who make glass from the The Shrine Maiden/Priest (Sosunov)
dust of the Outside? Campaign: The Glass-Maker’s Dragon
ŭŭ ...the Watanabe Family, who make candy? Academics Skill: Better than Average
Sports Skill: Frail
Or are you from a shrine family that you Favorite Foods: Rice, stir-fried vegetables, cocoa
invented yourself? Blood Type: A
Animal: Rabbit
Home and Family Age: Campaign Default
The shrine families of Fortitude keep its sacred places,
process the dust of the Outside into less harmful and The Shrine Maiden/Priest (Titov)
psychotropic forms, attune themselves to the spirit Campaign: The Glass-Maker’s Dragon
world and to dream worlds, and have various minor Academics Skill: Average
magical powers. Sports Skill: Average to Good
Or at least, they do most of those things! Favorite Foods: Rabbit stew, seared flatbread, hard
The shrine families vary in how secular or spiritual cheese, beer, roast chicken
they are, and how magical or mundane. Dealing with Blood Type: AB
the dust of the Outside in some fashion is pretty much Animal: Horseshoe Crab
a requirement, though: if they don’t do that, they’re not Age: Campaign Default
really a shrine family, just some magical people who
might or might not happen to live in a special place. The Shrine Maiden/Priest (Vasili)
The trappings of Fortitude spiritual tradition descend Campaign: The Glass-Maker’s Dragon
mostly from Shinto, although there’s a substantial Academics Skill: Good
Buddhist influence on the Sosunov practice. The legacy Sports Skill: Good to Very Good
of Russian Orthodox Christianity is pervasive but its Favorite Foods: French cuisine, crispbread and
active practice and symbols are in decline—the cross is chowder, fried mackerel skin, sea monster, pot roast,
antithetical to the Jotun, the vampires, and a few others wine
(though not the shop foxes). In the old days when the Blood Type: O
Jotun waged active war on humanity and the vampires Animal: Tern
strove for a predatory dominance, people clung to the Age: Campaign Default
protective bosom of the mother Church. These days,
when the Jotun are mostly farmers and the vampires
Playbooks 285
The Shrine Maiden/Priest (Yatskaya)
Academics Skill: Average to Good
Sports Skill: Good to Excellent
Favorite Foods: Fish and shellfish, turkey and gravy,
thousand-year eggs, dumplings and mochi, roe,
squash, string beans, and quail.
Blood Type: B
Animal: Cat or Seal
Age: Campaign Default
2
The Shrine Maiden/Priest (Hayashi)
Sports Skill: Average
Favorite Foods: Casserole, fondue, crunchy breads,
pizza, mozzarella sticks, apples, ham steaks
Blood Type: O
Animal: Monkey
The Shrine Maiden/Priest (Watanabe)

Academics Skill: Average
Sports Skill: Average
Favorite Foods: Rice porridge, roast beef au jus, malt
balls, traditional foods of Fortitude
Blood Type: B
Animal: Snail
The Shrine Maiden/Priest (Original)

Academics Skill:
Sports Skill:
Favorite Foods: Pick some sort of soup or stew, some
sort of snack, some sort of rice dish, some sort of
fish dish, and some sort of sweet (maybe?)
Blood Type: O
Animal:
286 Playbooks
The Other One
Campaign: The Glass-Maker’s Dragon Home and Family
Academics Skill: Typically Good You live in Fortitude somewhere. Maybe down by the
Sports Skill: Typically Good water, maybe at the edge of or up one of the western
Favorite Foods: People of Fortitude tend to really like hills. You probably have a reasonably large family—
soup, fish and shellfish, skewers, sweets, pancakes, cousins, uncles and aunts, and grandparents either
fried stuff, and jam. in-house or in-area, in addition to your parents and a
Blood Type: A handful of siblings—but you could be a tragic case or
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Animal: Horse or Sheep something closer to the outside-world nuclear family
Age: usually the campaign default age (15, though norm. You probably have a pen pal or two somewhere
the HG may play through ages 5-14 at an acceler- outside of Fortitude—in Town, Earth, or maybe even
ated pace). somewhere weird like the dwarf planet Eris!
You are the Other One.

You are just... a person, who lives in Fortitude. I’d
recommend that you know the Yatskaya and have some
involvement with the Hayashi archive; other than that—
You could be pretty much anybody!
Now, the usual campaign age will have you all as
teenagers, possibly with a quick play through of your
childhood, so you’re probably not extremely well-es-
tablished. But you could be an errand runner, a ship’s
hand (as long as you don’t do terribly long journeys),
an apprentice plumber, a kid who goes to Horizon’s
School during the week, or somebody who helps out at
your family restaurant or store.
Playbooks 287
The Immigrant from Earth
Campaign: The Glass-Maker’s Dragon Home and Family
Academics Skill: Typically Good If you’re lucky your family came with you. Well, if
Sports Skill: Typically Good you’re lucky and they’re a good family. But it’d be
Favorite Foods: (Your Country) (Food) madlibs, e.g. weird for a bad family to come with you to Town.
French sandwiches, Belgian stew, Russian milk, That’s like...
Peruvian vegetables, or “proper American water.” I don’t even know what that would be like.
Blood Type: B Like: Weird!
Animal: Hoop Snake If not, then you’re probably mostly on your own.
2
Age: Usually the campaign default age (15, though You may have already found someone to take you in, or
the HG may play through ages 5-14 at an accel- gotten a job and rented a room, or you may be staying
erated pace); sometimes 1-5 years younger or 2-7 at a halfway house or using your leftover funds from
years older. Earth to stay at a hostel.
You are the Person from Earth or the Immigrant

from Earth.
You’ve just moved to Town, but you’re not the
Prodigy. You’re a comparatively ordinary person,
instead!
For a foreigner, anyway.
I mean, there’s this Town stereotype of the foreigner
as a cool-as-cucumber badass straight from action films
(or occasionally something more specific, in the “all
Japanese schoolchildren are secretly mecha pilots” sort
of way), and I think it’s totally reasonable if you want to
be that sort of foreigner. You’re coming to Town to find
the man who killed your partner or father or something,
or to find a clue as to why some family member or
friend vanished, or to kick ass and take care of business
on behalf of a pen pal in Town.
Or of course you could be a realistic foreigner, come
to Town because... well, whatever. Because you wanted
a new life. Because you longed for magic. Because
your hometown fell into the Outside, drowned, and you
made it to a Town-sent rescue ship.
Whatever!
You couldn’t or didn’t want to stay on Earth, and
somehow you heard of Town; and so you came.
288 Playbooks
Quests We’ll talk about your death, your return, and the
You start the game with three quests, and have the eight versions of A Far and a Sunless Land in the next
power to swap them out or pick up more—you can section; for now, let’s talk about the stuff you’re doing
pursue up to four quests at any given time. on the side.
In addition to your basic quest, which I’m tentatively
labeling Do Your Thing, I’ve chosen two quests to...

(“Meet the Other PCs”).
ŭŭ ...tie you into the campaign plot (“A Far and a
Playbooks
Sunless Land”).
Do Your Thing
15 XP Quest [[BEGIN QUEST, 25 XP]]
: Chibi-Quest
You have a thing that you do. It is a thing that you’ll

always be doing, both before and after you get involved
with life-changing events.
It’s your—core motivation, I guess.
Your basic quest.
Have you already put it together using the rules in
Fortitude: by the Docks of Big Lake? If not, you
should go do that now!
Rewards
Completing this quest earns you a Recharge Token—a
cool thing or memory.
Whatever it is you’d logically pick up from doing
this kind of thing.
At some point in the future, you’ll be able to draw
on that memory, or on the emotional pleasure of having
gotten that thing, to refresh your mid-week Will and
MP supply to full.
[[BEGIN QUEST, 15 XP -- WHAT COLOR?]]
Playbooks 289
Meet the Other PCs
35 XP Quest Variations
1: Another option is to focus on building your connection
with one or two highly specific plot points that you
2: know a couple of other PCs are interested in too. For
3: instance, if the Prodigy is investigating the legend of
the Angel of Fortitude, and they’re both PCs, then
So it’s quite possible that you’ve already got a totally you could work on becoming the Angel’s sidekick or
easy way to meet the other PCs and don’t need to work joining the investigation. Or if the other players’ interest
2
at it. In that case, you could replace this quest with is focused pretty tightly on the Yatskaya household or
something else. Maybe you’re building something, or the archive of Professor Hideo Hayashi, then you could
learning something, or whatever. be working on something to do with that!
But— In this kind of situation, your goals will be to...
Since, for all I know, you’re an extremely shy Tenko
who lives in the top room of a shop all the time and ŭŭ ...get off to a good start in getting involved with
never talks to anybody and tries desperately to keep that thing.
the glass shard in your heart a secret, and will freak ŭŭ ...get more involved with it.
out when/if you meet the other PCs and they touch ŭŭ ...commit more deeply to it.
your ears— ŭŭ ...invent stuff, with the HG’s approval, to make
Let’s start by making this clear. that thing you’re connecting to more interesting—
Something is pushing you towards the other PCs. particularly if the whole thing was at risk of
You’re interested in weird events and weird people, or being sidelined.
you’re drawn to these people in particular, or you keep
bumping into one another by luck or fate, or you’re a You’ll earn a bonus XP towards this quest by pro-
student of things like the glass dragon and the Outside posing a theory about that thing or how you or the
and the death of the sun and these people seem con- other PCs relate to it.
nected to those mysteries—
I can’t do anything clever or narrative to hook you Rewards
into them when I don’t know what you are or which Normally on completing this quest you’ll pick up a
PCs your game has, so all I can say is: right now, you’re level 1-2 Connection Perk to one of the other PCs, or
on a quest to meet them. bump up an existing Connection Perk by a point.
So your goals for this quest are... You might also get a small Perk of some other sort
relating to whatever it is that brings you and the other
ŭŭ ...hit it off with the other PCs, or mend fences PCs close!
later if you don’t.
ŭŭ ...deepen your connection with them.
ŭŭ ...do stuff that commits you to more interaction
with them.
You’ll earn a bonus XP for this quest when you

propose a theory about the other PCs and/or their
role in your life. It doesn’t have to be right: in fact, you
can earn bonus XP for shouting that you’ll never get
along with them ever no matter and storming off away
from them. That’s a theory! In the long run, it brings
you closer! It counts.
290 Playbooks
Meet the Other PCs
XP
Bonus XP
You’re drawn to the other PCs. You’re being pushed by fate or your
own plans or by some unwanted entanglement into meeting them,
building an ever-stronger emotional connection to them, and committing
further to whatever has the lot of you involved.
Playbooks
And the way to make that happen, the way to jiggle your worldview
around until the other PCs snap into being a part of it, or vice versa, is to
propose a theory about the other PCs and/or their role in your life.
(Or are you using a variant quest where you need to propose a theory
about something else instead?)
You do have to propose it aloud! Or at least in your internal mono-
logue! It can’t just be the player at the table—the point is that, at least for
a moment, you genuinely consider it. But you also don’t have to prove
it, or do anything specific about it: just raise the matter in play.
And when you do that, when you consider that—up to once per 15
minutes/scene—you earn a bonus XP towards this quest.
Playbooks 291
Your Story Begins
This quest begins the story “A Far and a Sunless it’ll be there. It’ll be something to hold on to. It will
Land,” pg. XX. keep you going for a moment, or a forever, or for some
time in between.
I’m sorry, but you’re going to have to die.
... And once upon a time death was a far and a sunless
It probably won’t even be heroic. This world is full land, or so some say;
of... things. Things that can sweep you out of the way as Death was a bleak academy;
casually as a broom brushing away the dust. But now there is the light of a sun that shines Outside
2
There’s folks can decide you’re not worthy of exis- the world—the light of the former sun goddess Jade
tence, and bam, you’ll just... not exist. Irinka, who is dead—and it will fall on you. It will be
There’s nightmare creatures that can get loose on a miracle. You will find yourself there, in the grainy
Town, even in sleepy old Fortitude, and hunt you down, Outside, with the light falling on you as through a
and rip out your guts. There’s the blood of the Angel of window, and the dust drifting in that light; and the sun
Fortitude, which is usually pretty helpful to a PC, but will reveal to you a path that will lead you back to Town.
it could mess you up instead, it’s so easy, your body is
so fragile and the power of the Angel of Fortitude is Rewards
so vast. Completing this quest starts you on a miraculous
You’re not a hero. Well, I mean, maybe you are, but Advancement Arc—you’ve died and come back, and
mostly, probably, you’re not. You’re not all full of wish you’ve come back stronger, with a Perk from and level
power or bleak emptiness, and your life’s as fragile 0 in an appropriate Arc.
as glass. As a special reward, assuming that you did die and
I’m sorry. I wish it didn’t have to happen. But one come back, you’ll receive:
day soon you’re going to break.
You’re going to die. Or be unmade. Or you’re going ŭŭ +1 Divine Health Level
to drown in the Outside, fall into the raging nothingness ŭŭ +2 MP
outside of Town, sink into its disorder, lose yourself in
its fear and tension, and unravel into all the threads that These are a permanent benefit that moves you
wove you up. towards equal footing with the other PCs.
It won’t be amazing.
It probably won’t be amazing. Maybe it’ll happen in
an amazing way and you will be amazing and I won’t
take that from you, I won’t say it doesn’t count. But
don’t expect that, because in the end you are not one of
the heroic blessed, you are just... you.
But...
“You” are still something special, in a way. I’m not
talking about the shard of the glass dragon in you,
because, who cares? I mean, really. That’s just a thing.
The important thing is that you’ve got something
important about you. You’ve got something in you
that’ll keep you going.
Something solid. Some virtue that you can cling to.
Something that’ll keep you going even after death.
Even after you should be dissolving into nothing, or
into the Outside, or... whatever happens to the dead...
292 Playbooks
Death and the Quest
In this quest, you’ll die; wander the Outside for a while;
and then return to Town.
Sometimes that means you end the quest and every-
thing happens. You die. You wander lost in the Outside.
The HG says, “A few weeks later...”
You come back.
Other times you’ll die in the middle of the quest, or
even at the beginning. You’ll spend part of the quest
itself out there, wandering, lost. You’ll play that out—
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the other PCs will be safe in Town dealing with your
funeral, and you’re out there decaying, falling, dis-
solving into the nothingness, lost.
Some of the paths and quests really benefit from
that—the Shepherd path, for instance, benefits a lot.
But all of that takes second place to fun. If you’re
having trouble with the whole being-dead thing, if it’s
taking you out of play rather than involving you more
deeply in it, you can always return and have the rest of
your interregnum in the Outside be told through flash-
backs alone.
Some of the paths and quests—the Knight and
Emptiness paths, for instance—benefit more from that!
Basically, the only reason you have to actually play
out the part where you’re dead is if you have interesting
things to say about that time, and the HG does, and the
players do, or if it’s a useful tool in picking up the big
XP bonuses for your quest.
Playbooks 293
A Far and A Sunless Land
(“Bindings” Option)
XP
Major Goals
ŭŭ ...you learn something at the edge of Town that really helps
you out.
ŭŭ ...you find a way, or at least a lever, to redeem, civilize, or
humanize a wicked creature—most likely one of the minions of
the Outside.
2 ŭŭ ...you’re hapless/head-desk-able enough that the voice of the

Outside temporarily loses the ability to cope.
Quest Flavor
ŭŭ ...you spend a peaceful interval at the edge of Town.

ŭŭ ...you explore, finding something neat, scary, or beautiful at
the edge of Town.
ŭŭ ...you learn something dramatic about “the voice of
the Outside.”
ŭŭ ...you fall under the sway of the Outside.
ŭŭ ...you get the Outside or one of its creatures involved
in your hobby; or, more generally, use whatever powers your
relationship with it grants you and whatever effects it has for
unimportant things.
ŭŭ ...you hide what’s going on from the people around you.
ŭŭ ...the Outside and its creatures are a little too helpful.
ŭŭ You’ll earn the powers:

The Bindings Arc • Dramatic, which lets you show up in
certain kinds of scenes more easily;
Notes and Rewards • Devices, cool stuff that sometimes
If you chose a Bindings Arc, finishing this quest will give a +1/+2 Tool bonus;
earn you... • Sickly, giving you greater access to corrup-
tion/trauma scenes; and the balancing
ŭŭ Wounded Angel 0. • Divine Health—a bonus Divine
That’ll come with these three benefits: Health Level, on top of the one you
ŭŭ You’ve either reached greater self-acceptance or get for dying and coming back.
hammered out a working relationship with some
horror from the Outside. Once you finish, read the notes on pg. XX. The
ŭŭ You’ll earn a Bindings 1 Perk, such as a quest [[above]] is a customized version of “Wicked
Connection to that horror. Creatures,” so you’ll now move on to “Haunted.”
294 Playbooks
(“Knight” Option)
XP
Major Goals
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Quest Flavor
ŭŭ ...a nightmare of Jade Irinka (the murdered angel of the

Houses of the Sun).
ŭŭ ...talking with somebody about one of those nightmares.
belong somewhere.
ŭŭ ...a scene mostly leading to/motivated by your preten-
tions—by your trying to be more than you are, either out of hope
or from hubris.
They’re both pretty cool options—the first

The Knight Arc comes with...
Notes and Rewards ŭŭ ...the power to see the influence of stuff like your
If you chose a Knight Arc, finishing this quest will earn personal vice on a situation.
you your choice of... ŭŭ ...the power to see and understand the part of
other people that’s striving for a similar role.
ŭŭ Become Somebody 0. ŭŭ ...an MP-regeneration power, Frantic.
ŭŭ Reality Syndrome 0.
The second will come with something a little magic—
The first builds towards having an important role in you’ll be able to share some private, personal experience
society or the world—a formal thing that you try to live like your memories, your philosophy, or control over
up to. The second eventually gives you world-breaking your tear ducts with the other people in your vicinity.
hack powers like the Marvelous Wish-Granting Engine. You’ll also pick up the power Sickly, which gives you
Playbooks 295
greater access to corruption and trauma scenes (if you, The Otherworldly Arc
er, like that sort of thing.)
Notes and Rewards
More importantly, either way, dying and coming If you chose an Otherworldly Arc, finishing this quest
back will give you a chance to find yourself: will earn you your choice of:
You’ll know what you want to be now.
Who you want to be. ŭŭ Spiritual 0.
You can put it into words. ŭŭ Child of the Ash 0.
Both options come with a Knight 1 Perk, and often
that Perk will relate somehow to who or what you The first offers you a connection to some element
want to be—a Connection or Bond connecting you to of the world—fire, water, the birds in the skies, the
2
that idea. insects and the flowers, whatever—along with the
starting powers:
You were pretty traumatized by dying and coming ŭŭ Elemental Warning, giving you a warning if
back, though. You had bad experiences. something bad is going to happen to your element
Let’s rebrand the quest you just finished “Encounters ŭŭ Illusions, the power to weave a “sense” that your
in the Night.” element is present or absent
Read the notes on pg. XX and go on to its sequel: ŭŭ Frantic, an MP-regeneration ability
“The Troubled Sky.” The second offers you an even richer haul:
ŭŭ Immortality, the power to not get hurt and killed
by stuff
ŭŭ Set the Mood, the power to radiate a particular
mood like “peace” or “happiness”
ŭŭ [Mood]-Splosion, a seasonal power to blast that
mood with power comparable to a wish
ŭŭ Wicked Mode, the power to reverse the mood
you radiate
ŭŭ Kaiju Form and Mortal Form, a highly prob-
lematic ability to turn into a giant monster (and,
occasionally, back)
Often you’ll die a little while before the end of the

quest; finishing the quest, in addition to granting the
powers above, shows you the pathway home.
You’ll get an Otherworldly 1 Perk from this quest—
this is often either Superior Dreamer 1 or something
to do with an ally spirit that you met while wandering
in the wilds.
Read the notes on pg. XX.
The quest above is a customized version of
“Science!,” so you’ll now move on to “Someone’s
in Trouble.”
296 Playbooks
(“Otherworldly” Option)
Major Goals XP
ŭŭ ...you fall under the burden of the quest: you explicitly decide to
fight for your life using whatever magic or science you command.
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the Bleak Academy.
the quest.
You can earn up to three of these bonuses, once each, for a total of up
to 15 XP.
Quest Flavor

the wrong.
ŭŭ ...complaining to the other PCs about the progress of your
investigations/work.
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(“Storyteller” Option)
Major Goals
XP
ŭŭ ...express your fascination with someone or something dangerous
and irresponsible.
2 ŭŭ ...after that first reward, go a long way out of your way (physi-
cally) in order to study the operation and mechanisms of some-
body else’s powers—e.g., a field trip to Horizon to watch the
Wish-Granting Engine at work.
ŭŭ ...make yourself terrifyingly vulnerable, e.g. as an act of social/
romantic trust, an act of folly, or as bait for a trap.
You can earn up to three of these bonuses, once each, for a total of
15 XP.
Quest Flavor
1/chapter, you can earn a bonus XP towards this quest when you...
ŭŭ ...confess a secret desire.

ŭŭ ...have a troubled dream about glass, magic, and the Outside.
ŭŭ ...investigate the shrine family magic for dealing with
troubled dreams.
ŭŭ ...dream about a Main Character or Arc-related NPC.
ŭŭ ...hang out with someone you like while they do
their thing.
ŭŭ ...get into goofy trouble for, with, or because of some-
body else.
ŭŭ ...talk with someone about the various bad ends people
can come to in fairy tales, stories about wishes, and stories
about witches.
298 Playbooks
The Storyteller Arc The Aspect Arc
Notes and Rewards Notes and Rewards

If you chose a Storyteller Arc, finishing this quest will If you chose an Aspect Arc, finishing this quest will
earn you your choice of: start you on the Arc...
ŭŭ Creature of the Light 0 ŭŭ The Ace 0.

ŭŭ Creature of Fable 0
Dying—well, dying and coming back?
That freed you.
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The first offers: Limbs that were slow have learned to move again.
Thoughts that were dull become sharp and clear again.
ŭŭ Immortality You’ve become more, by dying; and since you actually
ŭŭ Well-Lit, giving you a free spotlight any time you make it back, you can do something with that.
want one You’ll be more than you were. Younger-feeling.
ŭŭ Tireless: you have returned from the fields of Better.
death with a strange obsession, but you have some Often you’ll come back with the new Perk:
extra strength and cope to pursue it with
The second instead... ŭŭ Power. Gain a (specific) miraculous power, typ-
ŭŭ ...earns you an MP-regeneration ability, Frantic— ically costing 1 MP to use, that lets you channel
being in trouble invigorates you. your “Chi” or heart power to perform some
ŭŭ ...teaches you to accomplish weird stuff Between specific miraculous feat.
the Boundaries of scenes or in flashbacks if
you can tell a suitably-genred story for how you You’ll certainly come back with the MP-regenerating
accomplished it. power Frantic and the Ace power, Tireless—the ability
ŭŭ ...gives you the power to maintain an Iconic to use a separate, fast-regenerating pool of 3 Will for
standard appearance no matter how much people daily routine and self-care.
try to clean you up or, for that matter, dirty you. This quest is also named “The Story of Your Life”;
now, read the notes on pg. XX and move on to its
I think the quest itself comes to its proper end when sequel, “Triumph.”
you get used to death. When you’ve been dead for a few
minutes or a few weeks or whatever and you’ve gotten
a little... bored of it, you know?
I think it is when the rush of excitement at finally
actually being dead and knowing what it’s like is over,
when it stops being this amazing marvel and becomes
everyday and drab, that the sun lights your path
back home.
And you go.
You don’t forget death. You don’t turn your back on
it. But the fields of death lack the comforts of home. So
you follow the light back to life, and Fortitude.
Pick a Storyteller 1 Perk—I suggest Dramatic Vision.
This quest is also called “Fascination”; read the
notes on pg. XX and then continue to its sequel:
“Beautiful and Far Away.”
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(“Aspect” Option)
Major Goals XP
of work.
2 ŭŭ ...you have a vision of magic in some thing, place, person, or

work, which you might one day be able to bring out (if only you
weren’t so tired!)
Quest Flavor

for you.
ŭŭ ...working, involving slightly larger-than-life or
magical incidents.
ŭŭ ...working, involving simple, honest effort.
ŭŭ ...talking about your progress on some project and its positive
or negative effects on the local environment.
300 Playbooks
(“Shepherd” Option)
XP
Major Goals
ŭŭ ...you visit a throne room and stand before a seated (e.g.) King
or Queen.
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ŭŭ ...you’re sent into an underworld, be it basement, cave, oubliette,
dungeon, or literal world of the dead.
ŭŭ ...you’re hung on a hook, crucified, tied to a wall, suspended by
telekinesis, used as a scarecrow, or otherwise imprisoned or bound
above the ground. Agony is optional (you could be in a canvas
sack that is hung from a hook, or stage-show-style crucified);
suspension and imprisonment are not.
Quest Flavor
ŭŭ ...you have to abandon something precious, leaving

it behind.
ŭŭ ...you’re lost.
ŭŭ ...you’re thirsty.
ŭŭ ...you encounter the dead.
ŭŭ ...you share a meal with someone while sitting on
cracked stones.
The Shepherd Arc ŭŭ ...the MP-regenerating power Frantic;

ŭŭ ...access to a separate, fast-regenerating pool of 3
Notes and Rewards Will when interacting with the treasure or person
If you chose a Shepherd Arc, then at the end of the first closest to your heart;
quest you are sent back from the lands of death— ŭŭ ...the power to project your spirit to the company
Unexpectedly given a duty in the world. of the things that you care about most.
With that duty comes a Shepherd 1 Perk and a new
miraculous Arc: The second option focuses more on being a divine
caretaker of special places (or “Gardens”)—it
ŭŭ Sentimental 0 comes with:
ŭŭ A Keeper of Gardens 0
ŭŭ Immortality
The first focuses on bringing out powers in your ŭŭ The World, Like Clay, for molding the substance
works of craft and the things your heart treasures; it of the gardens you keep
comes with...
Playbooks 301
ŭŭ Toxic—some strange poison adhered to you, The Emptiness Arc
became a part of you, when you were wandering
in the Outside Notes and Rewards
ŭŭ Land-Rule, the ability to shift a couple of your If you chose an Emptiness Arc, you’ll return from
Skill points into the Skill “Superior Land-Rule” death with Accursed 0.
and thereby achieve more control over the You’ll be sickly. You’ll be cursed.
creatures of your gardens Your experience in the lands of death will linger with
you. You’ll have a really hard time dealing with it. The
In the latter case you’ll almost certainly want to use next few quests in this Arc are all about flashbacks to
your Shepherd 1 Perk on your first “Garden”—will you your death and your struggles in the Outside and about
become responsible for the supermarkets of Fortitude? your psychological work.
2
One of the western hills? The northern beach? The It changes you.
doors and mantels? Everywhere heavily frequented Pick an Emptiness 1 Perk.
by cats? Read the notes on pg. XX—assuming that the quest
Probably something to do with what you’re sent back you just played through is “Changes.”
for, I would suppose. Move on to the quest, “the Belly of the Whale.”
This quest is also known as “Down”; read the
notes on pg. XX and move on to something cheerier: ...before you go?
“Let’s Doing!” There is one good thing. You should probably know.
As rough as this was? As horrible as it was?
You’ve found a special place. A sacred place, a
Sanctuary. You’ve found somewhere you can escape
to when things are too much to bear.
It’s not much, I guess.
But maybe it’s something?
302 Playbooks
(“Emptiness” Option)
Major Goals
XP
play, where your reality gets weird and your (forthcoming?) death
reveals itself in your body.
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someone else’s fate.
their way.
Quest Flavor

make you act unnaturally.
ŭŭ ...trying and failing to burn things, to light them on fire.
ŭŭ ...getting confused about who and where you are.
Irinka died.
it means.
as death.
ŭŭ ...dealing with acne, braces, your period, ear infections, or
other annoyingly intrusive elements of physicality.
Playbooks 303
(“Mystic” Option)
XP
Bonus XP
You don’t understand.
I wanted to give you a sign for this. You know. Something to say,
“Normal life” on one side. And then you’d flip it over to say that you’re
“shadowed” by something. Cast into shadow. I don’t know. That your
life is gray.
2 But it’s not that simple.

Look.
You don’t even know why everything is so wrong. You don’t even
know why life is so tasteless, cardboard, and gray. You don’t know why
eating your cereal feels like eating the box. You don’t know why laughing
and running and standing in the sun feels like... eating the cereal box.
Like tails are falling off of the stars. Like the world is turning green.
Like now and then you look around you and it’s all gone colorless, sepia,
and everything is lost. Why that dog is barking at you when it doesn’t
even have a head.
Your life is weird.
So, every now and then—up to once per 15 minutes/scene—you can
talk about what’s going on with you. You can narrate the weird sen-
sations. Free associate them. Say, you know. Body stuff. Eye stuff.
Word stuff. Things. Whatever. Share that it’s all just broken, twisted,
and wrong.
Oh. I’m giving you a sign anyway. But it doesn’t really do anything.
Ordinary Life
Senselessness, Despair.
304 Playbooks
The Mystic Arc Bonus XP Emotions
In Chuubo’s Marvelous Wish-Granting Engine,
Notes and Rewards each character has a “bonus XP emotion”—a partic-
If you chose a Mystic Arc, then this quest ends with a ular emotional reaction you’re trying to get from the
miracle. It’s probably that same miracle that shows you other players.
your path home. You have access to five standard options:
And if it’s just ended—
You are now on the Arc Primordial. You are ŭŭ Mock-Outrage (fist-shaking, crying out your
becoming a creature of some divine principle; some PC’s name in dramatic raaage)
element of the world; some mythic form. You’re ŭŭ Worry/Fear for your character (“oh no!
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changing into something... really different. Like, at the <name>‘s in trouble!”)
extreme end, we’re talking Vision of Ezekiel different. ŭŭ Cheering your Catchphrases
To start with, this’ll give you immortality. That’s part ŭŭ Putting their Faith in You
and parcel of the miracle. ŭŭ Admiration of Cuteness (“aww!”)
And you’ll become identified with something in
the natural world. You’ll come back as The Stars, or These, and other options, are explained on pg. XX
Reflections, or Smells, or Walls, or The Winds, or The and in more depth in the Chuubo’s Marvelous Wish-
Trees, or The Rain. Granting Engine RPG.
The biggest thing that you’ll get to start is that you
are that thing, on some fundamental level; if you are
the stars and you want to twinkle, you can darn well
twinkle. If you are the winds and you want to blow, you
can darn well blow.
You’ll also have the power to see and hear within
your element, although that may or may not be terribly
useful—the ability to see and hear wherever the wind is
blowing is actually pretty strong, but the ability to see
and hear inside the stars is not normally of that much
use.89
Pick a Mystic 1 Perk.
Return from the dead.
Read the notes on pg. XX, rebrand the quest you’ve
just completed as “A Troubled Protagonist,” and
move on to its sequel: “An Unlikely Friendship.”
89 Day 1,123: still pretty bright.
Playbooks 305
Perks Miraculous Abilities
Characters in this game have a handful of Perks. You You have the following miraculous abilities:
gain them or improve them by completing quests, and
you can have up to 8. ŭŭ Protagonist Trajectory: You’re on track to
You’ll start with these Perks: become a powerful, important character over the
course of the first two or three stories.
ŭŭ Virtue: As your (being a) Hero Issue rises, your
Connection: ??? native virtue (honesty, courage, perseverance,
loyalty, meticulous attention to detail, or what-
Your starting character type Connections (like ever) becomes an ever-greater source of strength.
a shop fox’s connection to the Tenko and youkai) ŭŭ Shard Power: As your (in) Over your Head
2
take the form of Perks. Issue rises, you pick up a strange power from the
shard of the glass dragon that is inside you.
ŭŭ Character-Type Bond and Affliction: You have
two powers based on your character type (e.g. two
vampiric powers, if you’re a vampire.)
1
At the start of the game, with the player’s consent, you • One is like your virtue: it strengthens
may take a free level 1 Connection to any other PC.
what’s already there, at the cost of
sometimes getting you into trouble.
• One is like your shard power: it’s
powerful and miraculous but not
completely under your control.
Health
Level, and 0 Divine Health Levels. This makes you
about five times as survivable as an ordinary person—
which is good, because you’re involved in some pretty
scary stuff. However, it’s not really physical toughness:
it’s just that plot contrivance or clever thinking on your
part will tend, to a point, to provide last-minute saves.
You stand to gain 2 Divine Health Levels—one the
first time you die and come back, and one when you
complete your first miraculous Advancement Arc.
That’ll make you the kind of person who can survive
a couple of nuclear strikes or volcano dips, but it’s
still plot contrivance, clever thinking, and the wishing
power of your heart that saves the day. You’ll never be
able to survive more actual damage than a typical pulp
adventure hero unless you pick it up as a specific power.
Miracle Points
You have 1 Miracle Point (MP) which can give your
shard power and character-type Affliction the tiniest
edge in certain conflicts. After you’ve returned from
death and completed your first Advancement Arc,
you’ll gain two chunks of 2 MP each, for a final total
of 5, and may very well have picked up a power that
306 Playbooks
can use them—at which point the MP will be a more air, or reality itself, you can practice your virtue
relevant resource to you. and it will help you endure.
You regain 1 MP, to a maximum of your normal total, ŭŭ Invoke your Virtue Bond when your virtue is
at the beginning of each week. getting you into trouble and the HG may give you
You can also gain additional MP, with no partic- up to your Hero Issue in Will or MP.
ular maximum... ŭŭ If your virtue is relevant to something your
Affliction, or a later-acquired miraculous ability,
ŭŭ ...through Issues. is doing, you can invoke Virtue to get your Hero
ŭŭ ...when Region Properties get you into trouble. Issue in free Strike.
ŭŭ ...when your Bonds or Afflictions get you ŭŭ Invoke your Virtue Bond when...
Playbooks
into trouble. • ...you’re pursuing your virtue
ŭŭ ...when you spend a week diligently honoring using mundane actions; and
a Region Property (e.g., helping cats come and • ...there is an Obstacle in the way of those actions;
go in the Yatskaya family shrine, which has a ...and you can add your Hero Issue
Property “Cats come and go as they please.”) to your mundane action level.
Strike and mundane action bonuses from a Bond
Protagonist Trajectory don’t add to the Strike and bonuses from other Bonds,
You have the following special rules: but they do add to Strike from MP, Strike intrinsic to a
miracle, and Tool bonuses to mundane actions.
ŭŭ Even though you’re a mortal-level character,
you can start immediately on a miraculous Shard Power
Advancement Arc. Type: Affliction, based on your (in) Over Your
ŭŭ You’ll earn 1 Divine Health Level (max 2) and 2 Head Issue
MP (max 5) when you... Cost: —
• ...come back from the dead. You have a shard of the glass dragon lodged in you. It’s
• ...complete your first Advancement Arc. changed you.
There’s a power in it.
Normally both of these things will happen during the A vague and unreliable power! But a power. Name
first 12 game sessions. it. It’s something that should make sense but leave lots
of questions about specifics unanswered, like: “Nothing
Virtue can catch me,” “I punish the unworthy,” “I never let go
Type: Bond, based on your (being a) Hero Cost: — of what’s mine,” “No lock can hold me out,” “You have
You have a unique virtue—something like “honesty,” always known me,” “Animals are my friends,” “I speak
“good-heartedness,” “organized,” “humility,” “courage,” the language of the storms.”
“thrift,” “creativity,” or whatever. Figure out in advance Any time you have 1+ points in the (in) Over
how to show this when it isn’t necessary and how to Your Head Issue, the following rules apply:
practice this when you’re alone. (For instance, a “cou-
rageous” person might dress according to their own ŭŭ Miracles that oppose that power must have [Strike
sense of style to show courage even when there’s no ≥ your (in) Over Your Head].
danger and a “good-hearted” person can practice that ŭŭ The HG will occasionally invoke minor miracu-
virtue when alone by thinking good wishes towards lous or mundane effects that support that power.
others or thinking about how to better support them.) These are stronger the higher your (in) Over Your
Any time you have 1+ points in the (being a) Head becomes.
Hero Issue, you may draw upon this virtue as follows:
The HG isn’t obligated to maximize your power here,
ŭŭ Invoke your Virtue and it will sustain you in just to toss you the occasional bone; so, for instance,
times of trouble. Even without food, water, rest, if “Nothing can catch you,” but someone grabs you,
there’ll be a persistent sense that the grip is loose and
Playbooks 307
that they haven’t quite caught you yet, but if it’s a while Actions and Issues
before the HG gets around to throwing you a miracle Here’s some things you’re often doing.
that helps you actually get loose, that’s OK! Similarly,
if no lock can hold you out, you’ll definitely get through Pastoral Stuff
even the scariest locks eventually, but weird magical Talking about what’s going on
locks might require you to go buy special tools as part Shared Reactions
of not being completely held out.
Your shard power subsides for a while after the reso- Hanging out in the world and
experiencing stuff
lution of the (in) Over Your Head Issue.
Slice of Life
Your Bond Living a simple, honest life
2
Type: Level 2 Bond Cost: —
Shared Action
You have a level 2 Bond—a special rule governing
your existence. It can be a total pain, in which case
it’ll give you bonus Will over time; it can be useful, in These are kind of the standard things for characters in
which case it’ll sometimes help you succeed at difficult Fortitude to do. You can get bonus XP for these kinds of
actions; or it can be both! actions a couple of times a week.
The biggest thing about Bonds is that you as a
player always decide how they work IC. The HG can Other Stuff
veto a given use, but can’t force you to bring the Bond
Take a chance on someone
into play.
Science, Faith, and Sorcery
For instance, if you pick “dogs terrify me,” and
there’s a dog threatening you, it’s up to you whether Get in way over your head
you fall down in terror or do a big internal monologue without backing down
about how “I’m so scared! But I must keep going! For Never Say Die!
honor!” Or whatever. You have a lot of power over the
Encounter some scary kind of trouble! Oh no!
meaning of the Bond.
What is your Bond? Trouble
Your Affliction These are some other actions that I think will be pretty
Type: Affliction Cost: — common for miscellaneous characters (like you) in this
You also have an Affliction with a rating that starts at game!
level 0 but rises with that of your first Advancement Arc.
Afflictions are scarier and more powerful because
you aren’t the one who invokes them. The HG decides
Issues
how they work. In theory, you could have an Affliction If you pick up a Complex, I recommend some-
that made people sneeze when you said their names; in thing comparatively pastoral. Will you ever find that
such a case, there could be some poor kid named “Um” book you wanted? How are you going to make ends
in some country you’ve never heard of who sneezes meet? Will anyone ever love you? Can you find a good
every time you throw an Um into your sentence as anniversary present for your parents?
an interjection. Your most common Vice is probably going to
What is your Affliction? be something low-key too. Borrowing from family
without asking. Being scared of someone or something.
White lies. Getting too excited about magic or spiritual
stuff and then forgetting what’s really important.
(being a) Hero Issue under “Virtue,” above, as well as
the extra rules concerning you and the (in) Over
Your Head Issue under “Shard Power.”
308 Playbooks
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Playbooks 309
Quests
These are the quests that you’ll have in front of you So maybe there’s a kid who hangs out on the beach
over the course of the game. watching the pirate ship’s comings and goings—maybe
Quests are just tools. they could compare notes? Or maybe she should catch
You pick up a quest and it helps you tell a broad cat- some ghost kids and interrogate them?
egory of stories—potentially dozens of high concepts The quest card also informs her that she can get a
and billions of stories-in-play. It does this by giving you 5-XP bonus when she “stands in a storm, overlooking
things to try out in play. a pit or dangerous depth”—in this case, that’s meant to
For instance, let’s say Natalia Koutolika is starting get her out standing on a cliff in a storm, looking down,
a new story Arc. She wants to investigate the “pirate when a ghostly ship emerges from the mist or the deep.
ship” that’s been hanging out near the Fortitude docks. Or, if pirates try to make her walk the plank, and it’s
There’s a rumor that its crew are all ghosts! She reads raining, it encourages her to actually walk out there and
3
through the story’s rules on pg. XX-XX, decides that look down... stuff like that.
she wants to be on an Aspect Arc, and picks up She can’t manifest storms from nothing just to fulfill
the 35-XP version of the appropriate quest, Above the the quest terms—but she’ll be drawn to do things suit-
Fray (pg. XX). able for that sort of mise-en-scène.
The story on pg. XX doesn’t tell her much about The rules for a quest are mostly OOC, but there’s
what’s going on here. It advises her that she’s on this an assumption that there’s something IC as well—that
quest because she’s stuck in her life and that when she your character’s heart is drawn to things that earn XP,
sees the pirate ship, or hears about it, or something, she’ll including bonus XP from a quest.
have this realization that, yes, this is what she needs
to figure out. It notes that she’ll probably encounter
Rinley Yatskaya and the quest NPC “Palimpsest,” and
that they’ll probably be helpful to her... but it doesn’t
tell her much about the investigation itself.
That comes from the quest.
Looking at the card, she sees quest options like
“trust yourself to a dangerous (and relevant) part of
the setting,” which suggests she should head out onto
Big Lake near where the ship’s been last seen. Or that
she might want to “deal with a child who lives/hangs
out there.”
Huh!
312 Quests
Creating Quest Sets ...into the 5-XP goals.
If you’re curious where the quest sets come from or That’s the basic idea. You can probably skip the sketch
how to make some of your own—here’s where these outline phase and go straight to thinking about recur-
came from. ring scenes if you’re just building stuff for your game.
I made a sketch outline of five books about each of What about building simplified quests?
the characters. I made this simpler by basing the overall Conceptually, simplifying a quest affects time: to
arc of each pentalogy on the progression of some rush through a story, most of the time, you’ll switch
Issue (pg. XX-XX, the Chuubo’s Marvelous Wish- from showing progression on something to showing
Granting Engine RPG.) completion—not work but success, not pain but col-
I thought about cool scenes that might appear in lapse. Similarly, you’ll switch from showing comple-
those books. tion to showing progression: not a series of collapses,
Quests
I boiled those scenes down, looking for the stuff but the pain that leads up to one example of them; not
that kept on appearing—the way each of those stories a series of successes, but the work that goes into one
started, the way each continued, etc. I figured that if I of them. I used this kind of switch for the bulk of the
did that, I’d be tapping into some generic features of work in creating simplified quests, and then left some
those characters’ stories, which wouldn’t just cross the options the same or tweaked random things until I was
divide between book 1, book 2, and book 3 but would comfortable with the final result.
also cross the divide between my head and your game. You’d do the same!
Then I figured out the colors of the quests, ordered
them from 1-5 in each Arc color, and used those colors
and the principles on pg. XX-XX of the Chuubo’s
Simplified Quests
For the sake of variety, for the sake of hitting your XP
Marvelous Wish-Granting Engine RPG to get more
targets a little more smoothly, and for the sake of those
ideas for what should happen at each quest in the set.
who just don’t have much time to play, I’m offering a
I had a list at this point of possible quest actions;
simplified/accelerated version of each quest. Note that
I simplified them down, made them as generic as I
these can differ a fair bit in tone—sometimes because
could without losing the key bits of flavor, and moved
things just plain feel different when you’re rushing
stuff that...
and sometimes because I changed things up a bit for
multiple-playthrough variety!
ŭŭ ...I wanted to only happen 1-2x;
You’re always allowed to pick a simplified quest
ŭŭ ...I didn’t think you should be able to do
instead of the real one—the only drawback is that the
on command;
Perks for low-XP quests are generally less impressive.
ŭŭ ...that was really disadvantageous to you;
Completing a 25-XP quest, for instance, might earn
you a mundane Perk even at the miraculous level, or
Quest Card Completeness a relatively weak miraculous Perk. This is, that said,
If the quest card doesn’t seem like enough, remember totally optional, and dependent on the circumstances
that you’re still allowed to roleplay, and come up of play—if everyone’s rushing through the game, feel
with your own ideas for things, and to interact with free to take a pretty strong Perk; or if the quest was
the other players—the quest’s not there to replace surprisingly difficult to get through, or really important
that. It’s just there to augment that, keeping you from in play, or if a strong Perk is just what fits.
running completely out of ideas by ensuring that there
are always at least a few options.
For instance, Natalia’s allowed to ask around at the
docks, even if that’s not a quest option. The only thing
that can’t happen is her asking around at the docks,
hitting a dead end, and having no option for what to
do next!
Quests 313
The Marvelous Misadventures
of Chuubo & Company
So in this world there is a Marvelous Wish-Granting Saga of Miramie Mesmer,” below), but if you wind up
Engine. meddling and exerting power pretty heavily then you’ll
Every week—a wish! want to use these instead!
These quests form a generic structure for the Arcs of, The order of these quests will depend a little on what
well, anyone who might want to use that power for, I you’re doing—for instance, if you’re on a Mystic Arc,
3
don’t know, getting one’s chores done or making a giant giving yourself into the hands of higher powers, then
pile of money or creating a flying carpet or whatever. the first quest is about haunting premonitions. If you’re
The Wishing Boy (or Girl), of course— on a Storyteller Arc, diving headfirst into an exciting
But if they’re an NPC, and you can cadge even one or situation, the “haunting premonitions” quest won’t
two wishes a season out of them, then this could be you. come until much later on.
Or, you know, if you have magic that lets you do goofy The reference version of this Arc, though, is an
and vainglorious stuff yourself! Otherworldly Arc, and it goes like this:
These quests are also a secondary structure for
playing through the Arcs of the Dream-Witch— ŭŭ Haunted: Someone haunts your dreams.
playing around in Hideo Hayashi’s archive, getting ŭŭ Wishing for…
involved with the hidden room and Miramie Mesmer, • …Ease: You try to cheat and
and hunting the shards of the glass dragon. Normally make your life a little easier.
you’ll play those out using her own Arc (“the Bittersweet • …Power: You pick up a new power.
Haunted
(Simplified)
Major Goals XP
ŭŭ …found someone in Fortitude who can help you or teach you how
to help yourself.
ŭŭ …committed to helping, connecting to, or making friends with
whatever power is haunting you.
Quest Flavor
ŭŭ …abandoning a task or once-loved possession in disgust.
ŭŭ …having night terrors.
ŭŭ …realizing suddenly that you were very dumb sometime
in the past 24 hours.
ŭŭ …talking with somebody about your dreams.
314 Quests
ŭŭ Wicked Creatures: Some wicked creature tries to ŭŭ Asserting Your Existence: You try to reclaim
change your nature. something you’ve lost.
ŭŭ Wishing for Healing: You try to fix something
Followed, if you need a bit more XP or closure, by you’ve broken.
one or both of:
Let’s take a look!
Haunted
20 or 35 XP Quest You’re haunted. Something is visiting your dreams.
Quests
1: Something is intimately tangled with you, like a thorn
in the paw of your mind or bedsheets and blankets
2: wrapped all around you.
3: Something… else?… is calling to you, from far away.
Haunted
Major Goals XP
ŭŭ …found someone in Fortitude who can help you or teach you how
to help yourself.
ŭŭ …put a name and face to the power that’s haunting you from afar.
ŭŭ …formed an important connection to it—recognized that power as,
e.g., a friend, enemy, parent, or SO.
Quest Flavor
ŭŭ …doing reckless stuff together with a rival, enemy, or

wicked creature.
ŭŭ …having a troubled dream.
ŭŭ …investigating magic that might help your situation.
ŭŭ …talking to a scholar or sailor about your situation.
ŭŭ …performing cleaning- or purification-related chores.
ŭŭ …talking with somebody about what dreams are, as compared
to reality.
ŭŭ …talking with somebody about whether the world deserves to
Quests 315
Wishing for Ease
20 or 35 XP Quest I expect this quest will take 3-20 chapters to com-
2: plete, and accordingly you’ll have the opportunity to
make multiple wishes during its course—but the focus
3: of the quest will be on the lesson or lessons you learn
4: from 1-2 specific wishes, and accordingly on stuff that
can influence the game for a long time or on dreams that
This is the story of what happens when you start taking you’ll make multiple attempts to wish into being until
big shortcuts to make your life a little easier. you get them right.
3
The canonical example is stuff like “I wish my chores
would do themselves.”
Wishing for Ease
Major Goals XP
ŭŭ …you discover that something you were trying to give up/get rid
of is actually important to you.
ŭŭ …you learn an important life lesson.
ŭŭ …a rival or enemy is making good use of your power—coming
up “smelling of roses,” as it were—even as your wish blows up in
your face.
You can earn each bonus once each, for a total of 15 XP.
Quest Flavor
ŭŭ …a wish becomes goofy and self-defeating.

ŭŭ …you double down and use one wish to fix another.
ŭŭ …a wish somehow strengthens the power of the Outside
in Fortitude/your life.
ŭŭ …a wish somehow strengthens the evil former identity of
the Dream-Witch.
ŭŭ …you’re lured to a secret place.
ŭŭ …trying to understand the changed world and the wish that
caused that change.
ŭŭ …you have to make a public apology for a wish.
Special Note!
Anything that can go wrong in the same way a classic wish can
(including most Imperial miracles and some magical spells) counts
as a “wish” here.
316 Quests
Wishing for Ease
(Simplified)
Quests
Major Goals XP
ŭŭ …you discover that something you were trying to give up/get rid
of is actually important to you.
ŭŭ …you learn an important life lesson.
ŭŭ …a rival or enemy is making good use of your power—coming
up “smelling of roses,” as it were—even as your wish blows up in
your face.
Quest Flavor
ŭŭ …a wish becomes goofy and self-defeating.

ŭŭ …a wish somehow strengthens the power of the Outside
in Fortitude/your life.
ŭŭ …a wish somehow strengthens the evil former identity of
the Dream-Witch.
ŭŭ …you’re lured to a secret place.
ŭŭ …trying to understand the changed world and the wish that
caused that change.
ŭŭ …you have to make a public apology for a wish.
Special Note!
Quests 317
Wishing Using Power for Ease
20 or 35 XP Quest Powers like that are pretty easy to keep under
2: your control.
I mean, real people using real Skills sometimes have
3: their use of those Skills blow up in their face in a wacky
4: fashion, but it’s not as common as it is with wishes;
and Superior Skills and miraculous powers are kind of
This is a variant for characters who just don’t have like that.
that kind of power—characters whose powers just So the risk isn’t that your powers will go haywire.
3
don’t bend that way. Characters whose primary or The risk is that you’ll go a little haywire—like so:
only powers are Skills, Superior Skills, and miracu-
lous abilities.
Major Goals XP
ŭŭ …you realize belatedly that something you “solved” with your
powers wasn’t a problem at all.
ŭŭ …you get in trouble because of your overconfidence.
ŭŭ …you lose face to a rival and your powers can’t fix it.
Quest Flavor
ŭŭ …your powers enable goofy, self-defeating behavior.

ŭŭ …you try to fix a power-based screw-up by throwing
more power at it.
ŭŭ …you accidentally hurt somebody with your powers.
ŭŭ …something corrupts or manipulates your use of
your powers.
ŭŭ …the evil former identity of the Dream-Witch
grows stronger.
ŭŭ …your life becomes strangely dream-like; it’s hard to
focus on anything.
ŭŭ …you’re really confident that you know what you can handle.
318 Quests
(Simplified)
Major Goals XP
ŭŭ …you freak out—you have a minor or major psychological
breakdown because your powers haven’t fixed everything.
Quests
ŭŭ …you receive some implausible honor or award.
Quest Flavor
ŭŭ …you get extra responsibility piled on top of you because you

stood out too much.
ŭŭ …you try to get things done without using your powers.
ŭŭ …you boast about your awesomeness.
ŭŭ …you have nightmares about the Outside or the laughter of
Melanie Malakh.
ŭŭ …your life falls apart a little because you went overboard
with your use of powers.
Quests 319
Wishing for Power
25 or 35 XP Quest powers, seize power over Town or Fortitude, or other-
2: wise become a bigger deal than you are.
Again, I expect this quest will take 3-20 chapters to
3: complete, but the focus will be on the lessons you learn
4: from 1-2 specific wishes.
This is the story of what happens when you make one

or more wishes—or use similarly flexible powers that
3
can go awry in similar ways—to give yourself amazing
Wishing for Power
Major Goals XP
ŭŭ …you discover that some power you wanted is actually rather dull,
boring, or unpleasant.
ŭŭ …you wear a truly ridiculous outfit or assemblage, with details
suggested by the HG and the other players.
ŭŭ …you, or someone whose power you’re drawing on to make
wishes (e.g., if you’re “wishing” by persuading the Wishing Boy
or Girl, them), get sick, hypnotized, won over, or corrupted by
someone or something.
You can earn each bonus once each, for a total of up to 15 XP.
Quest Flavor
ŭŭ …experiencing the wish-fueled changes in the world.

ŭŭ …pretending a wish is making you happy when it’s not.
ŭŭ …events spin out of your control.
ŭŭ …you revel in the power that a wish has brought.
ŭŭ …you engage in strategic use of the power a wish
has brought.
Special Note!
320 Quests
Wishing for Power
(Simplified)
Major Goals XP
ŭŭ …you sit or lean against a wall with someone and explain how
your new power went terribly wrong.
Quests
ŭŭ …you show off a new power, but people are more interested in
something else (like your outfit or an impending store opening).
Quest Flavor
ŭŭ …pushing yourself to enjoy some power that you’re

really… not.
ŭŭ …you go overboard with your new powers.
ŭŭ …events spin out of your control.
ŭŭ …experiencing annoying consequences.
ŭŭ …there’s a moment of sudden, amazing joy or grace.
Special Note!
Wishing Using Powers for Power

I regret to say that I don’t have an alternative quest
available here if you don’t have a wish-like power, and
worse, my explanation as to why is too annoyingly
technical to burden you with.
If you want to use this, but you don’t have any
wish-like powers, just… use your abilities or your
friendship with somebody to seize power in a wacky
or troublesome way, and call that the result of your
wish to have that power. ^_^
Quests 321
Wicked Creatures
25 or 35 XP Quest It may give you an ability, or share its control over
1: some monstrous minions. Or it may be subtler than
that—it may be that the only power you have here is
2: the power to learn about them, to influence them, even
3: to help them maybe, and that all they actually give you
on their own, voluntarily, is random bursts of pain and
You’ve found a connection to something wicked— despair, or make your feet so they’re always cold, and
A place of its power, where it shows you beautiful whisper in your dreams, and make stars keep falling
3
and scary things, where you can dig behind its surface from the sky.
and understand its secrets. The creature is your Corruptor for this Arc, but it
A chapel of its heart. isn’t necessarily the case that you’re the one that’ll
There may be a power from this— wind up changing because of your association.
The place you hear their voice is their Chapel.
Wicked Creatures
(Simplified)
XP
Major Goals
ŭŭ …you tell people that you think your corruptor is lonely.
ŭŭ …your corruptor reveals its identity.
ŭŭ …some quasi-abandoned or pointless member of the cast takes on
new story life as a minion of this corrupting power.
You can earn up to two of these bonuses, once each, for a total of up
to 10 XP.
Quest Flavor
ŭŭ …you’re spending too much time in your corrup-

tor’s Chapel.
ŭŭ …you fall under the sway of your corruptor’s voice,
power, or dreams.
ŭŭ …you’re sucked into a dramatic dream or memory of
your corruptor.
ŭŭ …your corruptor or a minion thereof comforts you.
ŭŭ …your corruptor, some power you got from them, or one
of their minions helps you out with your chores or your ordi-
nary life.
322 Quests
Wicked Creatures
Major Goals
XP
Quests
ŭŭ …you learn something in the corruptor’s Chapel that really helps
you out.
ŭŭ …you find a way, or at least a lever, to redeem, civilize, or
humanize a wicked creature—most likely one of the corruptor’s
associates or minions.
ŭŭ …you discover that some previously quasi-abandoned or pointless
member of the cast is also somehow involved with your corruptor.
ŭŭ …you’re hapless/head-desk-able enough that your corruptor
temporarily loses the ability to cope.
You can earn up to three of these bonuses, once each, for a total of up
to 15 XP.
Quest Flavor
ŭŭ …you spend a peaceful interval in your corruptor’s Chapel.

ŭŭ …you explore, finding something neat, scary, or beautiful in
your corruptor’s Chapel.
ŭŭ …you learn something dramatic about your corruptor.
ŭŭ …you fall under the sway of your corruptor’s voice,
power, or dreams.
ŭŭ …you get your corruptor or one of their minions involved
in your hobby; or, more generally, use the powers you get here for
unimportant things.
ŭŭ …you hide what’s going on from the people around you.
ŭŭ …the powers or minions of your corruptor are a little
too helpful.
Quests 323
Asserting Your Existence
20 or 35 XP Quest
1:
4:
5:
You’re lost somewhere—your soul, your self has gone

away. You can connect to it only in dream-like visions
3
(and actual dreams.)
Can you get yourself back?
Major Goals XP
ŭŭ …you make someone acknowledge you as your true self, when
they’d been trying to deny it.
ŭŭ …something useful happens because you’re not really “you”
any longer.
ŭŭ …someone monologues to you about the thing you’ve lost and
how important it is.
You can earn each bonus once, up to a total of 15 XP.
Quest Flavor
ŭŭ …wrestle with questions of identity.

ŭŭ …get kind of worked up about the situation.
ŭŭ …fail at something you were good at, breaking or dam-
aging something.
ŭŭ …give in to your new identity and dress or cut your hair
in a fashion to show it.
ŭŭ …dream of your true self, far away.
ŭŭ …dream of a tree growing on the island of King Death.
ŭŭ …something useful happens because you’re not “you”
any longer.
(This typically follows the 5-XP bonus for such things, repeating what
happened before, or is too minor to count—but it can trigger the 5-XP
bonus if you have a good idea and the HG approves).
324 Quests
(Simplified)
XP
Major Goals
ŭŭ …someone tells you that they miss who you used to be.
ŭŭ …you achieve some grand plan that the old you couldn’t have.
Quests
Quest Flavor
ŭŭ …talk about how you plan to get back what you’ve lost.
ŭŭ …give up something that you cared about in your “new”
life.
ŭŭ …dream of your true self, far away.
ŭŭ …dream of the waves against the shore of the island
of King Death, and the shade of a tree that grows there, and the
shadow of King Death.
Quests 325
Wishing for Healing
20 or 35 XP Quest
3:
5:
This is the story of what happens when you’ve learned
a little more about life and put your powers to use fixing
things and mistakes that you didn’t know enough to fix
before. Maybe we’re talking very recent and flashy
3
lessons that you’ve learned, or maybe we’re talking
about genuine maturity and getting the chance to revisit
stuff from a long time ago.
You’re different now.
You can make this work. It… might not even be hard.
Wishing for Healing
XP
Major Goals
ŭŭ …you manage to fix something you broke a long time ago.
ŭŭ …you manage to make something better for people in secret.
ŭŭ …you tend the grave of a friend, and meet their new incarnation as
a star or wish spirit.
Quest Flavor
ŭŭ …talk with someone about what you’d do if you could

have anything you wanted.
ŭŭ …wander Fortitude with a friend and a snack.
ŭŭ …visit an old friend—probably someone sick or old and
mostly bed/housebound.
ŭŭ …tease someone mercilessly.
ŭŭ …stand in a door, arch, or window frame with sunshine
and Big Lake behind you.
ŭŭ …face down a dragon of some sort.
ŭŭ …get into goofy trouble because of a wish.
326 Quests
Wishing for Healing
(Simplified)
XP
Major Goals
ŭŭ …you manage to fix something you broke a long time ago.
ŭŭ …you ask people to keep some way you’re helping others a secret.
ŭŭ …you look up and you see a shooting star.
Quests
10 XP.
Quest Flavor
ŭŭ …talk to someone about your plans for the future.

ŭŭ …drag someone out of seclusion into the world.
ŭŭ …admire the trophies from some adventure.
ŭŭ …go mountain-climbing or hill climbing.
ŭŭ …get into goofy trouble.
Quests 327
The Secret History of
Seizhi Schwan
These quests form a generic structure for the Arcs of the
Best Friend, and any other character who winds up in a
similar position—
Arc Terminology
Anyone starting out as just a kid, really, who is des- This Arc has a few recurring features. Since they show
tined to Become Somebody later on. up on the quest cards, I’ll have to talk to you about
These quests are also the generic structure for partic- them here.
3
ipating in the Angel of Fortitude’s Arcs as a witness— ŭŭ Vice: You have a vice or weakness. It’s whatever
they’re the structure for stories about that mysterious you think is wrong with you. It doesn’t have to
angel, or about the mysteries in Fortitude in general. be objectively important. It doesn’t have to be a
They’re what you’ll play through when you encounter flaw. It doesn’t even have to be real. But it’s the
a catalyst, a mentor, a miracle, an angel, something failing that haunts you.
amazing, that can trigger your becoming something ŭŭ the Walker in Darkness: This dude(tte)’s the
greater, later on. bad example. They’re the one who falls to your
The order of these quests depends on what kind of vice to give you strength to reject it, or the one
Advancement Arc you’re on, but the reference version who makes it worse so that you can triumph over
is a Knight Arc, and it looks like this: them at the end of your character Arc. They’re
not a big enough deal to be the villain. They’re
ŭŭ Encounters in the Night. You start to hear the a mid-boss, or a friend you try to save. They’re
call of a higher destiny. a sinner that this Arc is likely to consign to the
ŭŭ The Troubled Sky. You try to claim it. metaphorical flames.
ŭŭ Behind the Mask. You’re corrupted or threatened ŭŭ Cruel Prince: A cruel prince is the typical
by some evil that hides behind secrets, shadows, villain for this Arc. It’s someone who’s set above
politics, or masks. others by some sort of natural talent, social
role, or divine right, and so thinks they can do
If you’re short on XP or closure, it then goes on one whatever they like. They will typically wear
or two quests past that: a mask of some sort but that’s not an abso-
lute requirement.
ŭŭ Atonement. The world’s gone wrong. Set it right. ŭŭ the Guardian Bird: This is a bird or bird-like
ŭŭ The Struggle of the Knight. You face the final entity, such as you would use for guarding trea-
trials to become what you wanted to be. sure before its sudden, yet inevitable, betrayal.
There’s a very generic Guardian Bird on pg. XX,
If you’re wondering how things can go on past although eventually you’ll have to stretch a bit to
that—what happens if you complete the Struggle of figure out what a new cool guardian bird for the
the Knight, but the game isn’t over?—the answer is Arc might look like.
that becoming what you want to be isn’t always the end ŭŭ the Hero: This is an over-the-top version of
of your ambitions so much as a breather in them. Sure, someone to look up to—although it’s OK, if
you’ll be happy and satisfied for a time, but you can they’re too far over the top, if you mostly roll
always find new things to look for! Maybe because your your eyes instead. Usually this is Laodemus
goal was incomplete, or maybe because sometimes it’s Schwan or the Prodigy, but it could be someone
only once you’ve reached the heights that you can see else!
the next height that’s worth striving for.
328 Quests
Encounters in the Night
20 or 35 XP Quest of the former sun. Glimpses of the work of the Angel of
1: Fortitude. Hints of the presence of the Outside.
Something.
2: What we’ll call Encounters in the Night.
This Arc is about your destiny; it’s about miracles; it’s
about the path that you’ll actually find at the end of this
quest. But you won’t know that at first.
The Sacrificial Bull
When it starts, this doesn’t seem to be a story
Quests
about that. The default Walker in Darkness, if you don’t have
any better ideas, is going to be a sacrificial bull—an
The Walker in Darkness NPC with a name like Bull, who is probably doomed
This starts as the story of how something sacred comes to perfidy and misery from the start. There might be
into your life, but there’s also this person who denies an exception for somebody named John Bull, who
it. Someone who pushes you away from it, or pulls you is marginally more likely to wind up a mascot of the
away from it, or plans to use and abuse it, or who denies British cultural identity instead—but Edith Bull, Jake
it. Bullworth, or Vladimir Bûl... well, they’re not in luck.
Someone who sneers at the sacred thing. Someone See, there’s a long tradition of using a sacrificial bull
who is going to suffer. to lure down entities that hang out in troublesomely
They’re a bad example, maybe. The path not taken. high places, and that’s just plain this person’s fate.
Or they’re the villain. Or they’re just someone you’ll They’ll get thrown together with the PCs early on
care about, that you won’t be able to save. in the Arc, probably, but if they’re a good person, it’s
They’re an incarnation of your vices, probably. going to be really hard to stop supernatural forces
If you’re a jerk, then maybe they’re a bigger jerk. from either destroying them or corrupting them into
Or someone who takes advantage of your being a jerk. a bad one; and if they’re a bad person, they’re going
Or somebody who seems nice at the beginning, but is to doom themselves in a hopefully helpful and prac-
going to twist the knife and reveal themselves worse tical fashion.
than you ever were, later on. If you lose the Sacrificial Bull—e.g., by sacri-
If you’re lazy, they’re lazier? ficing them?
Or they’re the incarnation of your weakness, even if Just... lay the groundwork for a new one when you
that’s not a vice. can. Have someone else that you indulge in your
If you’re sick and weak, they’re sicker and weaker. vice with. Visit the surviving family of the first one
Or they’re going to make you sicker. Or they’re the in hopes of finding another Bull; stick “the new Bull”
reason that you’re sick in the first place. If you’re pain- signs on someone’s back; laboriously bring your dead
fully naïve, they’re going to take advantage of that, or friend back from the dead using deviant, impossible
their fate is going to be the thing that shocks you out of science—whatever! Or, of course, just find a new par-
your naïveté. adigm for your walkers in darkness.
I don’t know. It’s very common for the Sacrificial Bull to have a
This Arc will call them the Walker in Darkness. trace of Rider blood—to be descended from the bull-
headed Magister named Thousand, who was slain a
The Touch of the Numinous very long time ago, in Town.
In and mixed with this is something else—
You’ve been having dreams or dream-like expe-
riences of something sacred. Something weird.
Something outside the norm. Nightmares of the death
Quests 329
XP
Major Goals
3
Quest Flavor
ŭŭ ...having one of those Encounters in the Night.

ŭŭ ...talking about one of those encounters.
belong somewhere.
ŭŭ ...a scene mostly leading to/motivated by your preten-
tions—by your trying to be more than you are, either out of hope
or from hubris.
330 Quests
(Simplified)
Major Goals XP
ŭŭ ...you find or claim some sort of destiny (a role or purpose in
the world).
Quests
Quest Flavor
1/week, you can earn a bonus XP towards this quest when:
ŭŭ ...struggling with whether you deserve, or can afford to

have, a destiny.
belong somewhere.
ŭŭ ...a troubled or disordered sky concerns you.
ŭŭ ...listening to stories about, or of, the dead.
Quests 331
The Troubled Sky
15 XP Quest
2:
The Guardian Bird
3:
I’ll talk more about cruel princes and heroes in connec-
This quest is a slice of a troubled life. It’s your struggle tion with specific Arcs, but this creature in particular
to reach up from where you’ve been and become some- is kind of generic—it’s just a bird or bird-like creature
thing better than you were. of some sort, often entering the story on the night of
It’s hard to emphasize it on the card without making a violent storm. Maybe it’s a small griffin, eagle, or
3
it too specific, but there’s a goofy core to this quest. A thunderbird. Maybe it’s somebody named Griffin,
fundamental part of this quest is you, hanging out with Eagle, or Thunderbird.
your supporting cast—your minions; your family; that If it shows up, you’ll often want to trust it with
somebody you’re a little sweet on; those two guys or custody of some treasure.
girls without any real distinguishing characteristics or An egg, maybe. Birds are good at watching over
plot importance but whom you’re technically supposed eggs, aren’t they? A nest egg. Or a sacred scroll. Maybe
to be friends with anyway, whatever... even a jade tablet or burnt wish-bone containing all the
And while you’re hanging out with them, the weird destinies of the world. A scientific secret? A prison for
and over the top parts of your life get a little more so. an evil body-switching entity? A legacy of the original
Like, if you’re the Best Friend? King of Evil, who later died? Your younger brother or
We’re talking about the Schwan family weirdness sister? Your child? A freezer full of frozen mini-pizzas,
getting even weirder, even further over the top. after the boat carrying the normal shipment of them
Or, if you’re the Prodigy? And we’re still early into Fortitude went down and pizza’d up the Lake?
enough in the story that your key vice is that frozen You’ll want to trust it with that custody because it is
heart thing? clearly a very excellent guardian beast.
We’re talking about you spending time with some However, as its Skills might indicate, that is prob-
random people that you’ve met in Fortitude—people ably going to be a mistake:
you’ve saved, people who admire you, people you like,
people whose bookstore you’ve been working at, what- ŭŭ Superior Bird-Like Guardian 3
ever—and taking your despair and refusal to believe ŭŭ Sudden, Yet Inevitable Betrayal 2
that you could ever mean anything, ever fit in, ever ŭŭ Abuse Magical Treasures 2
make a difference to new heights of pathos anyway. ŭŭ Silver Tongue 1
But there’s a little more to it than that. Usually this
quest introduces or heavily features... As for the exigencies that will prompt its Sudden,
ŭŭ ...an antagonist—a Cruel Prince—who wants to Yet Inevitable Betrayal, I cannot say. It may just be
crush you. ordinary temptation; alternately, it may be the pawn
ŭŭ ...a bird-like creature, a born treasure guardian— of some enemy or under pressure from a hostile force.
the Guardian Bird—who enters the story on the After the story of its betrayal completes, the HG
night of a violent storm. should replace either “Abuse Magical Treasures” or
ŭŭ ...the boisterous, larger-than-life Hero. “Sudden, Yet Inevitable Betrayal” with “Redemption.”
ŭŭ ...storms, tests of spirit, lingering spiritual mes- It’s normally up to the HG but circumstances can force
sages from Jade Irinka, and stories of how she and the choice.
the original Principal Entropy both died.
332 Quests
The Troubled Sky
(Simplified)
Bonus XP
XP
You’re in a weird story. It’s full of bizarre entities and over-
the-top goofiness.
In the end there’s nothing for it. You just have to live with it, don’t you?
You just say... well, whatever you say about this stuff.
ŭŭ “I just wanted to be somebody,” maybe. Or
ŭŭ “Of course that happens.”
Quests
ŭŭ “Is this really my destiny?”
Something like that, anyway. And you sigh, then, and you shake
your head.
Or maybe there’s something you say to remind you that for all the
troubles in it the world’s still real?
ŭŭ “I have fingers.”
ŭŭ “Yare, yare.”
ŭŭ “Look at those clouds.”
ŭŭ “It’s cold.” (Unreal things—they’re never cold. Are they?)
per scene/15 minutes) with your catchphrase—with that thing that you
say when why do I have to deal with these kinds of situations? is on
your mind.
What catch phrase do you use?
On a Bindings Arc Replacing a Guardian Bird

If you’re on a Bindings Arc, the premise here is that I don’t expect you to trust and be betrayed by the
they succeed— Guardian Bird twice—
You’re subverted by the Arc’s Cruel Prince or I mean, it can happen, it’s legitimate, it’s an accept-
Student Council member or whatever, or opt to work able entry into this Arc’s oeuvre, it’s just not some-
with them, and thus you’ll encounter the rest of the thing you need to do in order to make normal progress
Arc features a little out of order. You’ll be admiring through the Arc. Instead, if you find yourself needing
the Guardian Bird’s qualities from afar before you’re a Guardian Bird but the last one betrayed you, you
formally introduced, for instance, and you’ll have a can either...
sympathetic view of the Walker in Darkness before
there’s a real reason to interact with them. In both ŭŭ ...introduce a new bird-like figure to suddenly,
cases, I assume this is because they’re related to what yet inevitably, betray you.
the Cruel Prince wants from you: you’re getting, or ŭŭ ...trust in the Guardian Bird and not be betrayed
making, reports on both. this time... probably?.
You could probably just run the quests in their ŭŭ ...revisit the Guardian Bird as an Arc symbol of
normal Knight order, but the fit between “You’re tar- a keeper of high and holy things, but focus the
geted by masked or secretive enemies who want to Arc’s drama on other stuff entirely.
turn you to your service” and “You have to work with,
partner with, or tie your fate to something wrong or in
disfavor” just seemed too strong to reasonably ignore.
Quests 333
The Troubled Sky
Major Goals
XP
ŭŭ ...you test yourself against your vice—test how strong it is, either
giving in or realizing that you’re better than you thought.
ŭŭ ...you’re introduced to the Guardian Bird on or shortly after a
stormy night.
3 ŭŭ ...you receive a message (e.g. recorded instructions or a message in

a bottle) from Jade Irinka, who was the sun.
Quest Flavor
ŭŭ ...a scene wherein a Cruel Prince tries to break you.

ŭŭ ...stories of the death of the sun and the first Principal Entropy.
ŭŭ ...stories of people created from nothing, or raw chaos.
ŭŭ ...marveling at a stormy night.
ŭŭ ...a scene where the Hero shows up in an amusing/
helpful fashion.
ŭŭ ...hanging out, voluntarily or otherwise, with the Walker
in Darkness.
ŭŭ ...a scene with your supporting cast that takes your vice
and/or their goofiness to new heights.
334 Quests
Behind the Mask
25 or 35 XP Quest
1:
3:
You’re targeted by masked or secretive enemies who
want to turn you to their service. These are generally
members of the Student Council of Horizon’s School
and almost always “Cruel Princes.”
Quests
Behind the Mask
XP
Major Goals
ŭŭ ...you trust the Guardian Bird or some other bird-like figure with
the guardianship of something precious.
ŭŭ ...there’s a dramatic case of mistaken identity related to the Arc
events or antagonists—e.g., they kidnap a hapless bystander
instead of you, or you put your trust in an enemy.
ŭŭ ...a plan for dealing with a Cruel Prince blows up in your face.
Quest Flavor
ŭŭ ...testing an idea on...
• ...how to defeat a Cruel Prince.
• ...why a Cruel Prince chose a particular target.
• ...how to overcome your vice.
• ...how to fulfill the destiny you’re aiming towards.
ŭŭ ...admiring the guardianship abilities of the
Guardian Bird.
ŭŭ ...investigating the Student Council of Horizon’s School.
ŭŭ ...talking with someone about the first Principal Entropy
and their death.
ŭŭ ...talking with someone about fate and free will.
ŭŭ ...a “death flag” scene for the Walker in Darkness—
they talk sympathetically about their plans for life, do something
needlessly dangerous, or get too interested in something you’re
having the Guardian Bird guard.
Quests 335
Behind the Mask
(Simplified)
Major Goals XP
ŭŭ ...you trust the Guardian Bird or some other bird-like figure with
the guardianship of something precious.
ŭŭ ...there’s a dramatic case of mistaken identity related to the Arc
3 events or antagonists—e.g., they kidnap a hapless bystander

instead of you, or you put your trust in an enemy (mistaking them
for a friend).
Quest Flavor
ŭŭ ...the Walker in Darkness is hurt.

ŭŭ ...something throws a wrench into your plans .
ŭŭ ...you test some idea pertaining to what you’re trying
to become.
ŭŭ ...you’re investigated or hunted by something evil.
336 Quests
Atonement
25 or 40 XP Quest The world is wrong.
4: Maybe it wasn’t your fault. Maybe it has nothing to
do with what’s wrong with you. Or maybe it’s directly
5: on point. But the world is wrong.
You’ve failed somehow; or maybe you were never You’re going to make it right.
worthy. But this is your chance to make good.
Quests
Atonement
Major Goals XP
ŭŭ ...you get melodramatic about your mistakes or your hubris.
ŭŭ ...you throw yourself into a plan that winds up making everything
even worse.
ŭŭ ...you struggle to climb something that has been strongly estab-
lished as a metaphorical mountain. (If you can find an actual
mountain to climb, I guess that could work too.)
ŭŭ ...a serious storm (a hurricane, Outside storm, or mysterious flood)
threatens Fortitude.
Quest Flavor
ŭŭ ...you’re forced to suffer because of your errors.

ŭŭ ...someone is struck wordless by the consequences of
your mistakes.
ŭŭ ...someone uses your own words against you.
ŭŭ ...you witness a holy thing.
ŭŭ ...you try to eat eggs, but somehow fail.
ŭŭ ...you encounter staggering vistas of storms or
steep slopes.
ŭŭ ...you take dramatic steps to fix things.
ŭŭ ...you have a sudden, stunning vision of a metaphorical
Heaven or Hell—of what it would look like if your vice ruined
you, or, something to help you overcome it.
Quests 337
Atonement
(Simplified)
Major Goals XP
ŭŭ ...you have a metaphysical/holy experience of the sacred.
ŭŭ ...you’re flung from a metaphorical mountain by the actions of
some enemy (and yet, presumably, survive).
3
Quest Flavor
ŭŭ ...you’re forgiven or released from punishment for

some sin.
ŭŭ ...you’re sent or set to climb/surmount something
as expiation.
ŭŭ ...storms rock Fortitude.
ŭŭ ...you screw up badly.
ŭŭ ...you propose a theory about how to overcome your vice,
or why it isn’t actually that big a deal.
The Struggle of the Knight

(Simplified)
XP
Major Goals
ŭŭ ...you venture into the chaos beyond the world.
ŭŭ ...you risk yourself for the sake of someone trying to hurt you.
ŭŭ ...you find love.
You can earn up to two of these bonuses, for a total of up to 10 XP.
Quest Flavor
ŭŭ ...taunting/challenging your enemies.

ŭŭ ...risking your life and freedom.
ŭŭ ...sharing something beautiful.
ŭŭ ...someone romantically befuddling you.
ŭŭ ...stumbling into terrible danger.
338 Quests
25 or 45 XP Quest It starts with a gamble.
4: There’s something you believe you have to do; or
something you believe is true and real; or something
5: you believe is meaningful about who you are.
This is your chance to answer the Arc’s questions—to You’re going to risk all you have on it.
push past everything that’s holding you back and seize
your destiny.
Quests
XP
Major Goals
ŭŭ ...you venture into the chaos beyond the world.
ŭŭ ...you risk yourself for the sake of someone trying to hurt you.
ŭŭ ...you redeem the Guardian Bird.
ŭŭ ...you’re forced or obligated to help with scientific or
magical research.
Quest Flavor
ŭŭ ...defending life and freedom.
ŭŭ ...a tense encounter with your enemies.
ŭŭ ...finding someone you’re hoping to help.
ŭŭ ...marveling at stormy weather.
ŭŭ ...facing terrible threats.
ŭŭ ...attending a wedding or a funeral.
ŭŭ ...witnessing strange sights.
ŭŭ ...talking someone through their grief.
ŭŭ ...fleeing terrible threats.
Quests 339
The Scientific Adventures
of Leonardo de Montreal
These quests form a generic structure for the Arcs of And, if you need one or two more quests for XP
Nightmares’ Angel, and also any character who finds or closure:
themselves in similar situations—
Any Wounded Angel. ŭŭ Above the Fray. You rise above the situation and
These quests are also the generic structure for par- make moral or philosophical decisions—what
ticipating in the Troublemaker’s Arcs as a friend— should be done with this situation or technology?
3
they’re the structure for stories about Rinley, or about ŭŭ Walking the Boundaries. Having made that call,
your kid sister or kid brother in general, getting into you explore its consequences.
trouble, and you trying to help them out.
As a Bindings Arc, the quests will look like this: If you’re using this to play through the
Troublemaker’s Arcs, an NPC Troublemaker will gen-
ŭŭ Science! You’ve been presented with a situation erally get involved at step 2—that’s when the existing
or possible tragedy. By gum, you will do science problem you’re already dealing with gets complicated
to it! by their arrival.
ŭŭ Someone’s in Trouble. Someone’s in trouble! These quests aren’t self-contained—
You help them out. You’ll be able to use them for your own stories, but
ŭŭ Engineering! You’ve got a sense for the meat of you’ll want to look at the stories they were created for
this situation now. It’s no longer an enigma—it’s before you try to read too much into them.. A few of
a technical problem. It’s time to do engineering their quirks may make more sense to you in that context,
to it!
Science!
(Simplified)
XP
Major Goals
ŭŭ ...you fall under the burden of the quest: something explicitly puts
the problem in your hands, or you explicitly take it up.
Quest Flavor
ŭŭ ...witnessing the fates of the wicked.

ŭŭ ...dragging other Main Characters into your work.
ŭŭ ...proposing new theories about the subject of your investi-
gation or calling—the Outside, the glass dragon, the nightmare
world, the Titovs, or whatever.
340 Quests
which will be helpful if you want to adapt them to your Bindings Arcs most of all, but you should be able to
own stories later on. play through them for the other three Arcs with a shift
These five quests are suitable for Bindings, in emphasis or potentially in the order of the quests.
Otherworldly, Aspect, and Emptiness Arcs. They’re
Science!
20 or 40 XP Quest This troublesome situation has been dumped in your
1: lap. It bothers you. But it also interests you as... a scien-
tist, or magician, or whatever you are.
Quests
2: There’s something here that wants an exploration by
4: the brilliant mind of, well, you!
There’s a problem here that’s worthy of your talents.
Science!
XP
Major Goals
ŭŭ ...you fall under the burden of the quest: something explicitly puts
the problem in your hands, or you explicitly take it up.
the Bleak Academy.
the quest.
Quest Flavor
the wrong.
your investigations/work.
Quests 341
Someone’s in Trouble
20 or 35 XP Quest
1:
2:
Someone’s in trouble. Usually it’s a relative innocent
and someone or somehow related to the meat of your
current Arc.
You help them out!
3
XP
Major Goals
ŭŭ ...you formally commit (aloud or in an emote) to trying to help
this person.
ŭŭ ...they open up to you while talking to you in their home or
important haunts.
ŭŭ ...some element of their problem bridges from the metaphorical or
emotional to the real—e.g., a gate opens from their nightmares to
the world, or a fear turns into a curse, or someone who always gets
a little too carried away gets physically carried away shortly after
a reference to that tendency.
Quest Flavor
ŭŭ ...catch eerie glimpses/foreshadowing of a threat to them.

ŭŭ ...have a sleepover/slumber party/visit to their dreams.
ŭŭ ...listen to them explaining their despair.
ŭŭ ...are shown one of their secrets.
ŭŭ ...hunt down some specific bit of trouble.
ŭŭ ...drag them somewhere they really shouldn’t be.
342 Quests
(Simplified)
XP
Major Goals
ŭŭ ...you formally commit (aloud or in an emote) to trying to help
this person.
ŭŭ ...some element of their problem bridges from the metaphorical or
Quests
emotional to the real—e.g., a gate opens from their nightmares to
the world, or a fear turns into a curse, or someone who always gets
a little too carried away gets physically carried away shortly after
a reference to that tendency.
Quest Flavor
ŭŭ ...identify or hypothesize about the “real” threat that
will emerge.
ŭŭ ...feverishly work on an idea to help.
ŭŭ ...dig into their secrets.
ŭŭ s ...invoke or bargain with some terrifying power to
save them.
Quests 343
Engineering!
25 or 35 XP Quest You move forward in a thoughtful and organized
3: fashion to solve the problem at hand.
4:
5:
You know enough about what’s going on now that the

problem is simply a matter of diligence. The title of this
3
quest is usually either appropriate or amusingly ironic;
if it’s not, you can scratch out “Engineering!” and sub-
stitute in “A Conscious Life.”
Engineering!
XP
Major Goals
ŭŭ ...you complete a major inventory, map, survey, or other explora-
tion of the territory (often dream- or dream-like territory) at hand.
ŭŭ ...you work towards a reconciliation between apparent rivals,
enemies, opposing forces, or even with something oppressing you
or someone you care about.
ŭŭ ...you find a hidden well or spring of pure or untainted water.
Quest Flavor
ŭŭ ...clean, prepare a ritual space, or do maintenance work.
ŭŭ ...eat with someone strange in a literal or metaphorical cave.
ŭŭ ...catalogue or explore the territory at hand.
ŭŭ ...groom a dog or similar animal connected somehow to
the quest.
ŭŭ ...are penned in somewhere by rain.
ŭŭ ...bear witness to strange visions.
344 Quests
Engineering!
(Simplified)
XP
Major Goals
ŭŭ ...you find or gain access to a major inventory, map, survey, or
other exploration of the territory (often dream- or dream-like
territory) at hand.
Quests
ŭŭ ...you’re recruited or asked for help by what had previously
seemed to be a rival, enemy, opposing force, or even oppressor.
ŭŭ ...you find a hidden well or spring of pure or untainted water.
You can earn up to two of these bonuses, for a total of 10 XP.
Quest Flavor
ŭŭ ...write off some portion of the situation as a loss, and trash/
seal it.
ŭŭ ...imprison someone or something.
ŭŭ ...call upon some terrifying or mysterious power con-
nected somehow to the quest.
ŭŭ ...present yourself to “your public” in a dramatic pose for
admiration; put on airs.
ŭŭ ...declare what must be done.
Quests 345
Above the Fray
20 or 25 XP Quest Or maybe you’re just trying to think things through
1: and understand what’s really happened (recently/in
your life).
4:
5:
You rise above the conflict and... mess... of things.

You seek objectivity. Maybe you’re affecting to the role
3
of a god: deciding what something’s worth, where it
comes from, and what its destiny should be.
Above the Fray
XP
Major Goals
ŭŭ ...you stand in a storm, overlooking a pit or dangerous depth.
ŭŭ ...you stand before a dead power that was or is greater
than yourself.
ŭŭ ...you have a moment of spiritual insight and forgiveness, and are
able to explain or solidly commit to both.
Quest Flavor
ŭŭ ...trust yourself to a dangerous (and relevant) part of the
setting, e.g., sailing Big Lake in Nightmares’ Open or visiting the
nightmare world in Nightmares’ World.
ŭŭ ...explore daily chores in that part of the setting.
ŭŭ ...deal with a child who lives/hangs out there.
ŭŭ ...get sucked into goofy fun there—a ridiculous game or
silly experience, despite a tense situation or environment.
346 Quests
Above the Fray
(Simplified)
XP
Major Goals
ŭŭ ...you enact a meaningful judgment—impose a penance, punish a
criminal or enemy, or forgive someone in an official capacity.
Quests
ŭŭ ...you seek and receive some sort of divine guidance.
ŭŭ ...you have a cathartic breakdown.
Quest Flavor
ŭŭ ...reviewing reports or records of a dangerous (and relevant)
part of the setting, e.g., the nightmare world in Nightmares’
World or Big Lake in Nightmares Open.
ŭŭ ...chores piling up while you figure out what to do.
ŭŭ ...someone cooking for you, bringing you a hot drink, or
putting you to bed.
ŭŭ “...walk and talk” decision-making scenes.
Quests 347
Walking the Boundaries
25 or 40 XP Quest
3:
5:
This quest explores the aftermath of the previous

quests. It’s generally kind of slow and quiet—whether
you’re wrestling with the terrible damage that’s been
done to you, or admiring the victories you’ve won, this
3
quest is all about having space and time to experience
the matter in full.

(Simplified)
Major Goals
XP
ŭŭ ...you walk among flowers in a place where somebody died.
ŭŭ ...you dream or share a story or two of a place’s history.
ŭŭ ...you say goodbye properly to an old friend.
Quest Flavor
ŭŭ ...indulge in a lazy routine (e.g. wearing pajamas all day).
ŭŭ ...indulge in slightly less lazy morning routines.
ŭŭ ...tend a shrine, grave, museum, or mausoleum.
ŭŭ ...are pointlessly cleaning or organizing, and a
visitor interrupts.
ŭŭ ...play with a dangerous thing.
348 Quests
Major Goals
XP
ŭŭ ...you walk among flowers in a place where somebody died.
Quests
ŭŭ ...you read or tell someone the stories of a place’s history.
ŭŭ ...you share a precious drink or meal with someone, where
“precious” is relative to your available resources (and not neces-
sarily absolute).
ŭŭ ...you say goodbye properly to an old friend.
Quest Flavor
ŭŭ ...tending a garden or caring for a bit of wilderness.
ŭŭ ...making repairs.
ŭŭ ...staring into a fire.
ŭŭ ...watching children or animals playing.
ŭŭ ...playing ball, Frisbee, or something of the sort.
ŭŭ ...having an encounter with something that seems at first
to be dramatic and scary, before turning out to be perfectly safe
and friendly.
ŭŭ ...waking up with water dripping on you, moss growing on
you, or an animal nosing you.
Quests 349
Having an Adventure
the Rinley Yatskaya Way
These quests form a generic structure for the Arcs of In the Arcs relating to Nightmares’ Angel, an NPC
the Troublemaker, and also any character with a similar Nightmares’ Angel is usually involved from the begin-
attitude towards life and adventure— ning—they’re either investigating the same things you
Any troublemaker. are, or you’re making trouble for them either because
These quests are also the generic structure for you like them or you don’t trust them.
meddling in Nightmares’ Angel’s Arcs—they’re the Basically, you’re getting all up in their affairs.
3
structure for stories about de Montreal and the worlds It’s possible that they won’t come in until later, or,
of nightmare. for certain Arcs, at all, but that’ll probably seem a little
These quests are a Storyteller Arc most of all, and, as weird. The only reason I can think of is if the players
a Storyteller Arc, they look like this: don’t enjoy Nightmares’ Angel or the HG doesn’t have
any ideas for what the NPC version might do.
ŭŭ Adventure GET. You’ve gotten involved in Again, these quests aren’t self-contained—
something exciting! You’ll be able to use them for your own stories, but
ŭŭ Let’s Doing! You drive forward through you’ll want to look at the stories they were created for
the situation. first, later on. A few of their quirks may make more
ŭŭ Labyrinth Diving. This is the part where you’re sense to you in that context, which will be helpful if
a little bit confused. You know where to look for you want to adapt them a little later on.
answers, sort of, but you don’t have them yet. These five quests are suitable for Knight, Storyteller,
Shepherd, and Mystic Arcs.90 Like I said, they’re
And if you need a bit more for XP or closure, you Storyteller Arcs most of all, but you should be able to
could finish out with: play through them for the other three Arcs with a shift
in emphasis or potentially in the order of the quests.
ŭŭ Climbing the Sacred Mountain. You’re chasing
answers, solutions, or victory.
ŭŭ Down. You’re chasing something subtler, scarier,
or more painful than that.
90 Rinley’s powerset is technically Spiritual, an Otherworldly Arc,

but her standard Glass-Maker’s Dragon Arcs don’t take that
further forward. She can play through her Arcs using Nightmares’
Angel’s quest structure if she really wants to fix that—Science!,
Someone’s in Trouble!, Walking the Boundaries, Above the
Fray, and Engineering! Or she can just focus on her interactions
with the Angel of Fortitude, the Wishing Boy (or Girl), or the
Dream-Witch.
350 Quests
Adventure GET
20 or 35 XP Quest
1:
4:
You’re on an adventure!
It can be sucky. Like, you could be poisoned. Or
people could be dying. But you’re still all dazzled by
the newness and interest value of it all. It could be
Quests
scary. It could be traumatizing. But it’s an adventure!
Adventure GET
Major Goals
XP
ŭŭ ...trouble starts or gets much worse in a well-staged way—
whether that’s accidentally walking backwards into an enemy
camp, breaking into a supposedly empty manor during what turns
out to be a dinner party, or declaring that everything’s fine as long
show up.
ŭŭ ...someone rescues you.
Quest Flavor
ŭŭ ...sneak into somewhere you shouldn’t go.

ŭŭ ...risk trouble by digging into somebody’s secrets.
ŭŭ ...drag others into your affairs/arrange their lives
for them.
ŭŭ ...propose a theory about the underlying situation you’re in.
ŭŭ ...tell someone a story related to the underlying situation
you’re in.
ŭŭ ...get into trouble trying to help somebody else.
ŭŭ ...risk trouble in the name of adventure!
Quests 351
Adventure GET
(Simplified)
XP
Major Goals
3
ŭŭ ...trouble starts or gets much worse in a well-staged way—whether
that’s accidentally walking backwards into an enemy camp,
breaking into a supposedly empty manor during what turns out
to be a dinner party, or declaring that everything’s fine as long
show up.
Quest Flavor
ŭŭ ...discover a secret.
ŭŭ ...express your boredom and interest in adventure.
ŭŭ ...drag someone somewhere they really shouldn’t be.
ŭŭ ...whatever trouble’s been dogging you shows up and/
or escalates.
352 Quests
Let’s Doing!
20 or 35 XP Quest
2:
3:
The problem here is pretty massive, pretty complicated,
pretty big. You’re going to try to bull through it with
sheer can-do gumption anyhow.
Let’s doing!
Quests
Let’s Doing!
Major Goals XP
ŭŭ ...you meet a new antagonist, ally, or romantic interest (as des-
ignated by destiny/the HG—if someone unexpectedly becomes
something like that, it may or may not count).
ŭŭ ...you discover a previously unseen shard of the glass dragon, or
major new feature of one you’d seen before.
ŭŭ ...three weeks/chapters pass without obvious IC progress on this
quest (that is, whatever problem you’re trying to solve gets no
closer to being solved).
Quest Flavor
ŭŭ ...narrate Rinley’s impression of a PC, Main Character,
Arc-related NPC, labyrinth, high place, or key location for the Arc,
as if explaining them to a reader or video game player; you may
do this IC or, if nobody minds, suspend play for a moment and do
it OOC.
ŭŭ ...drag other Main Characters into your quest-related
activities/investigations.
ŭŭ ...grandstand about your reasons for being on this quest.
ŭŭ ...talk with somebody about your dreams for the future.
ŭŭ ...talk with somebody about death.
ŭŭ ...get hurt emotionally by somebody somehow involved in the
story of this Arc.
Quests 353
Let’s Doing!
(Simplified)
XP
Major Goals
ŭŭ ...you’ve met, or seen, all the key players in this Arc.
ŭŭ ...you discover a previously unseen shard of the glass dragon, or
3
major new feature of one you’d seen before.
Quest Flavor
the wrong.
ŭŭ ...proposing new theories about the subject of your investiga-
tion or calling—the Outside, the glass dragon, or whatever else.
your investigations/plans.
ŭŭ ...reluctantly allowing yourself to be dragged away
from them.
354 Quests
Labyrinth Diving
25 or 35 XP Quest The metaphorical aspect is probably just going to
2: come into play with the way that your life stays maze-
like even when you’re not physically exploring a convo-
3: luted place—that even if you’re only actually in a maze
5: for like a few weeks total over the course of a season, it
feels like the labyrinth shadows the entire game.
You’ve got a labyrinth to take on.
Oh, sure, this can be metaphorical. You can navigate
Quests
a maze of “social entanglement and cross purposes” or
a labyrinthine mystery.
But you’re probably actually taking on a literal,
actual maze.
Labyrinth Diving
XP
Major Goals
ŭŭ ...you find or gain access to a major inventory, map, survey, or
other exploration of the territory at hand.
ŭŭ ...you’re recruited or asked for help by what had previously
seemed to be a rival, enemy, opposing force, or even oppressor.
ŭŭ ...you find a hidden creek, flow, or spring of pure or
untainted water.
Quest Flavor
Once per week, you can earn a bonus XP towards this quest when you...
ŭŭ ...write off some portion of the situation as a loss, and trash/
seal it.
ŭŭ ...imprison someone or something.
ŭŭ ...call upon some terrifying or mysterious power con-
nected somehow to the Arc.
ŭŭ ...present yourself to “your public” in a dramatic pose for
admiration; put on airs.
ŭŭ ...declare what must be done.
ŭŭ ...feed a stray cat.
Quests 355
Labyrinth Diving
(Simplified)
XP
Major Goals
ŭŭ ...you complete a major inventory, map, survey, or other explora-
tion of the territory (often dream- or dream-like territory) at hand.
ŭŭ ...you make a friend in an unexpected place.
Quest Flavor
3 1/chapter, you can earn a bonus XP towards this quest when you...
ŭŭ
ŭŭ
...hang out near a fountain or water feature.
...eat with someone strange in a literal or metaphorical cave.
ŭŭ ...catalogue or explore the territory at hand.
ŭŭ ...are penned in somewhere by rain.
ŭŭ ...bear witness to strange visions.
Climbing the Sacred Mountain

(Simplified)
XP
Major Goals
ŭŭ ...you release some guilt or burden that had been weighing
you down.
ŭŭ ...you’ve reached a “landing” (a place to stop and catch your
breath) on an arduous and metaphorically “upwards” journey.
ŭŭ ...you are struck by an insight or revelation that
changes everything.
Quest Flavor
ŭŭ ...rise above some element of your situation.
ŭŭ ...stare out at an amazing vista.
ŭŭ ...talk about something bad that’s happened to you.
ŭŭ ...talk, while feverish, to a bird, bird-like person, or bird-
like entity.
ŭŭ ...struggle with sickness, weakness, rough environmental
conditions, and your own frailty.
356 Quests
25 or 35 XP Quest This probably doesn’t involve a literal ascent—there
3: just aren’t enough things in Fortitude or for that matter
Town that can take an entire quest to climb. (Climbing
4: to Celestia in a game with sufficiently fast-paced chap-
5: ters might come close.)
That said, there’s often a literal ascent deeply sym-
You ascend towards some personal victory bolically connected to this quest.
or enlightenment. You’ll be in its shadow, or climbing it, or thinking
Quests
about it, quite a lot.
XP
Major Goals
ŭŭ ...you release some guilt or burden that had been weighing
you down.
ŭŭ ...you struggle alone on an arduous and metaphorically “upwards”
journey.
ŭŭ ...the wind knocks you from a height.
ŭŭ ...you are struck by an insight or revelation that
changes everything.
You can earn up to three of these bonuses, for a total of 15 XP.
Quest Flavor
ŭŭ ...hunt desperately for solutions.
ŭŭ ...stagger on despite a wasting illness.
ŭŭ ...rise above/conquer some element of your situation.
ŭŭ ...show someone an amazing view or vista.
ŭŭ ...admire a distant bird, ornithopter, or zeppelin.
ŭŭ ...see the sun break through the clouds.
ŭŭ ...learn what it is that must be done.
Quests 357
Down
35 or 45 XP Quest
1:
4:
5:
This quest is your descent into the underworld. This is a

scary time in your life, when you have to face difficult
3
truths and deal with painful things. At the end things
can be good, but not during.
During—
—they can get very bad.
Down
(Simplified)
XP
Major Goals
ŭŭ ...you visit a throne room and stand before a seated (e.g.) King
or Queen.
ŭŭ ...you’re sent into an underworld, be it basement, cave, oubliette,
dungeon, or literal world of the dead.
ŭŭ ...you’re hung on a hook, crucified, tied to a wall, suspended by
telekinesis, used as a scarecrow, or otherwise imprisoned or bound
above the ground. Agony is optional (you could be in a canvas
sack that is hung from a hook, or stage-show-style crucified);
suspension and imprisonment are not.
Quest Flavor
ŭŭ ...you have to abandon something precious, leaving
it behind.
ŭŭ ...you’re lost.
ŭŭ ...you’re thirsty.
ŭŭ ...you encounter the dead.
ŭŭ ...you share a meal with someone while sitting on
cracked stones.
358 Quests
Down
(Simplified)
XP
Major Goals
Quests
ŭŭ ...you watch somebody die. It can be an animal but only if it’s
emotionally affecting (brutal, or an animal you cared about).
ŭŭ ...you get into a fight with someone you care about.
ŭŭ ...you break down from grief or shock.
ŭŭ ...you get really, viscerally sick—it’s either life-threatening or
really gross. You don’t have to nauseate squeamish players by
going into the sickness itself but you do have to play up the toll it
takes on you.
Quest Flavor
ŭŭ ...talk with someone about someone or something you’ve lost.
ŭŭ ...hug a large animal, e.g., a deer.
ŭŭ ...walk with the Headmaster of the Bleak Academy.
ŭŭ ...wander in a daze.
ŭŭ ...you can’t eat or drink, or can’t keep something down.
ŭŭ ...you fall apart a little, skipping your usual hygiene/
self-maintenance tasks.
ŭŭ ...wander a graveyard or at the edge of a cliff.
ŭŭ ...lock yourself in a bathroom.
ŭŭ ...self-harm.
Quests 359
Literary Medal-Bait:
the Heartwarming, Heart-Rending
Coming-of-Age Stories of
Natalia Koutolika
These quests form a generic structure for the Arcs of And then, if you need a bit more XP or closure, one
the Prodigy, and any other character struggling to or both of:
3
come of age in a troubled, shadowed world.
They’re also the generic quest structure for those ŭŭ Action! An epic fight with a giant monster or
who choose to help the Child of the Sun. conspiracy or something.
The order of these quests will depend a little on what ŭŭ Coming to Grips with Death. You spend a while
you’re doing—for instance, as a Knight Arc, it’ll start facing death, grief, or some kind of troublesome
with a friendship and end with a big epic challenge, but situation that’s a metaphor for one of those things.
as a Shepherd Arc it’s going to contextualize both ends
of that story with a focus on other stuff—but the ref- Let’s look at the quests!
erence version of this Arc, the standard coming-of-age
Arc, is an Aspect Arc.
It goes like this:
ŭŭ A Troubled Protagonist. You struggle to recover

from or push past some deal.
ŭŭ An Unlikely Friendship. You meet someone who
broadens your perspective.
ŭŭ Your Social Burdens. People have weird expec-
tations of you.
360 Quests
A Troubled Protagonist
20 or 35 XP Quest You’ve got something going on with you.
1: You have a deal.
2:
You’re messed up. There’s something you just can’t
get over. There’s something you just can’t get past. It’s
like you’re under a cloud. It’s like you’re wearing steel
shoes and a backpack full of lead.
Quests
Bonus XP XP
This quest comes with a psychological or social burden—a private
cross to bear. Pick the sign associated with your Arc or some close rel-
ative thereof; you may wish to keep it around even after completing
the quest.
The emotion or social position on the sign represents a feeling or state
that gives you trouble. You can earn a bonus XP at any time (though only
once per 15 minutes/scene) by expressing that emotion—normally, by
holding up the sign.
The back side of the sign reminds you of your flaws. If you’re not
playing in a place where you can actually hold up the sign, it’s OK to
just remind yourself quietly of what it says, or, if you must, ignore the
back side in its entirety.
What’s your sign?
Quests 361
(Variant)
Bonus XP XP
This quest comes with a division of states—there’s the normal, beat-
down you, and then there’s the you who’s starting to brighten up or
change under the influence of the spiritual forces in Town.
Normally you’ll pick an Arc-appropriate sign for this—a reversible
card, which you could in theory have on the table in front of you in play
to show which state you’re in.
3 You can earn a bonus XP at any time (though only once per scene/15
states—that your ordinary world has been disrupted by a spiritual thought
or experience. If you can’t actually keep the card in front of you, holding
up the card with the relevant side facing people or just saying or emoting
something appropriate can earn you the XP instead.
You’ll normally use this version of the quest for a Spring Arc and the
normal version for a Winter Arc, but you can swap them around or use
them for other things if you think you’ve found or created an appropriate
sign.
“The Frozen Heart” / “Flowers in the Ice”

Winter 0-1
(I’m) Touched This Will End In Pain.
Why is it so hard to breathe?

I Trust You Why does everything
look so dark?
“The Miracle” / “The Pleasure Ship”

Sun 0-1
A Lost Soul A Witness to Beauty
362 Quests
Permafrost
Winter 2
I Like You Don’t Get Too Close
Don’t Remember
Laugh/You’re Funny the Bodies
“Sorrows’ Week”
Sun 2
Afraid, Uncertain Someone Believes in Me
Thinking of the
Ordinary Life Death of the Sun
Thin Ice
Winter 3
I’m Pretty Cool ;) Arrogant little snots just die.
Progress! Just a little more…

“The Hole in the World”
Sun 3
Confident Abandoned/Betrayed
3 Ordinary Life
Thinking of the
Bleak Academy
Yet We Go On
Winter 4
??? I need the page reference

Calm for this one. ???
Cool …it’s all an act.
364 Quests
“The Hollow Sky”
Sun 4
Ordinary Person I Will Be Your Light
Quests
Thinking about
Ordinary Life Miracles
The Science of Dissolution

Drowning 4
Everybody dies. Everybody

Calm just… keeps… dying.
There’s a certain hollow deadness,

I think, in the refusal to consider
The World is Kind the suffering of those outside
your reality’s bounds.
Quests 365
An Unlikely Friendship
(Simplified)
Bonus XP XP
This quest comes with a division of states—there’s you, as who you
usually are; and then there’s the you when you’re with your friend, or
when that side of you comes out at another time.
3
states—that you’re thinking your friend’s way, or your own.
This quest usually runs 20 XP, but you can push it a little further if it
seems right.
The Me I Am The Me They See
20+ or 45 XP Quest For instance, if you’re on an Aspect Arc, this is
1: about the perspective they give you on the stuff already
going on in your life, and it ends when it leads you to a
2: meaningful insight. If you’re on a Mystic Arc, then it’s
3: more important that they’re an “enemy” of a sort, and
yet they’re a better friend to you than the powers and
This quest is the story of your friendship with someone principles that you try to serve.
who helps stabilize you and your life—someone who is If there’s no obvious choice for this “unlikely friend,”
your opposite in a lot of ways, but whose perspective or even if there is, you can spend time with a few dif-
keeps you balanced. ferent people—candidates, as it were, including PCs,
The specific story that’s being told will depend on the important NPCs, and random NPCs—before deciding
Arc you’re on. who the quest’s unlikely friend will be. I’m expecting
this to be a common thing to do in the first few chapters
of the quest.
366 Quests
XP
Major Goals
ŭŭ ...you identify/choose the “unlikely friend” for this Arc.
ŭŭ ...you fall, and your friend either pushed you or tries and fails to
catch you.
Quests
ŭŭ ...your friend picks up a baby, cat, or small animal and panics
because they don’t know what to do next.
ŭŭ ...your friend betrays some duty out of loyalty to you—usually,
quietly, and just before walking away.
Quest Flavor
ŭŭ ...meet your friend while riding, or go riding with them, on
an awesome mount or vehicle—ideally, a flying manta ray of
some sort.
ŭŭ ...have formal or at least fancy teatime with your friend.
ŭŭ ...spend time with a new possibility to be the “unlikely
friend” for this Arc.
ŭŭ ...try tempting your friend or a possible friend out of
their shell.
ŭŭ ...investigate something with your friend or possible
friend, often in a library.
ŭŭ ...urge your friend to climb up to you (presumably, you
are physically higher).
ŭŭ ...hang out with your friend on/around great expanses of
bare stone.
ŭŭ ...become dumbstruck by your friend’s attempt at impres-
sive clothing and style.
ŭŭ ...have a serious conflict of interest with your friend.
Quests 367
Your Social Burdens
20 or 35 XP Quest You’re surrounded by all these social games and
2: events and stuff. You don’t understand what it’ll take
to make your romantic interest happy and discourage
3: other people interested in you. You keep getting asked
In this quest, you’re in this headspace of— to do these events and stuff to make parents or friends
Just wanting to focus on what’s important. Just or whatever happy. People keep wanting you to declare
wanting it to be simple to deal with people. loyalty here and take sides there, handle formalities
But it’s not. smoothly here and keep people happy there—
3
It’s all ridiculous, foolish stuff!
The worst of it is probably the formal clothing. I
mean, seriously. Why would anyone wear that?
Your Social Burdens
Major Goals XP
ŭŭ ...you’re unexpectedly drawn to somebody—you didn’t think you
even liked them, but it’s magnetic!
ŭŭ ...someone expresses completely baffling expectations of you.
ŭŭ ...you have an unexpected suitor.
Quest Flavor
ŭŭ ...model formal or ridiculous clothing for friends, family,
or an instructor/guide.
ŭŭ ...leave your calling card or visiting card with someone.
ŭŭ ...pace during a conversation at a coffeeshop or
pancake house.
ŭŭ ...refuse, or try to refuse, to dance with somebody.
ŭŭ ...converse in an alley, leaning against the wall or sitting
on a dumpster edge.
ŭŭ ...sort through paperwork or invitations at a desk.
ŭŭ ...get into a fight or trouble while way overdressed.
368 Quests
Your Social Burdens
(Simplified)
Major Goals XP
ŭŭ ...you’re torn between two romances, two teams, two great friend-
ships, or two loyalties.
Quests
ŭŭ ...you ignore a lecture from an authority figure or the excited
storytelling of a friend because it’s all just foolishness.
ŭŭ ...you have an unexpected suitor.
10 XP.
Quest Flavor
Once per week, you can earn a bonus XP towards this quest when you...
ŭŭ ...are interrupted while working because there’s some-
where you have to be.
ŭŭ ...experience a montage of letters, dances, calling cards,
and people dragging you places.
ŭŭ ...debut dazzlingly somewhere.
ŭŭ ...are hugged so hard you can’t breathe.
ŭŭ ...try to conduct a fight, pull off a heist, or face big
trouble surreptitiously so as not to alarm the people of the party or
event you’re at.
Quests 369
Action!
25 or 40 XP Quest A spirit that swallowed you into a pocket world in its
4: stomach, or burgeoned out to fill the world?
P.S. Kick its butt!
5:
In this quest, you fight a god-like, amorphous being
or conspiracy that seems able to manifest in or control
practically everything around you.
Are you struggling against incarnate death?
3
A shapeless god?
An all-powerful conspiracy?
Action!
Major Goals XP
ŭŭ ...there’s nowhere to run! (Not only are limbs, tendrils, soldiers,
or whatever bursting out from all around you, but there’s nowhere
closer than several minutes of travel that’s safe.)
ŭŭ ...you drag some limb or minion of the enemy out of the shadows.
ŭŭ ...you listen to a shockingly off-kilter rant from someone you
care about.
ŭŭ ...the world freezes over or stops, as under crystal or glass.
Quest Flavor
ŭŭ ...you create something amazing for use in this battle.
ŭŭ ...the world goes distorted and weird—space bulges or
looms in around you.
ŭŭ ...your vision fades in and out.
ŭŭ ...you stagger through a high-contrast location (e.g. a
dark dirt road in snow).
ŭŭ ...you’re tormented by the whispering or other noise your
enemy makes.
ŭŭ ...some job takes a lot longer than you expected—often right
to the last second.
ŭŭ ...you put on a badass longcoat or other “hero outfit.”
ŭŭ ...bugs seethe.
370 Quests
Action!
(Simplified)
Major Goals
XP
ŭŭ ...there’s nowhere to run! (Not only are limbs, tendrils, soldiers,
or whatever bursting out from all around you, but there’s nowhere
Quests
closer than several minutes of travel that’s safe.)
ŭŭ ...the enemy has infiltrated or is waiting somewhere you thought
was safe.
ŭŭ ...a friend is mind-controlled by the enemy.
10 XP.
Quest Flavor
ŭŭ ...you reveal a new weapon, technique, or device.
ŭŭ ...you put on a badass longcoat or other “hero outfit.”
ŭŭ ...the world starts melting around you.
ŭŭ ...you flee just ahead of explosion, implosion,
or destruction.
ŭŭ ...you’re feverish or sick.
Quests 371
Coming to Grips with Death
20 or 35 XP Quest
4:
5:
Something bad has happened. It’s hard to understand.
It’s hard to deal with.
You’re trying but it’s like you’re wandering lonely,
twilit hills, and where a cold wind blows.
3
XP
Major Goals
ŭŭ ...you change the world.
ŭŭ ...you make a friend. An amazing friend, in the most unex-
pected place.
ŭŭ ...someone tries to win you over to “the other side”—they take on
the role of parent, mentor, older sibling, or romantic interest, and
try to persuade you that what you think of as loyalty or purpose
is just you clinging to things that hurt you; that they want to offer
you a safer, better home.
Quest Flavor
ŭŭ ...you stay up all night walking.
ŭŭ ...you discover a beetle or tick climbing on you.
ŭŭ ...your clothes are in rags.
ŭŭ ...you notice a scarab symbol in your living quarters
or dreams.
ŭŭ ...you revert to the behavior or social position of
someone younger.
ŭŭ ...you’re having trouble seeing.
ŭŭ ...somebody is trying to change you; you have trouble fighting
it off, trouble keeping your thoughts your own.
372 Quests
(Simplified)
Major Goals
XP
Quests
ŭŭ ...you receive some honor or distinction.
ŭŭ ...you invite someone you’ve scarcely met to join you on
an adventure.
Quest Flavor
ŭŭ ...somebody helps you pull yourself together.
ŭŭ ...you stare aimlessly at somebody’s grave or sickbed.
ŭŭ ...you watch a bug of some sort fly away.
ŭŭ ...you wander, lost.
Quests 373
The Heroic Journeys of
the Child of the Sun
These quests form a generic structure for the Arcs of You can do the quests in a couple of different
the Child of the Sun, and any other character whose orders, depending on why you’re transcending and how
story focuses on their cosmic role, destiny, and power it fits into your life—for instance, a Knight Arc is more
to transcend who they currently are. likely to establish your “normal” life before it gets into
They’re also the generic quests for interacting with the matter of your cosmic role and destiny—but the
the Prodigy, wherein you’re a kind of... mentor or reference version of these quests is an Otherworldly or
3
guardian spirit to them, meant to see them through Mystic Arc, and it goes like this:
their struggles and shelter them from despair. To be
their moral touchstone, healer/buffer, patron deity, and ŭŭ Changes. Something is changing in your life, but
guardian angel— you’re not sure exactly what.
Concerned more with protecting their spirit and their ŭŭ The Refusal of the Call. You try to take a way
hopes, of course, than their body, since they’re prob- out, but it blows up on you.
ably scarier in a physical fight than you.
Changes
(Simplified)
XP
Major Goals
ŭŭ ...there’s a scene where people are disapproving or bland but most
importantly unphased by your showing up with extra limbs or
unusual physical alterations, e.g., a disdainful “Oh, that’s just like
you to have those tentacles” or “Acne! Nobody told me we were
supposed to have acne today! (muttered) Showoff.”
ŭŭ ...you meet Death, the Headmaster of the Bleak Academy, or
some other feared personage, but because you’re delirious or have
reason to believe that it’s just somebody dressed as them, you have
a pleasant chat instead of anything else.
Quest Flavor
1/chapter, you can earn a bonus XP towards this quest from...
ŭŭ ...dreaming of merging with a great and branching tree.
ŭŭ ...uncontrolled shapeshifting, possibly in a dream/imagi-
nation spot.
ŭŭ ...being surrounded by dancing shadows (again, possibly
in a dream).
ŭŭ ...noticing some weird mark or change in your body.
374 Quests
ŭŭ The Belly of the Whale. You’re separated ŭŭ The Trials of the Sun. The cosmos has fallen out
from your normal life, threatened, and at risk of of order; you struggle to fix it.
being transformed. ŭŭ Apotheosis. You become something more than
Then, if you need more XP or closure: you had been.
Changes
25 or 35 XP Quest
1:
Quests
2:
Some big change is coming to you or someone near
you. The world, or your body, or your soul, or that of a
friend—it’s shifting into a different state.
Changes
XP
Major Goals
play, where your reality gets weird because your true nature is
changing or revealing itself.
someone else’s death.
their way.
Quest Flavor
make you act unnaturally.
ŭŭ ...trying and failing to burn things, to light them on fire.
ŭŭ ...getting confused about who and where you are.
Irinka died.
it means.
as death.
ŭŭ ...dealing with acne, braces, your period, ear infections,
or other annoyingly intrusive elements of physicality.
Quests 375
The Refusal of the Call
20 or 35 XP Quest
1:
2:
3:
You struggle to find a way out of the situation you’re

in. You look for help. It’s not necessarily that you don’t
3
want to move forward—
Often that’s the problem. But other times you’re OK
with moving forward; it’s just that you want to have
a choice.
You want to move forward along the path you’re on,
but you don’t trust it and you really want to keep your
distance and be able to turn away.
Major Goals XP
ŭŭ ...you accept, or at least are clearly tempted by, someone’s offer to
help you fight off/resist your destiny.
ŭŭ ...you stand in the shadow of an enemy’s fortress or cathedral.
ŭŭ ...you give yourself into someone else’s hands, making yourself
terrifyingly vulnerable either physically or emotionally.
Quest Flavor
ŭŭ ...talking with someone about the principles that are the most
important to you.
ŭŭ ...describing yourself as a helpless pawn of fate.
ŭŭ ...wondering if you’re actually good or evil.
ŭŭ ...trying to replace or repair torn clothing on a
tight budget.
ŭŭ ...you’re overburdened—you work too hard, and with
too little.
ŭŭ ...you get confused about who and where you are.
ŭŭ ...fretting over whether you’re actually on the wrong side.
376 Quests
(Simplified)
XP
Major Goals
ŭŭ ...you build or show a strong emotional bond to an “opposite
number”—someone working at cross purposes to what you
will become.
Quests
ŭŭ ...they offer to help you but you have to turn them down.
Quest Flavor
ŭŭ ...pleading with an enemy to understand you.
ŭŭ ...exploring and having fun.
ŭŭ ...a phone rings but isn’t answered.
ŭŭ ...someone helps you while you’re throwing up (from
overwork? Sickness? Drinking?).
Quests 377
The Belly of the Whale
20+ or 45 XP Quest You’re out on a limb. You’re like somebody at a con-
2: vention without money or a room to stay in, or someone
treading water in the middle of the sea. You’re like
3: someone lost in an amazing mansion or like somebody
You’ve been swallowed up by literal or metaphorical trapped in a spooky woods. The defining characteristic
chaos. You’re not always in active danger, but you isn’t how bad things get, though they can get very bad;
don’t really have a “normal” state to go back to— it’s that you don’t have any compass, any map, or any-
where reachable and solid to go.
3
Major Goals XP
ŭŭ ...you have a profound spiritual experience where you seem to
blend into the world around you.
ŭŭ ...you’re trapped.
ŭŭ ...you defeat an “opposite number” or rival, only to have a scarier
enemy or problem arise.
ŭŭ ...you’re rescued by somebody
ŭŭ ...you rescue somebody else.
You can earn up to four of these bonuses, for a total of 20 XP.
Quest Flavor
ŭŭ ...you stand barefoot in a high place, looking down at
the world.
ŭŭ ...you get stabbed through the torso, possibly in a dream/
imagination spot.
ŭŭ ...your hair grows in real-time, possibly in a dream/
imagination spot.
ŭŭ ...you bring light in the darkness.
ŭŭ ...you comfort someone.
ŭŭ ...you sit by the water eating fried fish with one or
more friends.
ŭŭ ...birds cluster around you.
ŭŭ ...you manage a contemplative moment between trouble-
some circumstances.
378 Quests
(Simplified)
XP
Bonus XP
This quest takes place in a context where you’re out of your element,
where you’re transforming or being transformed into something else.
per scene/15 minutes) by proposing a theory about what will happen
Quests
to you.
Your character must propose the theory aloud or, at minimum, in their
official internal narration—it can’t just be you, as the player, at the table,
it has to be IC.

(Simplified, Variant)
XP
Bonus XP
You’re dissociating from reality.
You are dissolving into these places that you find yourself in. You are
awakening a strange new self inside. Everything is turning into teeth and
rivers inside you.
Something is being born.
once per scene/15 minutes) by declaring that you can feel the touch of
the impending miracle upon you—you can phrase it another way; just
give some indication that you’re triggering this quest condition—and
then free-associating for a few moments about what your character is
experiencing, feeling, thinking.
Talk about being cold, or warm; talk about visions; whatever. Flare up
the light in you. Cut your teeth on cold. Have a greenness stuck in your
mouth, somewhere, ugly, stopping up your tongue as you try to pry it
loose. That kind of hing. That brings you in a bonus XP for this quest.
Quests 379
The Trials of the Sun
25 or 35 XP Quest
4:
You’re losing sight of yourself. You’re being pushed

so hard by internal and external factors that you can’t
maintain a solid picture of who you are.
There’s no spare energy for it.
You don’t have time for it.
3
It’s all in flux.
Major Goals XP
ŭŭ ...you reclaim a lost legacy of a parent or mentor.
ŭŭ ...you humble some enemy, bending them completely to your will.
ŭŭ ...you unleash, or are taken over by, a bleak power.
Quest Flavor
ŭŭ ...your hands/arms sprout bladed vines, possibly in a
dream/imagination spot.
ŭŭ ... you merge with/devour someone else, possibly in a dream/
imagination spot.
ŭŭ ...you experiment with powers that you shouldn’t.
ŭŭ ...you assert your power or your destiny.
ŭŭ ...you talk about your sense that there’s a hole in
the world.
ŭŭ ...you wander in the dark, remembering some grief
or loss.
ŭŭ ...you use an elaborate, magical-looking key.
380 Quests
(Simplified)
Major Goals XP
ŭŭ ...you build a model, duplicate, icon, or eidolon of yourself.
ŭŭ ...someone else tells the story of how you lost or damaged some
potential you once had.
Quests
ŭŭ ...someone realizes that they were afraid of you for all the wrong
reasons. (It’s OK for them to wind up more afraid, less afraid, or
about the same, as long as the reasons change.)
Quest Flavor
ŭŭ ...you transcend or apotheosize in some fashion.
ŭŭ ...you or your player give a monologue about the nature
of your power.
ŭŭ ...you propose an enemy’s fate.
ŭŭ ...you commune with an angel or the holy part of
your nature.
ŭŭ ...you perform some sacred chore (e.g. feeding a
holy fire).
Special Note!
If the game and your powers don’t support literal apotheosis/
angels, handle these things as a spiritual effect—intangible and only
sort of visible, but nevertheless “real” for purposes of the scene.
Quests 381
Apotheosis
20 or 40 XP Quest
5:
This is your chance to meet, and become, your

new yourself.
Apotheosis
3
XP
Major Goals
ŭŭ ...hold a representation of the sacred eternal—a philosopher’s
stone, an elixir of immortality, a key to the world—in your hands.
ŭŭ ...return to where you started the game or the Arc, find it ruined or
damaged, and rebuild/repair it.
ŭŭ ...meet something that could be considered “the other half”
of yourself.
ŭŭ ...witness an eclipse.
ŭŭ ...swallow a lizard, enemy, or ally spirit whole.
You can earn up to four of these bonuses, once each, for a total of
20 XP.
Quest Flavor
ŭŭ ...can’t find water.
ŭŭ ...fix something broken or unwhole.
ŭŭ ...eat hot cross buns or melon pan.
ŭŭ ...guide someone else through a long journey or struggle.
ŭŭ ...dig up someone frozen and rescue them, possibly in a
dream/imagination spot.
ŭŭ ...grow a new mouth or eye, possibly in a dream/imagina-
tion spot.
ŭŭ ...merge with a book of some sort, possibly in a dream/
imagination spot.
ŭŭ ...pass through the gates of the Bleak Academy.
382 Quests
Apotheosis
(Simplified)
Major Goals XP
ŭŭ ...wander strange, misty landscapes.
ŭŭ ...stare at a living creature frozen in or behind some sort of crystal.
ŭŭ ...release light from or open an eye in your forehead.
Quests
10 XP.
Quest Flavor
ŭŭ ...shatter an enemy’s weapon barehanded.
ŭŭ ...possess or infiltrate an enemy or place with your spirit/
energy.
ŭŭ ...fight imaginary enemies, hallucinatory enemies, spirits,
or shadows.
ŭŭ ...talk to people about your dreams for the future.
ŭŭ ...call upon one of your big powers in a dramatic fashion.
Quests 383
The Numinous Gardens
of Entropy II, Magister
These quests form a generic structure for the Arcs
of the Angel of Fortitude, and also any character with
a relatively placid and accepting relationship to the
The Binder’s Path
If you’re on a Bindings Arc, these quests look
magic in their life—
more like:
Characters whose default genre is magic realism or
moral/spiritual allegory.
ŭŭ The Sidekick. You become responsible for a
3
These quests are also the default structure for
new “wicked” pet or sidekick.
meddling in the life of the Best Friend—they’re the
ŭŭ Sins of the Father. Then, confront some legacy
structure for stories about Seizhi (or Suzy) and their
of the first Principal Entropy.
ontological dilemma.
ŭŭ Surreal Environments. Then venture out of
The default path through these quests is a
your comfort zone.
Shepherd Arc, and it looks like this:
Followed, optionally, by:

ŭŭ The Story of Your Life. You work on your
established projects.
ŭŭ Triumph. You set your mark on destiny.
ŭŭ The Sidekick. You become responsible for a
ŭŭ The Story of Your Life. And then we fade back
new pet or sidekick, and usually a larger social
to your “normal” life to explore what that means.
responsibility as well. (That is, for some reason,
taking charge of them is or leads to a political or
theological or mercantile act.)
ŭŭ Sins of the Father. You confront some legacy of
the first Principal Entropy—e.g., one of the “Six
Sins” of the Student Council or some out-of-con-
trol element of the evil world.
If you’re in need of more XP or closure, the Arc can
go one or two quests past that:
ŭŭ Surreal Environments. You go out of
your comfort zone—into a surreal or styl-
ized environment.
ŭŭ Triumph. You have fun doing amazing stuff and
making the world better.
384 Quests
These Stories, as Training An Emptiness Arc
If you’re interested in an Aspect Arc, you’ll want to do As an Emptiness Arc, these look more like this:
these more or less like this:
ŭŭ The Story of Your Life. You work on your
ŭŭ The Story of Your Life. You’re pretty cool, but established projects, but you can’t help feeling
you’re limited. You’re caught in a kind of trap— like your life is missing something or has gone
until, finally, you push past it and grow. wrong somehow. You decide to accept responsi-
ŭŭ Triumph. You become something more, and bility for the sidekick of Quest 2—
form an important bond/connection. ŭŭ The Sidekick. —but if anything you wind up
ŭŭ Sins of the Father. This leads you into an inevi- feeling more out of place and like your old life
Quests
table confrontation with one of the Six Sins, but was more wrong. Their perspective doesn’t make
this Arc in particular emphasizes the troubled, you happier about yourself.
kind of social relationship between you—they’re ŭŭ Surreal Environments. So you change things,
frenemies, useful rivals, fellow outcasts with but this leaves you in a weird, surreal, and
much in common with you, or whatever, not troublesome place—like, I guess, all big life
mortal foes. changes do!
Followed, optionally, by: Followed, optionally, by:
ŭŭ The Sidekick. You meet someone who’s in ŭŭ Sins of the Father. You confront some legacy of
really big trouble and you have to wrestle the first Principal Entropy—e.g., one of the “Six
with a divine being or something, whatever, to Sins” of the Student Council or some out-of-con-
save them. trol element of the evil world.
ŭŭ Surreal Environments. You get lost in a weird ŭŭ Triumph. You find your new balance and make
place. everything better.
Quests 385
The Story of Your Life
20 or 35 XP Quest
1:
5:
You’re working—probably on a big project. Something
that matters.
You’re living your life.
Look ahead a bit to see where this quest ends—unless
3
it’s the end of the campaign, in which case you can fade
off into the metaphorical sunset, this quest is going to
end with the thing that breaks the comfortable, ordi-
nary routines of your life, which is normally the next
big quest in this or some other Arc.
XP
Major Goals
of work.
ŭŭ ...you have a vision of magic in some thing, place, person, or
work, which you might one day be able to bring out.
Quest Flavor
for you.
ŭŭ ...working, involving slightly larger-than-life or
magical incidents.
ŭŭ ...working, involving simple, honest effort.
ŭŭ ...talking about your progress on some project and its positive
or negative effects on the local environment.
386 Quests
(Simplified)
XP
Major Goals
ŭŭ ...you have a relatively peaceful week or two.
ŭŭ ...you receive a kindness.
ŭŭ ...you have a chance to use your powers, skills, and associates to
Quests
help out somebody in trouble.
10 XP.
Quest Flavor
ŭŭ ...horrors, spirits, and other abnormalities gather to watch you
at your work.
ŭŭ ...you want to work, but you don’t have the right tools/
environment.
ŭŭ ...you show up in a goofy fashion in the middle of
someone else’s scene.
ŭŭ ...you get pushed into things (e.g., onto a stage by a
friend, forward by the wind, into a pool).
ŭŭ ...you find yourself in the presence of pie, cakes, and
candy canes.
ŭŭ ...you win with a scratch-off lottery ticket.
Quests 387
The Sidekick
20 or 35 XP Quest ŭŭ There’s something you’re asked to do, and the
1: sidekick or pet comes with that.
ŭŭ You get a sidekick or pet, but taking responsibility
2: for them gets you entangled in larger affairs.
4: ŭŭ You try to turn down some big responsibility, and
get stuck with a kid or something that hangs out
This quest is marked and begun with the arrival of two around you trying to change your mind.
things: a responsibility, and a pet or fresh-faced side-
3
kick. One precedes the other, like so:
The Sidekick
(Simplified)
Major Goals
XP
ŭŭ ...things get harder and harder until you have a stress explosion
over these new responsibilities.
ŭŭ ...the sidekick or pet helps you in an unexpected way.
Quest Flavor
ŭŭ ...refusing to admit that you’ve taken to and taken
responsibility for, the pet/sidekick.
ŭŭ ...keeping the sidekick or pet out of trouble.
ŭŭ ...telling the sidekick or pet your problems.
ŭŭ ...foreshadowing, research into, or stories about the
sidekick or pet.
388 Quests
The Sidekick
Major Goals
XP
ŭŭ ...you’ve figured out a mysterious responsibility, or reluctantly
accepted a difficult one.
Quests
ŭŭ ...you’ve defended the sidekick or pet against some threat.
ŭŭ ...you’ve come up with and committed to a plan for how to deal
with the responsibility at hand.
Quest Flavor
ŭŭ ...the sidekick or pet getting into goofy trouble.
ŭŭ ...finding yourself stuck with responsibility for the
sidekick or pet.
ŭŭ ...chores involving voluntarily taking care of/helping the
sidekick or pet.
ŭŭ ...foreshadowing, research into, or stories about the
sidekick or pet.
ŭŭ ...talking with people about strange monsters
and horrors.
Quests 389
Sins of the Father
25 or 35 XP Quest That’s just some evil.
2: There was a lot more that fell out of the egg of evil’s
death than just the new Principal of School. The evil
3: world’s still up there, in its orbit around the sun. The old
4: Principal, the first Principal, he left his mark. And there
are the “Six Sins” of the Student Council, masked crea-
Evil broke. It cracked, like an egg, and among other tures of wickedness, alternatives to the Angel; they’re
things the Angel of Fortitude fell out. But not alone. not exactly evil, either, not all of them, but they are each
3
You could probably think of this as theology, of them most definitely bad.
you know? Some of them like serial killers, monsters, horrors bad.
We break our conception of the evil in the world, Others like puppies, that you’ve let roll around
and discover there’s a lot of good out there. Or at least in cotton candy, and now they’re sticky, unhappy,
a lot of stuff that’s misunderstood. But that isn’t all. I and gross.
mean, it’s not like everything that people think is evil is In this quest, anyway, you have to deal with one of
secretly puppies and cotton candy. these wicked legacies.
Sins of the Father
XP
Major Goals
ŭŭ ...you unravel a major plan of an enemy or contain a major threat.
ŭŭ ...someone dies or gets hurt.
ŭŭ ...people turn to you for help, even though they don’t trust you.
Quest Flavor
ŭŭ ...testing an idea on how to resolve the conflict.
ŭŭ ...arguing with someone about fate and free will.
ŭŭ ...social meetings or drinking (tea/sake) with
your enemies.
ŭŭ ...studying books or reports relevant to the matter at hand.
ŭŭ ...stumbling on evidence of your enemy or target at work.
ŭŭ ...spying on the enemy.
ŭŭ ...being sealed in somewhere by mindless action, e.g., by
a landslide, insects, spreading ice effects, bureaucracy, mind-con-
trol victims, or machines.
390 Quests
Sins of the Father
(Simplified)
XP
Major Goals
ŭŭ ...some enemy tries to take you out of play, often with a threat or
a bribe.
ŭŭ ...you have temporary amnesia, fall under a love spell, or other-
Quests
wise stop being yourself and living as yourself for a while.
ŭŭ ...you give yourself over to apparent death and destruction to save
something else, but wind up narrowly surviving or being saved
instead. (That is, that’s the F/X you use for the HG fiat, defensive
power, or use of the wound system that saves you.)
to 10 XP.
Quest Flavor
ŭŭ ...you do someone else’s job for them.
ŭŭ ...something throws a wrench into your plans.
ŭŭ ...you pick at a cold meal, alone, often eggs, toast,
and coffee.
ŭŭ ...you’re investigated or hunted by something evil.
ŭŭ ...you give a dramatic speech to your enemies.
Quests 391
Surreal Environments
25 or 40 XP Quest (Incidentally, if you’re wondering how to do that last
3: thing in a game with chapters longer than an hour or
two? Do most of the festival scenes as flash-forwards
4: or flashbacks, and structure the story accordingly; or,
5: have the festival environment infect your dreams and
keep recurring there.)
You’re spending time in a surreal or stylized environ-
ment—an adventure in the Outside, regular visits to
3
Bluebell Park, participation in a play, travel across the
Far Roofs, or a festival.
(Simplified)
Bonus XP
XP
You’re in a weird place or situation. It’s full of bizarre entities and
over-the-top goofiness.
In the end there’s nothing for it. You just have to live with it, don’t you?
You just say... well, whatever you say about this stuff.
ŭŭ “I’m just the gardener, you know,” maybe. Or—
ŭŭ “Of course that happens.”
ŭŭ “Is that really supposed to be there?”
Something like that. And you sigh, then, and you shake your head.
Or maybe there’s something you say to remind you that for all the
troubles in it the world’s still real:
ŭŭ “I have fingers.”
ŭŭ “Yare, yare.”
ŭŭ “Look at that sky.”
ŭŭ “It’s hot.” (Unreal people—they’re never hot. Are they?)
per scene/15 minutes) with your catchphrase—with that thing that you
say when why do I have to deal with these kinds of situations? is on
your mind.
What catch phrase do you use?
392 Quests
(Simplified)
Major Goals
XP
ŭŭ ...something happens that tests your character.
Quests
ŭŭ ...you articulate a good theory for where you’ve been going wrong
in your life and how you might do/have done better.
ŭŭ ...you receive a message (e.g. recorded instructions or a message in
a bottle) from Jade Irinka, who was the sun.
to 10 XP.
Quest Flavor
ŭŭ ...stories of the death of the sun and the first Principal Entropy.
ŭŭ ...marveling at the weirdness around you.
ŭŭ ...a scene where the sun flares up or does some-
thing weird.
ŭŭ ...hanging out with someone doomed or dying.
ŭŭ ...sketching diagrams in the dirt.
Quests 393
Triumph
25 or 40 XP Quest
2:
4:
5:
You’re a legend. You are awesome. This is the story

of you hanging out, being cool, and doing some-
3
thing amazing.
Triumph
XP
Major Goals
ŭŭ ...you finish a big project—with the possible exception of waiting
for the festival, solstice, assistant, opening day, or event that’ll let
you reveal it or power it up.
ŭŭ ...you recover something you’d thought lost forever.
ŭŭ ...you share a kiss with your romantic interest under some sort of
fireworks; or, you try for one, but are refused.
You can earn these bonuses once each, for a total of 15 XP.
Quest Flavor
ŭŭ ...talking about what you’re doing and what it
will accomplish.
ŭŭ ...dreaming of a happy future.
ŭŭ ...attending a wedding or a funeral.
ŭŭ ...sleepless nights.
ŭŭ ...testing your work, putting it through its paces.
ŭŭ ...montages of strange incidents of you at your work.
ŭŭ ...dragging people out for sandwiches, milkshakes, and/
or fried foods so you can be excited and happy about the project in
their direction.
394 Quests
Triumph
(Simplified)
XP
Major Goals
ŭŭ ...you give someone a sneak preview of a big project in a
near-completion stage.
ŭŭ ...you get a letter or package from an old friend.
Quests
ŭŭ ...you perform at a wedding.
to 10 XP.
Quest Flavor
ŭŭ ...bringing friends in to help you with your work.
ŭŭ ...sharing something wonderful.
ŭŭ ...demonstrating a marvel.
ŭŭ ...late nights of work and geeky conversation.
ŭŭ ...laughing in the face of apparent failure.
Quests 395
The Bittersweet Saga
of Miramie Mesmer
These quests form a generic structure for the Arcs of Any road, if you’re building, say, a Shepherd
anyone who is trying to come out of their shell— Arc, the quests’ll play out like these:
The Dream-Witch, in particular, but anyone who
has trouble engaging with the world. ŭŭ Beautiful and Far Away. There’s a place you can
They’re also a good set of Arcs for anyone helping go to escape this troubled world.
someone like that—anyone who stands beside them as ŭŭ Fascination. You’re fascinated by someone/thing
3
they redefine their position in the world. Basically, if dangerous and irresponsible.
you’re spending a lot of time with the Dream-Witch, ŭŭ This is:
exploring the Archive, visiting the hidden room, and • ...So Surreal: People are doing just
dealing with people with the shards of the glass dragon plain goofy stuff with their powers.
in them— • ...Such a Bad Idea: Someone
You can use these quests to play it out. gets or seizes new powers.
This is also a backup structure for the Arcs dealing These are sometimes followed by one or two of...
with the Wishing Boy (or Girl)—you can use these ŭŭ You’ve Lost Them. You interact with some-
if you’re spending time with them, playing through body damaged.
their Arcs, but not because you have a wholehearted ŭŭ Something Heals. You interact with someone
engagement with the wacky wish stuff. Instead, you’re who is trying to make things better and make up
dragged in kind of reluctantly by the charisma of the for their old mistakes.
people involved.
Beautiful and Far Away

(Simplified)
XP
Major Goals
ŭŭ ...you demonstrate how you need the Secret Place—how it’s
ŭŭ ...you demonstrate how the Secret Place is hurting you, breaking
you, how it’s damaging your ability to live an ordinary life.
Quest Flavor
ŭŭ ...having a troubled dream.
ŭŭ ...talking with/ranting at somebody about the
Secret Place.
ŭŭ ...babbling poorly-formed philosophy or metaphysics
at somebody.
ŭŭ ...retreating to the Secret Place.
396 Quests
20 or 35 XP Quest This is the Arc’s Secret Place, and it is located in the
1: Arc’s Setting.
Often it’s a little unreal—you’ll visit it in dreams, or
2: visions, or by traveling through the Outside.
There is a secret place, somewhere beautiful and far
away, that’s calling to you.
It is an escape, a desperately needed escape from the
world; but like all escapes, it can kill you if you take it
Quests
too far. And it is so very easy to take this one too far;
and yet, you need it, so very much.
XP
Major Goals
ŭŭ ...others stumble on your Secret Place.
ŭŭ ...you establish a reason why you need the Secret Place—why it’s
ŭŭ ...you establish a reason why the Secret Place is hurting you,
breaking you, damaging your ability to live an ordinary life.
Quest Flavor
ŭŭ ...guiding someone through the Archive (or, more generally,
the Arc’s Setting).
ŭŭ ...talking with somebody about the Secret Place.
to reality.
ŭŭ ...getting in a row with somebody over/about the
Secret Place.
ŭŭ ...refusing to retreat to the Secret Place, even though
things are very bad.
ŭŭ ...retreating to the Secret Place.
Quests 397
Fascination
20 or 35 XP Quest There’s someone or something that fascinates you—
1: Both as a person (or entity) and as a power, a force
of nature. You want to spend time with them. You want
2: to know more.
3:
3 Fascination
XP
Major Goals
ŭŭ ...express your fascination with someone or something dangerous
and irresponsible.
ŭŭ ...after that first reward, go a long way out of your way (physi-
cally) in order to study the operation and mechanisms of some-
body else’s powers—e.g., a field trip to Horizon to watch the
Wish-Granting Engine at work.
ŭŭ ...make yourself terrifyingly vulnerable, e.g. as an act of social/
romantic trust, an act of folly, or as bait for a trap.
You can earn up to three of these bonuses, once each, for a total of
15 XP.
Quest Flavor
ŭŭ ...confess a secret desire.
ŭŭ ...have a troubled dream about glass, magic, and the Outside.
ŭŭ ...investigate the shrine family magic for dealing with
troubled dreams.
ŭŭ ...dream about a Main Character or Arc-related NPC.
ŭŭ ...hang out with someone you like while they do
their thing.
ŭŭ ...get into goofy trouble for, with, or because of some-
body else.
ŭŭ ...talk with someone about the various bad ends people
can come to in fairy tales, stories about wishes, and stories
about witches.
398 Quests
Fascination
(Simplified)
XP
Major Goals
ŭŭ ...witness something amazing, even by your standards.
Quests
ŭŭ ...get badly hurt when you weren’t expecting it.
Quest Flavor
ŭŭ ...investigate someone’s powers.
ŭŭ ...argue with someone about the proper use of some power.
ŭŭ ...express your fascination with somebody.
ŭŭ ...explain to someone, or argue with them about, the
workings of shrine magic, the Arc’s Setting, or the Outside.
Quests 399
This is So Surreal
25 or 35 XP Quest This is often a counterpart to Wishing for Ease—
2: I don’t expect many people to have the chance to start
and finish this quest at the exact same time someone
3: else does Wishing for Ease, but conceptually, they’re
4: two sides of a coin.
Someone you’re involved with (a friend, SO, ally,

minion, or dangerously seductive power) is using their
3
powers in ways that are just plain goofy.
This is So Surreal
Major Goals XP
ŭŭ ...you freak out—you have a minor or major psychological break-
down because you can’t cope with these wishes.
ŭŭ ...you give a monologue—often comedically serious IC, though
not necessarily so OOC—to explain why a wish is a bad idea.
ŭŭ ...you receive some implausible honor or reward for your conduct
in handling a wish, or as part of the wish’s execution itself.
Quest Flavor
ŭŭ ...you’re seduced by the wonder and utility of a wish.
ŭŭ ...marveling at the way a wish changed the world.
ŭŭ ...things get chaotic or absurd because of a wish.
ŭŭ ...you help the Archive, Professor Hayashi, the Dream-
Witch, or her café (or whatever she has instead of a café) weather
the course of a wish.
ŭŭ ...you’re forced to break a personal commitment—use a
power you hate, break a promise, or whatever—in order to resolve
or weather a wish.
Special Note!
400 Quests
This is So Surreal
(Simplified)
Major Goals XP
ŭŭ ...you freak out—you have a minor or major psychological break-
down because you can’t cope with these wishes.
Quests
ŭŭ ...you give a monologue—often comedically serious IC, though
not necessarily so OOC—to explain why a wish is a bad idea.
ŭŭ ...you receive some implausible honor or reward for your conduct
in handling a wish, or as part of the wish’s execution itself.
10 XP.
Quest Flavor
ŭŭ ...you reject part of a wish that would have been useful.
ŭŭ ...you get lost in the Outside.
ŭŭ ...things get chaotic or absurd because of a wish.
or weather a wish.
ŭŭ ...you have nightmares of masks, death, trouble, and the
laughter of Melanie Malakh.
Quests 401
This is Such a Bad Idea
20 or 35 XP Quest Someone you’re involved with (a friend, SO, ally,
2: minion, or dangerously seductive power) has gone on
a bit of a power trip.
3: This is often a counterpart to Wishing for Power—
4: The other side of a conceptual coin.
3 This is Such a Bad Idea
Major Goals XP
ŭŭ ...someone normally trustworthy or goofy goes on a power trip
and winds up grinding you under their malevolent heel; or, more
generally, you suffer unpleasantly from their use of the power that
they’ve seized.
ŭŭ ...you’re put into an awkward, embarrassing, or at least highly
goofy or counter-type role by a wish, probably with details
suggested by the HG and other players.
ŭŭ ...you manage to become a “power behind the throne” or otherwise
steal a portion of the power in play over the course of a wish.
Quest Flavor
ŭŭ ...ritually drawing on the powers the wish has given you.
ŭŭ ...enjoying the changed world, letting it corrupt you.
ŭŭ ...you overcome some obstacle in the world of the wish.
or weather a wish.
ŭŭ ...you struggle with the circumstances of the wish.
ŭŭ ...the wish does something really strange to your life.
Special Note!
402 Quests
[[BEGIN SILVER QUEST CARD, 20 XP]]
This is Such a Bad Idea

(Simplified)
Major Goals
XP
ŭŭ ...someone normally trustworthy or goofy goes on a power trip
Quests
and winds up grinding you under their malevolent heel; or, more
generally, you suffer unpleasantly from their use of the power that
they’ve seized.
ŭŭ ...you’re put into an awkward, embarrassing, or at least highly
goofy or counter-type role by a wish, probably with details
suggested by the HG and other players.
Quest Flavor
or weather a wish.
ŭŭ ...things get really weird.
ŭŭ ...you give up and just go with it.
ŭŭ ...there’s a big parade or festival.
Special Note!
Th
Quests 403
You’ve Lost Them
20 or 45 XP Quest You might get it back, but you don’t think you can.
3: Certainly you don’t know that you can, and you can’t
put any faith in it as more than a dream.
4: And the important thing is—
5: You feel responsible. If it’s a random person or an
enemy you feel responsible because you had something
Someone has lost a piece of themselves—some- to do with it, or think you did. If it’s a friend, you hurt
thing important. for them and want to help. If it’s you, well, you’re not
3
It could be a friend. It could be an enemy. It’s even that person any more, but you have a kind of duty to
vaguely possible that it’s you—that you are now just carry on as if you were.
a hollow shell or double of the person you used to be. Does that make sense?
You’re looking at this from the outside. They are this Arc’s Lost Person.
Something Heals
You’ve Lost Them

(Simplified)
Major Goals XP
ŭŭ ...you help to impersonate, construct a robot double for, or other-
wise replace the Lost Person;
ŭŭ ...you get atypically emotional when it really sinks in that they’re
gone, damaged, or changed.
Quest Flavor
ŭŭ ...someone soliloquys about the loss.
ŭŭ ...you communicate somehow with the Lost Person’s
true self, far away.
ŭŭ ...you wander Fortitude with the Lost Person or with or
as their stand-in.
ŭŭ ...there are signs that things may be getting better after all.
404 Quests
You’ve Lost Them
Major Goals
XP
ŭŭ ...you help to impersonate, construct a robot double for, or other-
Quests
wise replace the Lost Person.
ŭŭ ...you get in some kind of completely unnecessary trouble because
that person is incomplete or missing.
ŭŭ ...you get atypically emotional when it really sinks in that they’re
gone, damaged, or changed.
ŭŭ ...your first full or nearly-full book on this quest comes to an end.
Quest Flavor
ŭŭ ...your life is a mess.
ŭŭ ...you struggle to understand the loss.
ŭŭ ...you talk to someone about memories, metaphysics, and
the soul.
ŭŭ ...you talk to someone about death.
ŭŭ ...you encounter some shocking consequence of a wish or
similar power.
ŭŭ ...you watch somebody self-destructing.
ŭŭ ...you dream of shipwrecks and drowning.
ŭŭ ...you dream of the Lost Person’s true self, their real self,
somewhere far away.
ŭŭ ...a week passes and nothing has gotten better.
Quests 405
Something Heals
25 or 45 XP Quest This quest is about an unexpected chance to find closure
2: on something. Maybe it’s a stroke of good fortune.
Maybe it’s the product of hard work.
4: Maybe it’s just something that had to happen, given
5: time.
3 Something Heals
XP
Major Goals
ŭŭ ...someone comforts you in a time of need.
ŭŭ ...you break your rules or patterns in a big way in order to help or
save somebody else.
ŭŭ ...something goes right, because of luck or fate or divine inter-
vention or somebody else—basically, because of not-you—when
everything seemed lost.
ŭŭ ...you absorb some power, force, place, or energy into yourself.
You can earn each bonus once, up to a total of 20 XP.
Quest Flavor
ŭŭ ...have a precious moment with something you thought
that you’d lost.
ŭŭ ...talk with an old friend about your shared adventures.
ŭŭ ...have an ordinary, happy day at your job or other place
of work.
ŭŭ ...sit with someone and eat crackers and soft cheese.
ŭŭ ...stand in, or lean against, an arch overgrown with ivy.
ŭŭ ...watch a ship sail away across Big Lake.
ŭŭ ...dream of a faraway friend, loved one, or
Main Character.
ŭŭ ...bid an emotional farewell—you or someone else is
moving on.
ŭŭ ...show someone a wonder.
406 Quests
Something Heals
(Simplified)
XP
Major Goals
ŭŭ ...someone comforts you in a time of need.
Quests
ŭŭ ...you break your rules or patterns in a big way to show someone a
kindness or take them under your wing.
ŭŭ ...you absorb some power, force, place, or energy into yourself.
to 10 XP.
Quest Flavor
ŭŭ ...talk with someone about the things you’ve lost.
ŭŭ ...feed leftover meat to a stray dog.
ŭŭ ...have a kind of over-the-top day at your job or place
or work.
ŭŭ ...tell someone the stories of your adventures.
ŭŭ ...show someone a secret (often the Arc’s Secret Place).
Quests 407
Supporting Cast
This bit’s going to give descriptions and game rules sometime during the first Glass Arc, “Shards of Glass,”
for some of the NPCs you’ll see over the course of it’ll awaken and give her a power like:
the campaign.
It’s mostly a reference— ŭŭ building retro-futuristic, utopian technology.
But I wanted to give you the chance to read or skim it ŭŭ transmuting liquids.
before you reached the stories of Fortitude: the Glass- ŭŭ waking and animating plants, turning them into
Maker’s Dragon, just in case you’re the kind of person tree soldiers, tree workers, flower people, and
who needs to know how an NPC “works” to make sense the like.
of the stories in which they appear. ŭŭ making time gates.
If you’re fine with just a high concept, skip this ŭŭ being a magical baker or tailor—the cap’ll come
chapter and come back later on. off of the normal mundane limits on what a Skill
4
like this can do, although she still won’t have
much Skill in it until she practices later on.
Ardennes ŭŭ the power to garb herself in unholy glory and
Ardennes is a sophisticated girl—er, for a 15-year-old— make others fear and honor her.
with political aspirations. She wants to lead Town ŭŭ the ability to return up to three times the harm
into a glorious modern future. She’ll explain, if you done to her as a curse upon whomever inflicted it.
let her, that yes, Town’s deviant scientists have gone
astray, and yes, Earth wasn’t doing any too great Many of these will be a little frustrating to her—so
with all its technology either,91 but that Fortitude and close, and yet so far!—because the power she actually
Town in general are erring too much the other way by wants, the thing she dreams of, is a super-brain that
rejecting progress— can drive a new era of scientific advancement. Ideally,
“Nanomachines can make a utopian future!” she’ll explain, a brain good enough to improve its own
she’ll declare. intelligence, thus uncapping her completely.
Her mundane abilities are something like: And some of the options above are very close; but not
quite, because the glass dragon shards don’t give you
ŭŭ Photographic Memory 3 the power you want. They give you the power you get.
ŭŭ Dreams of Progress 2 Ardennes’ shard power is normally an Affliction
ŭŭ Style 2 with a power level notionally based on her (in) Over
ŭŭ “I’d rather kiss a dog!” 1 Your Head Issue—she doesn’t get Issues per se, being
ŭŭ Bond: Altruistic 2 an NPC, but basically, her powers become bigger and
bigger the more out of control her life becomes. If she
Her catchphrase is useful in resisting social pressure becomes a major character the HG could consider step-
but is somewhat compromised of late ever since her ping her powers up to a Sentimental Arc.
friend Steve got a golden retriever that she is willing to She appears in “Shards of Glass” as one of the
let lick her face.92 empowered characters most likely to go out of control
Ardennes enters this story by way of the shards of the and start doing really goofy stuff. She may also show
glass dragon— up in the third Glass Arc, “the Maze in the Library,”
The X-ray’ll show that there’s one speared right into hunting an archaeological/scientific discovery that
her brain, where her third eye would have been,93 and her dreams assure her is within. It’s also possible that
by that Arc she’ll have changed her mind about the
meaning of life and is actually hunting for magic or the
91 She figures that catastrophic global warming makes up for the labyrinth’s unicorn, either to claim or to destroy it.
Internet, jet planes, and heart transplants, though I think it’s kind of
unfair to do that when it isn’t catastrophic yet.
92 It’s not technically kissing a dog, since the dog is doing all the kissing,
but as she will admit sourly, “It is a terrible blurring of distinctions.”
93 If humans had three eyes, which seems like the kind of thing that
could have happened.
410 Supporting Cast

Billy Sovereign Eclipse
This is the Best Friend’s nemesis and counterpart—a As Jade Irinka died, Eclipse was born—either in the
soulless bully who turns his victims, which is to say, mind or shadow of Arikel, her eldest child, or from her
anyone who stops fighting him, into faded minion-like scattered blood.
extensions of himself. He embodies the promise of endless night.
His Skills look something like: In him it manifests as the miraculous story Arc,
Otherworldly (Spiritual) 3—it gives him a connection
ŭŭ Sense Weakness 3. He has an uncanny insight to “the death of the sun” that he will use in the second
into weakness. Spring Arc, “Sorrows’ Week,” to invoke flashbacks
Supporting Cast
ŭŭ Survive 3. He can live indefinitely while on fire, to Jade Irinka’s death and to later make an attempt on
among other things. Jasper Irinka’s life.94
ŭŭ Do Stuff 1. He’s familiar with doing stuff. I suspect him of having Wounded Angel 1
ŭŭ Long History 1. He has a nasty history with just as well—
about everybody. There might be a bright memory hidden inside him,
a thing of beauty and hope that he considers to be a
His powers are pretty similar to the Best Friend’s, “blasphemy,” that will escape if he’s ever whittled
complete with Become Somebody 3, except down that far; in the cover of its release, he’ll flee for
as follows: safety, cowering from that light.
His mundane abilities are something like:
ŭŭ His starting Bond is Bully instead of Chuubo’s
Best Friend. ŭŭ Changeling 3
ŭŭ Those whom he spreads his identity to don’t ŭŭ Superior Vitality 2
become him—they become minions, pawns, ŭŭ Awesome Older Brother 2
supporters, or cowed and faceless victims, and ŭŭ Knows his Cars 1
only become him if the original Billy dies. ŭŭ Bond: I ride a [[STRIKE]]pale horse[[END
STRIKE]] silver Mercedes 4
If he shows up in later Arcs, he’s likely to advance
at a PC-like rate, but the stories that get told of him “Changeling” is a magical Skill, described a bit more
will determine whether he keeps going on Become in the Chuubo’s Marvelous Wish-Granting Engine
Somebody or switches to, say, Primordial. RPG. It mostly helps protect him from being uncov-
His nature isn’t completely defined at the start of the ered as anything but an awesome older brother but he’s
game; in particular, there is no canon on whether he’s also mastered a few private techniques for use with this
a potential person, a potential person who is still pretty Skill that let him mess with other peoples’ minds and
much a jerk, or an unsalvageable, soulless beast. corrupt others to his service. He has shards of memories
or bits of blood from the death of Jade Irinka—taking
the form as smooth black abstract shapes—that he may
use as tools for improving this Skill.
The Real Arikel, Possessed

If Eclipse is immanent inside the real Arikel—if this
character is Arikel, possessed or twisted, and not just
a shadow—then I think Eclipse’s presence is an
94 Most of his effectiveness here will come from quest miracles—not

that I expect him to succeed, or even do more than give a good scare,
but if you’re wondering how a PC-level character could possibly even
hope to kill the immortal PC-level Jasper Irinka, who probably has
substantial backup from her friends? Feel free to give him help, or
leeway, or a Perk or two with 1/book Imperial McGuffin effects, but
even without that, don’t underestimate the raw brutality of a quest
miracle that summons the death of the sun.
Supporting Cast 411

Accursed Arc. As Arikel “Falls from the World,” The Exultant
Eclipse progressively takes over. The Exultant laughs.
In this case his miraculous powers would look some- He is one of the Six Sins; a member of the Student
thing like: Council of Principal Entropy’s School in Horizon. He
runs the Travel Committee there. He has learned the
ŭŭ Otherworldly (Spiritual) 3—this links him ways of the Outside and the evil world. He takes joyous
to night, when he is Arikel, and to the death of the jaunts and ventures into realms few others dare set foot
sun, when he is Eclipse. in and keeps trying, though without success, to organize
ŭŭ Emptiness (Accursed) 1+—this is the school or council-wide field trips there.
manifestation of Eclipse inside him. His sin is that he glories in wickedness precisely
ŭŭ A Keeper of Gardens 1+—I know he has because it is wickedness.
4
a Shepherd Arc, because he’s associated with He is that which loves evil for the purity of its
a couple of objects and things of power, and I evil intentions.
know he’s immortal, so I’m guessing this is his He is a joyful, paradoxical innocent who is irre-
deal. I don’t know where he keeps his gardens. sistibly charming to the wicked. His great dream, his
His “toxin” is doubtless a powder that puts you to plan for a bright future, is to distill the stuff of the evil
sleep or infects your dreams. island down into a poison, paralyze the Headmaster of
the Bleak Academy with it as a wasp might paralyze a
Spared of the need to have Changeling—since spider, and plant the eggs in him of newborn worlds.
he actually would be Arikel, more or less—I Whether this is appalling or merely in bad taste will
think this version of the character would have the depend on how nasty the Headmaster is in your partic-
mundane abilities: ular campaign.
The Exultant is built something like:
ŭŭ Superior Vitality 2
ŭŭ Superior Dreamer 2 ŭŭ Spiritual 3 (“Wicked Things”)
ŭŭ Awesome Older Brother 3 ŭŭ People Skills 2. He’s good at talking to people.
ŭŭ Knows his Cars 1 ŭŭ Love for the Wicked 2. He loves even (maybe
ŭŭ Bond: I ride a pale horse silver Mercedes 4 even especially!) the worst.
ŭŭ Timing 1. He’s got decent timing.
Eclipse (and possibly Arikel) appear in the Second ŭŭ Speechify 1. He gives a decent monologue.
Spring Arc, “Sorrows’ Week,” and potentially in the ŭŭ Situational Awareness 0. He doesn’t always
fourth Spring Arc, “The Hollow Sky,” as well. notice the oncoming train.
ŭŭ Play with Fire -1. He isn’t good at this.
Prince Eduard (or Princess ŭŭ Domestic Tasks -1. Nor is he any good around
Aelfthryth) Fujimoto the house.
This is Rinley’s friend, a reckless prince(ss) of the rats.
He’s up to you to characterize but I thought I’d toss in He’s also got three mundane abilities with
a Skill build in case you needed one in a hurry—some- special rules:
thing like:
ŭŭ Connection: Angel of Fortitude 3. They go
ŭŭ Athletics 3 way back.
ŭŭ Carousing 3 ŭŭ Connection: Nightmares’ Angel 1. This guy just
ŭŭ Dance 1 makes sense to him.
ŭŭ Wiggle Eyebrows Knowingly 1 ŭŭ Transportation Magic 2. He gets around. Key
ŭŭ Representative of Rat Culture -1 techniques include:
• [Obstacle 1] take “falling” off of
your personal list of risks
• [Obstacle 2] summon up a vehicle
412 Supporting Cast

• [Obstacle 2] go in one door and out a I’d probably build it as something like this...
different one (in the same Region)
• [Obstacle 3] go in one door and out a ŭŭ Become Somebody 1 (“the First Free
different one (any Region he knows) Dog,” with a vice of bad luck)
• [Obstacle 3] find a road going ŭŭ Bond 2: “Loyal”
just about anywhere ŭŭ Affliction: the Risen Dead
ŭŭ Superior Dog 2. The First Free Dog is good
The Exultant often appears in the first and second at this.
Entropy Arcs, “Principal Entropy Builds a Fountain” ŭŭ Long Memory 2. The First Free Dog
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and “Principal Entropy Runs for Office” He may also knows much.
appear in later Entropy Arcs and in the first Outside ŭŭ Herd 2. The First Free Dog can be a work dog
Arc, “The Drowned World.” at need.
ŭŭ Hunt 1. The First Free Dog isn’t really a
The First Free Dog hunting dog.
This is a mystery dog. It’s a dog that represents the ŭŭ Human Ways 1. The First Free Dog is familiar
wild power of the natural world—well, the near-nat- with human ways.
ural world, the low world of the streets and mud and ŭŭ Spot Deception -1. The First Free Dog believes
gardens—that has to approve of anyone seeking the you threw the ball.
sacred post of Fortitude Dogcatcher. It’s a dog that lurks ŭŭ Operate Heavy Machinery -1. Don’t put the
at the edges of things and symbolizes the darkness you First Free Dog behind the wheel!
live with, the lives you try to save, the burden of peo-
ple’s hopes in you, the lives you have to take. It’s a dog The First Free Dog appears in the second Entropy
of dirty, buried things. It’s the bone that dug itself up. Arc, “Principal Entropy Runs for Office.”
It’s the loamy sacred.
It looks like a half-rotten corpse dog, left over from
a huge husky with yellowed fangs, but it doesn’t smell
like rot and its bare muscle doesn’t ooze—it smells
earthy, sweet, and the bare parts are like the muddy
earth. What I mean is, it’s not anywhere near as horri-
fying when you get used to it as when you first see it at
night or from afar; it’s actually a pretty good dog. For,
um, a bad-luck zombie dog, anyhow.
But... it is a good dog. Being a rotting zombie isn’t
the First Free Dog’s fault.
I tend to believe the stories that the First Free Dog
came over with the first humans; that it broke its leash
or harness in order to protect a human from one of the
youkai and hasn’t gone back in harness since. That it
was given a hero’s burial and dredged itself back up
but wasn’t welcome any more; that it had turned into
something otherworldly when it died and came back,
that it wasn’t allowed or legitimate any longer.
Then again, that could be just superstition. I don’t
even know if it is bad luck.
Supporting Cast 413

Glass Spider ŭŭ Rider Necromancy 2.
The sin of Glass Spider is to deny people their names ŭŭ Superior Dreamer 1.
and qualities, seeing them only as their roles: all the
world as nothing more than parts and pieces to be Here I’m assuming that we can fold his ability to buy
played. To believe otherwise, whispers the Glass space in people’s head into his Reality Syndrome
Spider, is to be willing to sacrifice your purpose, your and so I’m giving him Rider Necromancy for an addi-
dharma, on the altar of your misconception. Glass tional quirky power set.
Spider’s flaw is his need for control—his need to keep Glass Spider usually appears in the fourth Entropy
control over any “pieces” that he’s claimed, touched, Arc, “Principal Entropy and the Lost Adventure.”
or moved. Without that flaw, his goals and their current
inaccessibility would make him practically harmless at The Gray Man
4
this stage. The Shopping (and financial) District, Arcadia, employs
At School, Glass Spider runs the Finance and Budget a “gray man” or “gray woman” to protect Town’s busi-
Committee of the student council. He has a magic of nesses and banks from the inappropriate use of magic.
naming to him. He can buy access to people’s minds The current Gray Man is a half-Excrucian gentleman
(by paying them), and then inject them with packages who keeps his offices in the Excrucians’ twelve-story
of compulsions, drives, and programmed thoughts. He stronghold and embassy, the Methodology Tower.
has a portion of the old Principal’s notes or even key He is a dangerous creature. His eyes are night and
volumes from his library. He’s come to Fortitude to falling stars, and thus unreadable. He is a yin-yang
put together a special mural or play that he thinks will master and thus capable of great and wicked acts.
strengthen the reality of the world but also put him in He is in the shadow of the Headmaster of the Bleak
charge. Academy—some have alleged him the Headmaster’s
His goals are a bit selfish, but they aren’t actually puppet or pawn. Of course, it’s totally possible that
evil! He’s just kind of a jerk. he’s a selfless puppy-kissing hero who lives in the
I’d probably build him as something like this: heart of enemy territory because that’s how yin-yang
masters roll—
ŭŭ Creature of the Light 5 But I suspect he’ll ultimately be a congenial enemy.
ŭŭ Soulless Artisan 3. His mundane abilities look something like:
ŭŭ Obsessive Need for Control 2.
ŭŭ Magic: Buy Access to the Mind 2. ŭŭ Superior Spiritual Energy 2. He’s a pow-
ŭŭ Superior Dreamer 1. erful personality.
ŭŭ Superior Land-Rule 2. He has vast influence in
...taking his Arc all the way to the end so that we can his small portion of Arcadia.
reasonably think of him implementing his plan as a ŭŭ Finance 2. He knows his numbers.
quest miracle. ŭŭ Exorcism 1. He’s familiar with this.
That said, this also assumes that he’s coming into ŭŭ Cool 1. He’s a cool one.
play in the fourth Entropy Arc, when a typical PC will ŭŭ Socialize 0. He isn’t actually very good at this.
still outclass him; you may want to tone that down a
little if you’re bringing him in earlier on.95 I’m not going to assume he has miraculous Arcs, but
Another option that would work pretty well is: if he does, they probably look similar to the Angel of
Fortitude’s, starting with “A Keeper of Gardens”-type
ŭŭ Reality Syndrome 4 (“My Vision/Plans”) powers over the Methodology Tower and its vicinity.
ŭŭ Accursed 1-2 He might have Creature of Fable or a blue Arc (e.g.,
ŭŭ Soulless Artisan 3. Wounded Angel) as well or instead.
ŭŭ Obsessive Need for Control 2. He appears in the second Dissolution Arc, “Chuubo
Makes a Terrible God-King.”
95 Not that you’re supposed to “balance” PCs and NPCs or anything—
this isn’t a fighting game! It’s just that it’s easier to keep the PCs feeling
important if the typical NPC Main Character ranges from “much
lower-powered” to “just a little bit better.”
414 Supporting Cast

The Hangman The Haunted Child
This is an infectiously enthusiastic wicked ghost who There is a child, Keiichi or Viktoria Shichida—
had to hang a monstrous criminal generations ago. Now Typically the same gender as Nightmares’ Angel,
it’s manifesting into the world to kill that criminal’s and aged somewhere from 8-10.
descendants and maybe other wicked entities around. They are the Haunted Child. Their nightmares
It probably describes this as a case of total war of have been touched by some alien force. They’ve been
good vs. evil, of absolute righteousness. The creature starting to lose track of what’s real and what’s not.
it slew back then wasn’t an ordinary criminal but a More than that, they’re starting to change what’s real
force of pure and absolute evil: absolute destruction. and what’s not—they have an unwanted reality-altering
Supporting Cast
“Naturally,” it will say, “every last vestige of it must magic that occasionally bridges between the worlds,
be eliminated.” invoking the Properties of the Nightmare World in the
I don’t know how true that is. It’s certainly true that world around them.
Town (and thus Fortitude) is the kind of place where a One or two creatures of the nightmare world
spirit of raw cruelty, murder, evil, or spite could man- slip through.
ifest. One could argue that the first Principal Entropy Eventually the Haunted Child’s dreams will open a
was just such a person; most likely it was a servant of gate that will bind the nightmare world directly and
his that the Hangman slew. physically to Town.
One approach here is to build the Hangman as a In practice this works as an Affliction. Shichida has
Wounded Angel with pacts to lesser ghosts it’s slain the following abilities:
or eaten and with wound powers based on things like
“Ghost,” “Obsessed Vigilante,” and “Appointed as the ŭŭ Imagination 3
Hangman.” The “blasphemy” it’s caging would be the ŭŭ Wriggle Feet (Dolefully) 2
revelation that it’s actually a shell over the criminal it ŭŭ Lucky Break 2
originally tried to kill. ŭŭ Survival 1
A simpler alternative is to go with a low level of ŭŭ Smells Like Fish 1
Creature of the Light and/or a black or silver Arc like ŭŭ Affliction 3: A Bridge Between Two Worlds
Primordial or Accursed and pair them with The Haunted Child appears in the first Nightmares
abilities like: Arc, “Nightmares Open.”
ŭŭ Ghost Magic 4 Family

ŭŭ Lawman 3 The Haunted Child’s father is dead; they’re being raised
ŭŭ Use Rope 1 by their somewhat frazzled mother, Ioanna Shichida,
and with the assistance of Yulia Rozhkova (pg. XX),
The important thing is that it wants to hang some- their aunt. If you’re looking for a comfortable place to
body, probably somebody you care about, or maybe take them, Yulia Rozhkova’s bookstore is a good bet.
one of the PCs, on a certain hill on a certain day. And
since kidnapping a PC and dragging them off is likely
to be boring—
Or rather the interesting part of that is only 2-3 short
scenes and not a whole plotline—
It’ll focus on breaking the will of the relevant PCs
and characters first, not so much with powers as with
demonstrations of its righteousness.
Supporting Cast 415

Variations Hayden Sorrows
Here’s some quick options to customize the Haunted This is a stressed-looking young scholar on his first
Child for your game: major job for the Bleak Academy. He used to be a
person, he’ll say, but he gave it up so he could get away
ŭŭ Keiichi or Viktoria? from the lies and deceptions of reality and find the
ŭŭ Is the “alien power” touching their dreams... True Thing—
• ...related to the glass dragon and Now he’s a void given flesh, but he hasn’t let go of
Melanie/Reginald Malakh? all his humanity yet.
• ...some machination of the Bleak Academy? That’s why when the reborn sun stirred up the
• ...directly related to the first or current Anomaly, and its crystalline whispering began to
Arc for the Troublemaker? disturb the chaos, the Bleak Academy chose Hayden to
4
• ...directly related to some other come to Town. “Hunt it,” his teachers told him. “Kill it.
character’s current Arc? Make it stop.”
• ...just its own thing—some witch or I don’t think that’s all of it, though.
Outside thing that kind of... happened? I think that while he’s honest about what he’s there
ŭŭ Are they troubled, stoic, or creepy? for, and both earnest and sincere about who he is, that
he’s been sent to Town as...
If the player of Nightmares’ Angel has a strong
opinion as to which variant to use, that wins; other- ŭŭ ...one last chance for him to choose reality, if he’d
wise, it’s up to the HG. rather, and...
ŭŭ ...as an attempt by the Bleak Academy to seduce
the Prodigy away.
Because he’ll find her, almost inevitably, and he’ll

want to offer her an alternative to the noise and hubbub
of Creation—
The endless bleak, smooth vistas of the void; the
coolness and soothing beauty of the Not.
He is a member of the “Collegium of Magi,” a name
Nightmares’ Angel is liable to remember as relating
to the program he himself attended; he is applying to
transfer to “Natural Philosophy,” which is a college of
the Bleak Academy Leonardo doesn’t know.
Hayden’s core power is:
ŭŭ Reality Syndrome 2
• He can share his private visions of
pure dark, endless textured nothing-
ness, and peace with others.
• He can borrow/copy the abilities of others
for a short-term use once per chapter,
without much limitation on this save that
the power in question is immature, not
well-systematized, and so tends to give out
on him once its basic purpose is fulfilled.
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His core mundane abilities include: The Headmaster of the
Bleak Academy
ŭŭ Scholar 3. He’s familiar with the things of Of him many things are said, but the Headmaster I want
the world. to talk about here is the one who stands in the darkness
ŭŭ Sosunov Family Magic 2. He’s studying ways to and the light beyond the grave and holds out his hand
contain the chaos. to the spirits of the dead who cling still to their corpses,
ŭŭ Athletics 2. “There’s a program.” who will not leave their flesh behind, and he is saying
ŭŭ Nervous 1. He’s familiar with things jumping out to them:
at him.
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ŭŭ Hunter 0. He barely knows where to start. That they have lived, and that may be good
ŭŭ Connection: the Prodigy 2. She fascinates him. and that may be bad;
He also likely has: The flashiness and the fire of it, of being alive,
ŭŭ Wounded Angel 1+ of being moving figures in the dark—that may
• In a situation of sufficient panic or confusion, have been good or it may have been garish;
when he loses his self-control, he’ll sometimes But it is done.
twist his shape and manifest a new power. It is done. Let go.
• He has weird floating onyx “prayer strips”
that can help him with his magic. Not everyone listens.
• If sufficiently wounded, he’ll emit a jarring Not everyone who dies stays dead. Not everyone
scream and strobe flashes that either... who’s lost stays gone. And sometimes he’ll make that
►► ...scale up to become a new speech, in word or look or the soft music of his dead
instance of the Anomaly; leviathan’s song, to somebody who doesn’t even seem
►► ...fade out into a wave of silence and death; to have died.
►► ...manifest as a wish, “I wish that chaos But—
would shatter the comprehensible That is who he is.
structures and forms of this situation I am inclined to treat the Headmaster here as a state of
and drown it out with incomprehen- being rather than a character—he is nothing more or less
sible noise and uncertainty.” than those words. That speech. That outstretched hand.
It’s not that he wants to do this! It’s He is nothing more or less than the declaration that in
just that that horror is stuck inside him this world there is death and there is chaos, that life may
and will get out if he’s too badly hurt. be good or bad but it ends, that to dream to conquer that
Hayden has a small frame, white hair, and a Bleak is blasphemy; that beyond the boundaries of the world
Academy uniform. His eyes are a normal light brown there is a Bleak Academy.
sometimes but other times they’re replaced entirely Let go.
with a vista of night and falling stars—this is probably
a scalable Affliction based on a PC’s Trust/Hollow/ These are not meant to be coherent points; they are
Isolation Issue, where they look progressively stranger not meant to be arguments marshaled up and lined up
to you as your Issue grows. next to one another to form an army whole, any more
Hayden Sorrows appears in the first Winter Arc, than the cat-headed King Death that the rats whisper of
“Flowers in the Ice.” He may cameo in the second and the Headmaster of the Bleak Academy who shot
Winter Arc, “Permafrost” and/or have an important role down the sun are meant to look the same, act the same,
in the third, “Thin Ice.” or express the same understanding of death.
He is simply a thing that is; or that isn’t, I suppose.
And for that reason, the way to fight him isn’t
Intentions and miracles but rather quests and Issues and
the acts of epic fantasy—Decisive actions; Science,
Faith, and Sorcery; the little stories of your lives; all the
Supporting Cast 417

things that one does to live in the face of death. Oh, and I suspect him of more than this, but it’s possible
Rituals and Transitions too. that the rest of his apparent abilities represent a mix of
The things we use, not to conquer others, but to live Perks, quest miracles, and the assistance of others; in
better with ourselves. fact, with that in mind, you could probably cut back to
If I haven’t been clear, and I probably haven’t, Creature of the Light 2 and A Keeper of Gardens 1
because it isn’t a clear matter— and still have a viable representation of the man.
He is a presence of the Isn’t in the Is. In any case, the above stats are my second guess
I’m not even sure he’s death, or Death, or Death (the first being “generic principle,” as noted) for
Unending. All I really know about him is that he wears how he appears in the second Drowning Arc, “The
black, and he has eyes of night and falling stars, and he Lightless Gates.”
isn’t Genseric Dace the Excrucian, and sometimes I’m
4
not even sure of those. Professor Hideo Hayashi
So all that’s really complicated and twee and it boils The Professor grew up with the Hayashi shrine family.
down to the fact that you can probably punch him but it He made glass. He was good at it. He made some beau-
won’t do you any good because he isn’t him, he’s just tiful things, including a colored-glass map of some
the thing that we see to be himself. unknown country, some gorgeous cups and tchotchkes,
But what if you do need to punch him, or out-argue and presumably a good deal more.
him, or something? After that things get a bit campaign-dependent—
Then I think his stats must look a little something You don’t need the answers until the fourth Arc, which
like this: could potentially be several years into your game—
But the default story goes like this.
ŭŭ Creature of the Light 3+
• He is tireless, effortlessly well-lit, can wrap The Default Story
himself in the Auctoritas Magister, appear Melanie Malakh came to Town, put a shard of herself in
to those he cares about, mesmerize or make Hideo’s brain, and claimed him.
psychic attacks with his actions, evoke tar- Together they built a glass dragon.
geted flashbacks, fade away to the Outside, He remembers it. He was mind-whammied but
or use tactical world-altering Transitions remembers making it, making beautiful glass as she
(often for travel or psychological effect). worked her spells into it, though he can’t remember
ŭŭ A Keeper of Gardens 2+ what happened after.
• He has some sort of access to giant creatures Except, after a while, the dragon and the Magister
such as the dead leviathan he sometimes rides. were gone.
(I figure it’s like a dead Sa’a Lingurth (pg. He had a hard time after that. He had conflicts with
XX.)) He certainly has a toxin of some sort his family and ultimately went to college abroad. He
but I’m actually a little puzzled about what studied archaeology, linguistics, history, or library
it is—maybe you can figure it out in play? science, or maybe even a physical science like
ŭŭ Creature of Fable 1+ chemistry.
• He is a competent hunter, rider, and After he came back to Town people started calling
archer, and at least on one occasion his him “Professor.”
arrows seem to have Cut the Soul. Eventually he took over Town’s Archive. Later, when
ŭŭ Superior Hunter 1+ Miramie showed up, he took her in; and then others,
ŭŭ Compassion 3 one by one.
ŭŭ Philosophy 3 His abilities look something like:
ŭŭ Teacher 1
ŭŭ Annoying 1 ŭŭ Scholar 3
ŭŭ Lord of the Bleak Academy 0 ŭŭ Archivist 2
ŭŭ Dashing 2
ŭŭ Superior Glassmaker 1
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And he has Connections like: He could probably learn better, but it’d be almost
impossible to get to him, because if one of his victims
ŭŭ The Archive 3 rises above it and defeats Impious, he’d just take that
ŭŭ The Dream-Witch 2 as proving his point.
ŭŭ The Archive Kids 2 He shows up in the second Destiny Arc, “Owler and
ŭŭ Fortitude 1 Impious,” with an interest in the destiny of the Best
Friend. The fact that a piece of the architecture of the
He is a background figure throughout the course Bleak Academy woke up and became a person—that’s
of this campaign but does not normally become a interesting to Impious, in his capacity as a member
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foreground character until the fourth Glass Arc, “the of the Student Council. It isn’t necessarily why he
Archive of Hayashi Hideo.” shows up at first—he could be in Fortitude to deal with
someone else, for instance—but the Best Friend in par-
Impious ticular is likely to catch Impious’ attention, given time.
This is another piece of the former King of Evil.
Impious is a member of the student council at Impious provides an alternate and cruel but fun-
Horizon’s School. He wears a mask when acting as a damentally positive perspective on the Best Friend’s
member of the Student Council—they all do, even the destiny, as well as making trouble. His Skills look
bodiless Owler—which, in this game’s genre, makes it something like:
very hard to know who he “really” is. He could even be
faculty, staff, or an intruder in disguise! ŭŭ Magical Skill: “Arsenal” 3
He inherited a good portion of the former King of ŭŭ Superior Master of Every Sport 2
Evil’s arsenal. That means he has a bunch of... I don’t ŭŭ Unnecessarily Convoluted Plans 2
know. Evil machines. Death rays, mind-controlling ŭŭ Organized Council Member 1
chairs, robot hawks with eye-lasers, tridents that cause ŭŭ Student 0
earthquakes, cloaks of invincibility, pyramid-style ŭŭ Bond 2: “No Pain, no Gain”
death traps, and the like.
Like the original Principal Entropy, and in fact His Arsenal is a magical Skill that functions a lot
like his successor the Angel of Fortitude, he has a like Deviant Science—he doesn’t actually build new
goal—Impious aims towards a better world built on a devices, but he has to take time to establish their exis-
foundation of Horizon’s students. To this end he seeks tence before he can use them effectively in play.
to “toughen up” students whose potential he has faith As mentioned, Impious is a major character in the
in, with a focus on kidnapping and assassination. He second Destiny Arc, “Owler and Impious.”
prefers unsuccessful assassination attempts to suc-
cessful ones, here, but... operates on a general life phi-
losophy of “no pain, no gain.” So there’s that.
And some of that is broad comedy and stereotypical
over-the-top jock irrationality.
And some of that is a bombastic, charming coach-
like glee in pushing people to be their very best.
But underneath all that there is a livid sin: that Impious
loves the way that hardship can make people better so
much that he has forgotten that there is anything else
good; that he revels in the wounds themselves, waxes
rhapsodic about how the beaten, the ground-down, the
defeated, the human spirit forced to crawl across a field
of broken glass, becomes the most beautiful and noble
of all things.
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Laodemus Schwan If he becomes a Main Character in your game, you’d
Laodemus is a larger-than-life masked wrestler and also want to add:
hero. The wish appointed him as the Best Friend’s
older brother. He’s often the Hero for a Best Friend ŭŭ Bond 2: Heroic Adventurer
Arc, and frequently a member, alumnus, or associate of ŭŭ Affliction or Arc: My special wrestling moves
the S.E.E.D. program (pg. XX). have supernatural effects.
In some variants of the story he’s also the living spirit
of the Wish-Granting Engine itself, although that’s As a miraculous Arc, his wrestling thing could be a
more usually the steampunk nanny-styled adventuress Reality Syndrome, or something like the Child
named Lilimund Cartaign. of the Sun’s powers where he has to talk to someone to
(That is, in a Horizon-based campaign, he’s the stan- work out the wrestling move’s nature, costs, and visible
4
dard male variant for the Main Character the Wish- side effects before he can manifest it in play, or possibly
Granting Engine, but you’d expect him to be an ordi- even a manifestation of Wounded Angel or
nary heroic masked wrestler and adventurer instead.) Child of the Ash.
Listen.
Laodemus is the kind of guy who’s got a closet Lee Scathing
full of wrestling masks, a willingness to give a flying The sin of Scathing is to condemn humans for their
elbow drop to a giant monster, and a tendency to come humanity—to say, “to be embodied in the world, to
home late at night covered in mud, ichor, and blood. experience sinful thoughts and sinful desires, is to lose
He postures heroically. He’s quite manly. Occasionally one’s worth.”
he and his partner Aidan will disappear into the back To prize an artificial, surreal, cherubic innocence that
rooms or a zeppelin or something for a bout of “manly no real person could possess.
wrestling;” he’s just serious enough about adventuring He has the eyes of the first Principal, eyes to loathe
that this could be literal, although it probably means love and sneer at humanity as beasts; the blood of the
they’re gay. first Principal runs in his veins; he can kill you with a
He doesn’t clarify to the Best Friend or the other look, I’m told, can “drink you” with his looking, burn
PCs, if he could possibly help it, because his younger you away with the judgment in those eyes.
sibling not knowing which he means for sure is the fun- He has tanks of the first Principal’s blood, and some of
niest thing he’s ever seen. the blood of the second; he is a magician of that blood,
He’s not a mystery in the same sense as his parents he can warp or create from it. He is prone on occasion
(below). He’s too elemental for that. You’re not to create mute and soulless horrors, often geometrically
expected to figure him out. You’re expected to take him or angelically beautiful, that aspire to perfection but,
at more or less face value—as being exactly what he is. upon not finding it, turn upon the mortal world.
His Skills look something like: He runs the Disciplinary Committee at Horizon’s
School.
ŭŭ Cool 3 He is almost all superego; little ego, little id. He is
ŭŭ Wrestling 2 constantly striving to do right; but he has the wrong mix
ŭŭ Steampunk Science 2 of pieces in his mind to know what the right thing is.
ŭŭ Stealth 1 His mundane abilities look something like:
He mostly uses the steampunk science Skill for quick ŭŭ Superior Skill: Covered in Creepy Invisible
spots of engineering and jury-rigged construction, Eyes that Can Eat You by Looking 4
although he’s also hoping to build a new zeppelin soon ŭŭ Nightmare Science 2 (pg. XX)
after his last one caught tragically on fire. It’s not clear ŭŭ By the Book 2
what the point of being a masked adventurer is if you
can’t climb up a rope into the sky above and sail off You might build him with:
soundlessly into the night, after all!
420 Supporting Cast

ŭŭ Primordial—as the eyes of a dead god, a Lucy Godsfollow
creature of Judgment and the Subterranean. There is a thing that lurks in the forest. There is an
ŭŭ Accursed—if you want to buff up his other embodiment of the lightless depths and the fear of the
Skills and make his devouring eyes the World- unknown. It is shapeless; formless; nameless; or rather
Breaker’s Hand; if he tends to Fall from the it has had a thousand shapes and a thousand names.
World into his laboratories below the School Currently it lives inside a girl named Lucy Godsfollow.
when his work or his romantic life go poorly. It’s not her fault. Her world was dying. The last few
ŭŭ A Keeper of Gardens—to help him call survivors were lost in the forest. If she hadn’t opened
forth strange creatures from those labs. and/or up her soul to the Forest Dark and Menacing then none
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ŭŭ Wounded Angel—if he creates new of them would have made it out. She, her sister, her
creatures and blood-magic tricks by ritually friends, and the very concept of the forest being a place
wounding himself. to fear would have drowned in nothingness when the
Outside poured over her world, and been forgotten all
A quick build is Primordial 1 + A Keeper of them forever.
of Gardens 2. Now she lives in Fortitude, not far from the house
of “the Haunted Child” from the first Nightmares Arc.
Lenya Koutolika There she lives alone; save, sometimes, where her
Lenya Koutolika is the Prodigy’s mother. She keeps a house should be, at night, there is instead a forest; save,
good and joyous home, I think. sometimes, when she ceases to be, and it is her sister, or
Her abilities include: one of the other “survivors” of her original home, who
wanders in those woods or answers at her door.
ŭŭ Somehow or Other 4 In the third Dissolution Arc, she is one of those drawn
ŭŭ Domestic Skills 2 to the island of King Death—
ŭŭ Manage a Shop 1 Called, like the Wishing Boy (or Girl), to face the
ŭŭ Shine 1 tree that grows there.
Her stats look something like:
She has decent if underwhelming baseline life skills
and a frankly shocking ability to manage somehow ŭŭ Curious Child 3
if pushed outside her comfort zone—whether it’s ŭŭ Sailing 2
frowning and fretting at a mystery, huffing and puffing ŭŭ Foreboding 2
as she pushes herself through some athletic contest, or ŭŭ The Old Ways 1
looking dead pale and taut as a bowstring as she deals
with an assassin or viper, she’s got the scalable compe- I will tell you her story—
tence to make it through. That she lived in a world that had lost its center. She
Somehow or other! lived in a world where the old ways and the old gods
had been forgotten; where everything was safe, tame,
and hollow—save in the great forest, where the wolves
still roamed, and the elves, and the goblins.
She grew up fearing them.
She would hear the howls sometimes, far away, and
the fear of it sank into her. It dipped through her skin. It
wound itself around her bones. But when the fear was
greatest she would remember that her sister, the hero,
would save her; that one day her sister Maria would be
an anodyne even for the fear: for Maria was destined to
make an end to the power of the forest and spread safety
and home and peace across the face of the land.
In the end it didn’t work out that way.
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The people of the forest took Lucy hostage instead. Mavis Wheeler
She couldn’t even hate them for it, in the end. By the Mavis Wheeler was betrayed by the world, so she left
time everybody’s plans unraveled and all the prophe- it. She took her bike and roared it off for the Lands
cies clashed and the sun went out and the world caved Unknown. There she survives the only way she can: by
in, it kind of seemed to Lucy that everyone involved being a hard woman, making hard choices, doing what
was just doing the best that they could. she has to do to live.
She couldn’t hate them. She’ll share her campfire with you, but she won’t
Not Iason, who’d taken her from her home. Not trust you. Nor should you trust her.
Brian, who served the old gods; who woke the Forest, She’ll tell you that much.
Dark and Menacing. Not Maria, who broke in on the She’ll warn you.
ritual that might have held together the world. Certainly, Then she’ll rip open your mind and root through it
4
not Maria. and pull a shiny secret out, to add to her treasures, her
And when she remembered them dying... store of powers, her things that protect her against the
Not even the wolves. hunters in the endless chaos. Secrets are the currency
of the great shadow bazaar at dream-Uruk, the protec-
Lucy Godsfollow walks a Sentimental Arc— tion against the long-legged soul-hunters that stalk the
In her is preserved the memory of the last few “survi- Outside, and many other things—
vors” of her world. They were lost, at the end, but they Things oddly specific to the people who encounter
live on as her Treasures—she has a Perk that changes Mavis Wheeler, and thus, perhaps, I think, a part of a
Haunt so that she can shed her form and manifest as dream-world that she has constructed for herself. But
a no-longer-existing Treasure. Another allows her to perhaps it is simply that the Outside is vast.
summon a no-longer-existing Treasure to an unobserved Her argument is simple. Data that is known by many
location nearby when she invokes A Waking Dream. is part of the substrate; it may be solved down to the
That taken into consideration, her miraculous abili- people not existing at all. Secrets are personal treasures:
ties look something like this: they reinforce one’s boundaries against the night.
Her powers are something like:
ŭŭ [CROOK] Sentimental 2+
• She has access to miraculous Will when taking ŭŭ Otherworldly (Child of the Ash) 1+
action for, with, or in memory of her Treasures. • She is effectively immortal.
• She may fade away, becoming one • She is tied to “dream-Uruk.”
of her lost Treasures instead... • She may create a sense of order and sta-
• ...or, at a higher cost, summon bility, even in the depths of the Outside.
them into being nearby. • She may transform herself into a bizarre
• She may grant any of them a cybernetic congeries of woman and motorcycle.
single special power... ŭŭ Superior Mysterious Motorcyclist 3
►► ...to her sister, the power “to be a hero ŭŭ Sudden, Yet Inevitable Betrayal 2
who protects by might of arms.” ŭŭ Magical Skill: “Steal Memories” 2
►► ...to her friend Brian, the power “to ŭŭ Silver Tongue 1
hide the signs of chaos and disorder,
and hold them temporarily at bay.” Some of the techniques of her magic include:
►► ...to Iason the woodcutter, the power
“to carve through anything.” ŭŭ [Obstacle 1] taste your secrets

►► ...to the wolves of the forest, the power ŭŭ [Obstacle 1] congeal a secret into a treasure
“to be of indeterminate number.” ŭŭ [Obstacle 2] pull a secret out of somebody’s head
ŭŭ [Obstacle 2] look into a secret and understand
more about it
ŭŭ [Obstacle 3] use a secret as a weapon
422 Supporting Cast

She doesn’t really see the secrets when she takes He can use his despairing wail of “this never happens
them—she just pulls them out, often in the form of lat- in the video game!” to survive falls, explosions, and
ticework golden eggs or peculiar jewels. other disasters. It should really be arcade game, but that
Mavis Wheeler appears in the first Outside Arc, “The doesn’t sound as cool when shouted, and I don’t want
Drowned World.” the copyright troubles I’d get if I found a particular
game to cite!
Mazarin There’s a sliver of the glass dragon in the palm of his
Mazarin’s a clean-cut kid who really wants his parents’ right hand.
arcade to succeed and just doesn’t grasp that the reason All his life it’s made his hand a little stiff and tinted
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it’s not doing very well is that his family doesn’t really the rightmost two fingernails crystal; but in the first
care about “success.” (There are other problems, like Glass Arc, “Shards of Glass,” it’ll awaken and grant
the fact that the games are kind of dated and arcades him a power. Something like:
themselves are a little dated and Fortitude isn’t really
the place for one—but everything else could be over- ŭŭ He can order stuff for free from anywhere in the
come if his parents actually wanted the place to become world, and possibly from imaginary places.
legendary. They don’t. I think it’s actually just that his ŭŭ He can make time gates.
dead aunt really liked arcade games as a kid so they ŭŭ He can get video games powerups in real life.
like having an arcade, or, his dead older sibling’s spirit ŭŭ He’s secretly the lost King and rightful ruler
got caught in a video game and so his parents built an of Fortitude and can command twelve “demon
arcade, or... well, something like that.) knights” that long to place him on the throne.
His natural abilities are something like:
This is typically an Affliction with a power level
ŭŭ “This never happens in the video game!” 3 notionally based on his (in) Over your Head Issue—he
ŭŭ Well-Met 2 doesn’t get Issues per se, being an NPC, but basically,
ŭŭ Surprisingly Strong 2 his powers become bigger and bigger the more out of
ŭŭ See Through Deception 1 control his life becomes. If he becomes a major char-
ŭŭ Bond: Earnest 2 acter the HG could consider stepping his powers up to a
Reality Syndrome.
In “Shards of Glass,” he’s one of the shard-powered
people most likely to go out of control and start doing
really goofy stuff.
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Melancholy Schwan
Demon Knights The Best Friend’s mother, Melancholy Schwan, is a
A “demon knight” wakes up with a strange symbol mortician.
written on their forehead or hand and an impulse to She thinks dead people are funny—I mean, not laugh
serve Mazarin, or someone like him, or to help him out loud funny, but quietly amusing, like Magritte’s the
become King and ruler of Fortitude. Each has a pecu- Treachery of Images.
liar power, probably deriving from the original glass She is pale and unworldly. She has long red hair and
shard, and there is an attached and peculiar price. is focused on spiritual things.
For instance, the Flower-Knight, Tikhon or Ariya The Best Friend saw her float through a wall once,
Kojima, abides by the rule: although that might not have been a real memory—it
preceded the wish that created him.
4
“I appear in a puff of incense and I make your Is she a real person? Was she created by a wish?
little problems go away; There are the following possibilities:
but ah! Master! I regret!
I leave an emptiness in my wake.” ŭŭ The wish that created the Best Friend also
created her. (She doesn’t know.)
The Ravel-Knight, Arkhip or Anfisa Akiyama, has ŭŭ The wish that created the Best Friend also
the power: created her. (And she knows it.)
ŭŭ She was a normal person until the wish turned her
“I unwind mazes, untangle cords, render into who she is today.
sweaters down to yarn. ŭŭ The wish turned her into who she is today, but she
Such little things are nothing to the was already extraordinary.
Ravel-Knight!
But ah! Master! I regret! As for what she is:
The mind that bids me to untangle, tangles.”
ŭŭ She’s an ordinary person with unusual talents.
These powers derive from their ruler’s Affliction, so ŭŭ She’s a spirit of some sort, or maybe a witch, or
the meanings and prices for these powers are going to a ghost—her husband Mortimer Schwan met and
vary a lot both between games and in play. As a design fell in love with her when he was young.
note to help you design more knights, the two prices ŭŭ She’s a relative of Morrigan Kells, a roustabout
listed are inspired by the Isolation and Complex Issues. Irish adventurer and termagant who came to
There’s a good chance that the demon knights abide Town after a number of clashes with the mob in
by the inverse ninja law—the more of them in a scene the outside world. Morrigan is an elderly woman
or situation, the less useful they are. This is because with the talent to open any lock, the mother of
there’s a good chance that all their powers are derived the Horizon Region Main Character the Class
from a single Affliction rather than each having Rep—it’d only make sense if a mysterious red-
powers of their own; and that means, in turn, that the haired woman who once went “through a wall”
HG’s decision on how cool to make the demon knights was related.
and their King doesn’t really depend on how many of
them are around. I’m listing “possibilities” because I want a touch
The demon knights would show up in the first Glass of Science, Faith, and Sorcery in the stories of the
Arc, “Shards of Glass,” if Mazarin has a demon-knight Schwan Family—I want them to be stories of the
entourage as his shard power. If that didn’t happen, or players boldly investigating and figuring things out in
if it did and it wasn’t very important, feel free to have play.
them show up later and in some other form. So I don’t mean that you should decide who she is,
exactly, when you read this, or that the HG should.
I mean that players should develop theories in play,
and ideally take a risk and at least give a monologue
424 Supporting Cast

to try to stake something on whether those theories Mortimer Schwan
are right or wrong. Then and only then should the HG Mortimer Schwan is an older-looking Chinese man.
commit one way or the other to a given path. He, like his wife Melancholy, is a mortician. He loves
That said, if the HG really wants to just decide it, or his work and loves giving his all to his work, with a
if the player of a PC Best Friend has a strong stake in motto of “each corpse is a new puzzle box!”
picking one particular option, then that can happen too. The wish appointed him as the Best Friend’s father,
Melancholy’s Skills look something like: leaving the following possibilities for his true nature:
ŭŭ Ghost Magic 3 (or some other sort of magic) ŭŭ The wish that created the Best Friend also
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ŭŭ Tap Things Lightly 2 created him. (He doesn’t know.)
ŭŭ Mortician 2 ŭŭ The wish that created the Best Friend also
ŭŭ Intercede with Spirits 1 created him. (He knows.)
ŭŭ Buy the Correct Thing -1 ŭŭ He was a comparatively ordinary person until the
wish made him Mortimer Schwan.
She’s worked hard all her life to expand the range of ŭŭ The wish changed him, but he was
applicability for her Tap Things Lightly Skill, starting already extraordinary.
with a base of unsticking doors and cereal boxes, and
by now can use it for everything from starting a motor- Mortimer seems comparatively real except for being
cycle to emergency medicine. unrealistically healthy and chipper for somebody who
lives in a spooky mansion and works with dead people
Melanie Malakh all the time.
As a spiritual voice, Melanie Malakh is most likely He doesn’t really talk about his past, mostly because
to operate as a plot device—her influence is an Issue the Best Friend doesn’t really ask. I’m assuming he’d
or quest event and not a power. If she needs something put together a ridiculous flim-flam tall tale if asked,
more than that, she has, well, what she needs. That because that’s the kind of guy he is. That said, what he
said, it’s worth noting that the original creature—the is is probably...
Magister that came to Town—had...
ŭŭ ...just an ordinary if eccentric mortician.
ŭŭ Accursed 3+; ŭŭ ...someone with enough personal virtue and
ŭŭ ...a strong Sentimental Arc; and weight of destiny to explain his meeting and mar-
ŭŭ ...most likely some level of the Ace. rying Melancholy and having two extraordinary
children, but nothing more.
In her current form she is likely burdened by an ŭŭ ...a retired “Stray Cat”—he used to belong to one
Affliction, No Longer Myself. If she ever becomes of the two-person exorcist teams put together in
a major player again—rebuilding herself from the Arcadia (the Shopping District) to deal with dan-
remaining parts, reconstructing herself in total, or gerous youkai and other threats. That’s probably
taking over the Dream-Witch—it’s likely that her where he met Melancholy—she was his partner,
version of the Who You Were Affliction (pg. XX) will or one of his targets!
put her at risk of becoming Miramie again if she ever
runs out of MP. His Skills look something like:
Melanie Malakh may show up in the second Glass
Arc, “The Passage to the Left,” as well as repeatedly ŭŭ Maintain Spooky Homes and Businesses 3
throughout the course of the campaign. ŭŭ Superior Spiritual Energy 2
ŭŭ Mortician 2
ŭŭ Driving 1
ŭŭ Discretion -1
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His “spiritual energy” gives him a sixth sense about He is also dabbling in the Arc Wounded Angel—
dangerous monsters and an increased ability to fight eventually he may take on “plans” or “designs” as the
them, as well as a limited foresight and the ability to focus of those wounds.
swirl the water, wine, or tea leaves in a cup he’s holding His mundane abilities look something like:
without moving his hands.
ŭŭ Superior Vampire 3. He’s a proper vampire.
Mourning ŭŭ Map in your Head 3. (It maps space, time,
The sin of Mourning is to find no solace within the and destiny.)
living things of the world. He holds that it is from a ŭŭ Superior Physical Control 1. He’s pretty fast.
vast field of corpses that the new world shall be born ŭŭ Superior Vitality 0. He’s oddly frail.
and he spends his life engineering the great battle that ŭŭ Cool 1. He’s composed and balanced.
4
shall give it birth.
Mourning has no specified role on the Student And he likely has:
Council. He is generally believed to be a vampire prince,
able to walk in day, and rejecting the pillow-teeth tea ŭŭ Bond 2: I can see into your heart and soul.
that would indicate his refusal to harm mortals. ŭŭ Affliction: I’m already dead.
The Angel of Fortitude fears him more than any
other Sin, for of them all, only Mourning sees further Mourning may appear in the first Entropy Arc,
than the Angel himself. “Principal Entropy Builds a Fountain.”
The standard version of Mourning is built around an
Accursed 2+ Arc— Nikolai Zakharov
He is bound not to take comfort in the things of the The Prodigy’s tutor, Nikolai Zakharov, is a man whose
world, not to know true friendship or true love, because self-awareness is like clear glass; like sweet water; in it
these things will burn him as the sun does not. He keeps shines the eternal moment of his existence, unsullied by
a sanctuary in a dark future—a dead world, drowned in the past or future.
melted crystal chaos, where float the shredded remnants He does not reflect upon who he is outside that
of living things and great monsters; he hikes across moment; he is incapable of it.
piles of corpses that rise above the chaos-line, and now This does not impair him; rather, all things come
and again he’ll stop and take some corpse’s hand and easily to him. All words that he has studied even once
close his eyes against memories or grief. leap to his mind when he wishes to repeat them; conclu-
From these pieces he is creating a great dead necro- sions bring themselves to fruition within him, becoming
mantic golem to open eyes that do not see the void and available with just as great an ease. Unburdened by the
groan to shake the world and generate a new being from weight of consciousness, freed from the knowledge of
the chaos. birth and death, his body and his mind are light.
Now and again “some fool,” as he’ll put it, clinging to This is his gift and this is his curse, brought on by the
hope for a future, will adjust something, push the world touch of Hedge the Fang.
to survive a little longer with the wish power in their He was called to face that Mystery when he was
hearts, and unmake days, weeks, months, or years of younger and he failed, or at least, did not achieve the
his labor by changing events around, without actually intended outcome, and was stripped of that thing that
making a difference in the fate of things or unraveling Hedge the Fang would like to strip from you, and he
the piles of the dead. returned to Fortitude in a state that could be described
as that of a Buddha, an animal, or a corpse.
Thus he is Hedge the Fang’s herald:
When Hedge nears Town, he will reach out to
Nikolai Zakharov, and Nikolai Zakharov will begin to
preach his doctrine—will encourage others, earnestly,
to become as he has become.
426 Supporting Cast

Before that, though, he is a tutor in... well... whatever Orderic Neustry
subjects the HG feels competent to pretend to lecture Death and the Outside have predators. One such is
on. Let us say physics, chemistry, and Russian litera- Orderic Neustry, on his pale horse, who dreams to
ture, if all subjects are equally good and bad. He’s also disassemble you—to take away the spiderweb of
an enthusiast of Flying Fantasy Wizard Cards—a card sense that...
game set “under a nameless sky”—and may well evan-
gelize it and his favored “silver elephant-based” battle ŭŭ ...holds your thoughts together and imposes
strategy should he be encountered at a park or at a store function on the chaos...
that sells Flying Fantasy Wizard Cards. ŭŭ ...creates form from the torrent of sensory impres-
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His Skills look something like: sions, and...
ŭŭ ...thus, inevitably, creates a subjective person to
ŭŭ Dance through Life 3 experience them.
ŭŭ Tutor of [Subjects] 2
ŭŭ Flying Fantasy Wizard Cards 2 Anyone who can survive the loss of such a thing has
ŭŭ Shine 1 his highest respect; such a person is someone he will
gladly kill and steal the face of, to better endure the
In addition to his Skills Nikolai Zakharov has the rigors of the Outside himself.
following miraculous Arcs: That may be all there is of him—a predator, as owls
are predators, eating the sense-making organ of the
ŭŭ Become Somebody 1+ self as meat. Or there may be something in the wildest
• His Role is Nikolai Zakharov. domain of nonsense and nothing that he strives to find,
• His Truth is that his self-awareness is like seize, or accomplish, but his current face is insufficient
clear glass; he lives in an eternal now. to the task.
• His Failing is that he has a past and a future. The point is: Orderic will take meaning from you. He
• He can see the marks of this Failing in will take your you from you. And if you survive that it
others—the things that led them to now, will not free you from him but only make you a more
the things that are foreshadowed for their worthwhile, enjoyable, and useful prey.
future, as well as how old they are and His stats look something like:
how long they’re projected to live.
• He has insight into any living thing that ŭŭ Superior Hunter 3+
lacks self-awareness, to the extent they lack ŭŭ Stories of the Outside 3
it: he can predict insects near-perfectly, cats ŭŭ Intimidation 2
fairly well, and Fortitude rats not at all. ŭŭ Caretaker 2
• An Auctoritas protects his Truth and his Role. ŭŭ Cook 1
• He can handle himself in a wide variety
of situations—creating an Affliction These Skills have the following meaning: that he
that boils down to “I belong here.” is versed on a number of mysteries and stories of the
Outside; he knows the area well. That he is scary, and
for more than just his power to hunt you down, shoot
you, and devour you. That if you are not being eaten by
him or hunted by him he is actually surprisingly kind—
He is good to his horse; he tends a garden in a ruins
and is gracious to the land; and now and then when
someone survives his sense-devouring process, not by
some effort of their own that makes them better prey,
but by fate or help or fortune, he will take good care of
the dwindled and delirious creature that remains. There
are more than a few wanderers who have had their
Supporting Cast 427

minds taken from them by Orderic Neustry’s hunt, sur- Owler
vived like sailors cast up onto a shore, waking on some Young Owler Lendsme is a piece of the first Entropy,
fructile and life-supporting front of the Outside, and the former King of Evil. It thinks itself a God and it
had him find them there, take care of them, and send laughs at the pride and the achievements of other souls.
them with some sympathy back home. There are even a It runs the Catering Committee at School, but more
few who are made small by this, stripped of their bodies importantly, it has learned the trick of stepping from
and their souls, but remaining in some fashion; one of body to body, leaving its old host confused and dazed
those little “pellets” sits on his shoulder and it laughs behind it.
and it kicks its feet when Orderic Neustry is at hunt. It dreams of finding an amazing god-like host that
Also he makes a mean omelette. I mean, seriously, can make a new world for it to rule.
the stuff is good. Its Skills look something like this:
4
In addition to his Skills Orderic Neustry has the
miraculous Arcs: ŭŭ Superior Seamless Impersonation 3.
ŭŭ Event Management 2.
ŭŭ Creature of Fable 3+ ŭŭ Food Preparation 2.
• He’s scary-competent at travel, gardening, and ŭŭ Student 1.
cooking—between scenes as well as within them. ŭŭ Bond 2: I am impulsive and prone to hubris.
• He can mess with others’ powers. ŭŭ Affliction 3: Body Thief
• He can imitate those he’s met.
• He can declare moods and feelings Owler is fundamentally a puzzle, and you’re expected
onto you (typically loss or sorrow, to build your own solution in play. That is, whatever
sometimes helplessness). methods might exist to contain it; to track it; to keep it
• He can call to you, drawing you to him. out of your body temporarily or permanently; to exile it
• He can blind you to something from its current form; to deal with it...
in the world around you. Those haven’t been specified.
ŭŭ Primordial 1+ It’s not that the HG creates them; it’s not that I’m
• He is a marauding creature of Loss or possibly keeping them secret; it’s not that you can do just any-
Survival, an owl-headed hunter of the Outside thing or just whatever and have it work. It’s that... you
who may also wear the faces of those he’s killed. don’t know the answers yet. Even reading this book,
you don’t know them; you won’t get to know them, not
He has, as well, I think, some level of Connection to until you’ve encountered Owler and worked on figuring
his horse, his bow, his sword, his garden, and the little this stuff out in play.
dwindled thing that sits on his shoulder and kicks its There are a few details that are implied by the intrinsic
feet as Orderic hunts. limitations of the provided powers, and a few more
Orderic Neustry appears in the first Outside Arc, hints implicit in the wound system for the game, but
“The Drowned World.” mostly, it’s going to be a matter of players monologuing
about what the answers should be, and then taking risks
or at least meaningful actions to test their theories.
And sometimes, those risks will pay off; and other
times, they won’t.
Similarly, the mechanisms for possession haven’t
been fully defined. You don’t know what they are yet.
You don’t know how they work.
That said, I should at least make sure that we’re on
the same basic page here; so:
Owler needs proximity and an act of Will—usually,
an Intention formed out of the “Food Preparation” or
“Event Management” Skill—to step into a person’s
428 Supporting Cast

body. It may also need touch or eye contact; that’s going vacates. At the most, Owler may be trapped inside them
to be up to events and gambles in play. Once there, it until the wound evaporates, then banished to wherever
has the power to perform its Seamless Impersonation, its default might be.
which, as a first order approximation, lets it duplicate Owler is a central feature in the second Destiny Arc,
most of the target’s mannerisms and their mundane “Owler and Impious.” It may also appear in the first
and Superior Skills up to level 3. (That’s not quite how Destiny Arc, “Schwans and Sovereigns.”
it works, since correctly, effectively, or productively
duplicating somebody else’s Skill isn’t the same as Renjiro
correctly, effectively, or productively using it—but it’s This guy shows up in the first Glass Arc, “Shards of
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pretty similar.) Often its access to its host’s knowledge Glass.” He is stressed out. He has a dandelion-puff of
works a bit like knowledge the Dream-Witch uses hair, a strong body, and a panicked look on his face. He
“Lend Spirit” to share—it knows everything that the has supernatural powers from a shard of glass in the
target knows, but only while in the host, and the knowl- central chamber of his mind, but it isn’t making him
edge isn’t going to carry over very well unless it takes happy.
the time to rehearse it in its thoughts. And no wonder!
The outcome of the takeover is going to depend on His dreams are all diffracted, like they’re in a kalei-
circumstances. Specifically, the takeover either... doscope. So are his daydreams and his fantasies. He has
to kind of squint around the shard of glass to imagine or
ŭŭ ...leaves the original self “present” in the body, visualize anything at all!
able to act if dramatically necessary and advise at Plus, he has a kind of awkward power—some-
all times. thing like:
ŭŭ ...banishes the original self to a spiritual nether-
world where they can have meaningful insights ŭŭ involuntary adaptative self-transformations
into their life and problems. ŭŭ the ability to do anything with his yo-yo that he
ŭŭ ...leaves the original self in Owler’s original body. can visualize himself doing with his yo-yo, paired
ŭŭ ...leaves the original self in the ghost world. with this horrible guilt that he can’t suspend dis-
ŭŭ ...does something completely unexpected! belief enough to yo-yo the dead to life, the sick to
health, and scientific mysteries to their solutions
The first time it happens to a PC, the HG chooses (though he can do a pretty good at painstakingly
whichever option is coolest, and can change their minds divining answers to things by using his yo-yo as a
up to 15 minutes later (as the possessee slips from one divining rod on a letter board)
state to another.) The second time it happens, choose ŭŭ the ability to warp the world with rock & roll
again. In both cases, things might take an unexpected ŭŭ the ability to see random bits of other people’s
turn if a targeted PC chooses to take a wound rather memories when they meet
than letting things proceed normally. ŭŭ the ability to pick up the strengths and weaknesses
After the second PC possession, extrapolate the of others by watching them perform them
appropriate rules using the HG’s instincts or the PCs’ ŭŭ the ability to have the things he thinks he sees
attempts at science, faith, and sorcery. actually be real
Normally the person in the “old,” abandoned body ŭŭ concussive thunderclap sneezes
suffers disorientation that imposes a level 2 Obstacle ŭŭ the ability to inject thoughts into people’s minds
to reacting cleverly and being on top of things for the ŭŭ the ability to make random objects grow like
duration of the scene. Whether they remember Owler’s plants in the sun
actions in their body is going to depend on what hap- ŭŭ the ability to make random objects and things
pened to them—facing that same level 2 Obstacle is flow like water in a river
another median case. Again, however, all of this can go ŭŭ jewels and glass flowers fall out of his mouth
differently than expected if the target chose to take a when he talks, and will continue to do so until he
wound; at the very least, they’ll have the option to swap gets married
it out for a new, more appropriate wound, after Owler
Supporting Cast 429

ŭŭ control over a soul-eating magical sword96 ŭŭ ...the ability to borrow the powers of people she’s
ŭŭ he automatically appears as a self-insert character close to.
in every copy of every book he reads ŭŭ ...the ability to unwind time and hold something in
ŭŭ someone else always pays for anything he tries its ancient, traditional, or undamaged state (albeit
to buy at a cost of long-term painful concentration until
it sticks, if it ever does).
His shard power would normally be an Affliction ŭŭ ...the ability to walk freely between the ghost and
with power level notionally based on his (in) Over real worlds and break other spiritual barriers.
your Head Issue, but it’s possible that for someone ŭŭ ...a host of fire-creatures that serve her.
like Renjiro basing it on It Never Stops! or a Complex ŭŭ ...the power to have the world around her reflect
would make more sense. Regardless, his powers her moods.
4
become bigger and bigger the more out of control his ŭŭ ...the ability to go in and out of mirrors and travel
life becomes. If he becomes a major character the HG an empty mirror-world.
could consider stepping his powers up to a Reality ŭŭ ...the ability to find things that are lost.
Syndrome or a Primordial Arc.
He shows up in “Shards of Glass” as one of the char- Her shard power would normally be an Affliction
acters most likely to get hurt by their shard power in with power level notionally based on her (in) Over your
some fashion. Head Issue, but it’s possible that for someone like Sakura
basing it on the Vice or Isolation Issue would make
Sakura Anastasia more sense. Regardless, her powers become bigger and
This is one of the NPCs associated with the Dream- bigger the more out of control her life becomes. If she
Witch and the Archive. She thinks the modern world becomes a major character the HG could consider step-
is falling apart, that everything was better twenty years ping her powers up to an Accursed Arc or a
ago and best a century before that97, and her abilities Reality Syndrome.
look something like these: In “Shards of Glass,” she’s one of the people most
likely to get hurt by her power in some fashion. She
ŭŭ Traditional Ways 3 may also show up in the third Glass Arc, “the Maze in
ŭŭ Traditional Crafts 2 the Library,” hunting for the answer to the conundrum
ŭŭ Gloom 2 of the world. Or perhaps she hunts the Unicorn of that
ŭŭ Umbrella Use 1 labyrinth: but why?
ŭŭ Bond: Diligence 2
ŭŭ Does its existence offend her?
A few versions of the Dream-Witch will move ŭŭ Does she fear it will hurt her or someone she
Sakura to a shrine family, in which case she might cares about?
replace her Gloom Skill with the family magic. ŭŭ Or is that harm already done?
In the first Glass Arc, “Shards of Glass,” Sakura will
discover there’s a shard of the glass dragon speared
through her left lung. Umbrella Use?
It’ll give her a power like... Lest you get the wrong idea—
Her umbrella is lightly reinforced by magic but by
ŭŭ ...limitless, stretching-powers-type reach. default all her Umbrella Use covers is poking people,
ŭŭ ...access to the Night-Craft (from the Chuubo’s increasing stylishness, and keeping out the rain. It isn’t
Marvelous Wish-Granting Engine RPG). an omnicompetence Skill! At least, not by default. It
ŭŭ ...the ability to make shadow clones of herself or could be if you like.
other people, or spit out copies of herself.
96 In fairness, it’s aces for cutting onions.
97 She doesn’t actually have precise numbers.
430 Supporting Cast

Setsuna Kaneko The Straw-Haired Kid
This is a graceful and delicate child of the swan people. This is a spirit. They are the Romantic Interest in
She is known as a “moon child”—some strange light the first Troublemaker Arc, “Rinley Yatskaya Looks
shone on her at her birth, paled her skin to the color of for Trouble.”
coffee and cream, and gave her the prophecy that she I don’t know what he (or she) is a spirit of. I have a
will die but first she will see seven great wonders. couple of ideas, though:
She has lived, in short, with the touch of death since
her birth; ŭŭ a seasonal spirit, born from the rushes of
It has been with her and within her. Twisted River
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And as her life reaches its end, at the young age of ŭŭ a seasonal spirit, born from a trash collection/
[the default PC age], she finds herself driven to give recycling initiative
it meaning—to try to treat her coming death like a ŭŭ a lingering spirit after a cat loses its last life
joyous thing, to spread it as a gospel, the prophecy of ŭŭ a fading human ghost
her demise. ŭŭ a wish-spirit taking on human form
I don’t think she really believes that it’s awesome. I ŭŭ a cat’s “jealous ghost,” taking human form
think she’ll reach out to you because she doesn’t want because the cat’s too old to enjoy a normal life
to die. But it’s hard to say. People with prophecies are
weird, and there is a chance, I think, that she is one of Anyway, this is some straw-headed kid—I want to
the Headmaster’s treasures already. say “tow-headed” but this is a fantasy game so people
Her mundane abilities look something like this: will read it wrong—and as soon as they meet, the
Troublemaker spots them as a key player in the Arc.
ŭŭ Shine 3. It is easy to do things on behalf of It’s possible the Troublemaker even sees what’s
Setsuna Kaneko. coming, though if so then it’s kind of extra-sad.
ŭŭ Mysterious 2. She’s glamorously mysterious. The spirit’s hanging out by the river or on the streets.
ŭŭ Know Stuff 2. Much was prophesied. They’re playing with a paper bag blown in the wind
ŭŭ Fashionable 1. She has impeccable dress sense. or maybe playing on a reed flute.
They’re a romantic interest, so if Rinley’s into guys,
I’m not sure she needs more than that, but if you then this spirit is Rafael Bannik; and if Rinley’s into
think she needs miraculous abilities you could extend girls, then this spirit is Sessily Shishika. Because of
this with some level of Creature of the Light. how Rinley’s designed (as a “younger sibling” arche-
Setsuna appears in the second Outside Arc, “The type), I’m going to assume that it’s going to be more
Lightless Gates.” like puppy love than adult romantic love, but that won’t
make the Troublemaker feel much better about it
when the spirit’s natural lifespan expires 1-3 seasons
from now.
The story here is pretty simple. After some badgering
the straw-haired kid will admit to being a spirit that lets
themselves be seen by mortals because they’re inter-
ested in some aspect of human life, or some particular
people, or because they owe somebody a debt and repay
it by bringing them weekly gifts.
If you’re pursuing their story as the central mystery
of the first Rinley Arc, then there’s probably something
more to it, if only because Simon Brambles (pg. XX)
is trying to keep you from finding something out. That
said, the likelihood even then is that this spirit’s story
is pretty simple and any actual mystery is focused on
their associates:
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ŭŭ the Death Wolf (pg. XX) that is their death Yuri Kolodin
ŭŭ their companion Totem (pg. XX) Yuri Mikhailovich Kolodin is the Prodigy’s father.
He’s a simple man who enjoys the daily routine of life
The Straw-Haired Kid’s abilities probably look in Fortitude.
something like this: He spent time in the military but does not discuss
such things.
ŭŭ Superior (Type) Spirit 2 His abilities include:
ŭŭ Superior Celestian 1
ŭŭ Grace 2 ŭŭ Sailing 3
ŭŭ Thoughtful 2 ŭŭ Fishing 2
ŭŭ Music 1 ŭŭ Checkered Past 2
4
ŭŭ Mortal Stuff 0 ŭŭ Sea Stories 1
ŭŭ Shy -1
They also have Connection 2: Totem and I think it unlikely that he will have any miraculous
Connection 1: The Death Wolf. abilities, although he may very well have some cool
Perks, and if he dies and returns or has some magical
Yulia Rozhkova encounter with something he could develop an appro-
Yulia Rozhkova runs Eclectic, a bookstore and comic priately miraculous Arc.
shop in Fortitude—one of those stuffy little places that
are more confusing than they have any right to be for
Properties of the
their size. There are some chairs by the entrance where
you can sit to read in the sunlight, but the back of the Nightmare World
shop is a winding maze of shelves. The collection of
ŭŭ You are disoriented.
books is eclectic and seems to have no set pattern — a
ŭŭ You are confused.
shard of the glass dragon found its way into the book-
ŭŭ There are subtle contradictions in the world
store’s conceptual inventory and now it has become
around you.
erratic. If you are searching for a particular book you
ŭŭ There are things that you can’t explain.
will not find it, though if you ask the owner she can get
ŭŭ The sun is distorted and strange.
you a copy by the end of the week.
ŭŭ You can see. You can hear. You are in possession
Her mundane abilities are something like:
of your senses.
ŭŭ You are hunted by the shadow of your mind.
ŭŭ Store Owner 3
ŭŭ I Read it in a Book Once 1
ŭŭ Grace 2
ŭŭ Shine 2 (when following her advice)
Both the eccentricity of her inventory and her ability

to get ahold of books are an Affliction notionally based
on her (in) Over your Head Issue—the stranger her
life becomes, the more amazing and surprising her
collection and the greater her ability to find and order
rare volumes or “the book you need.” If she becomes a
major character the HG could consider stepping up her
powers to Spiritual (Books).
Yulia Rozhkova appears in the first Nightmares Arc,
“Nightmares Open,” as a major part of the Haunted
Child’s support network.
432 Supporting Cast

The Nightmare World
Exploring the psychic topography of his own night- He’s one of the characters from the Haunted Child’s
mares, Nightmares’ Angel discovered a startling regu- dreams, but depending on the course of your game he
larity, structure, and form. Nightmares, it turns out, are could show up long before the nightmare world and the
more than random blurs of data in a sleeper’s twitching Haunted Child become relevant—near the beginning of
mindscape—there’s a terrain there, a landscape. the first Arc for the Troublemaker, something pulls the
Recurring structures. Prince of Thorns from the nightmare world into Town.
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Stable forms. Something’s dredged him out.
This is the Nightmare World, related to and con- See, the Troublemaker is going to be investigating a
tiguous with, but not identical to, the Near Outside. mystery; and something’s bound Simon Brambles into
Therein dwell alien landmarks, twisting rivers, spires, service and sent him to keep the truth of... whatever
spider- and wolf-haunted forests, and crystalline cathe- mystery that is... from the PCs. He’s come to Town
drals. There run boiling, sulfuric rivers; half-dead bears to replace written records with gibberish. To frighten
hunt along their shores. There sprawl great cold flat and witnesses into silence. To keep the picture from
grainy deserts with toppled black towers visible from coming together.
afar. There are fiery horses there; their eyes are red and Unfortunately for him, he’s going to become roman-
their breath heated with their exhaustion. They run until tically infatuated with, or older-sibling-style protective
their hooves strike sparks and make them roads into of, the Troublemaker. I want to finish that sentence
the sky. with “, instead.” But I won’t. He might still get in her
It is a demon world. It is a horror world. way.
It is a world of the richest possible natural resources But it will probably compromise his effectiveness
to a scientist like Nightmares’ Angel: a place where quite a bit.
goms and eye-devouring rhomboids practically grow He’s probably not evil, not exactly.
on trees... but it is not even the least bit nice. He could like his work, or he could be doing it for pay,
And in that world are people, too—or at least, partial but he’s probably being blackmailed or commanded
people, pieces of self and being, parts of you: into it. The Prince of Thorns is a representative of
Constellations of your motivational forces, memo- your own relationship to your own uncertainty, so the
ries, and emotions taken form. more positive your attitude towards mystery is, th
They live there. They have lives there, or half-lives His stats look something like:
at the least. They farm there, amidst the fructile corpses
of ancient demons, and fly their banners from the fallen ŭŭ A Keeper of Gardens 1+
spires of their unknown past. • A shadowy toxin, that bleeds from the surface
of his body and dissolves in light, confuses and
The Prince of Thorns twists what it touches. Long-term or intense
The first character to come through from the nightmare exposure to sunlight might undo this effect.
world is usually Simon Brambles, Prince of Thorns. • He has some control over the things
He’s a nightmare of being lost. He’s a nightmare of that touch on whatever secret he is
having no leverage. charged to keep—his “Garden.”
Of everything falling apart as you grasp for it. ŭŭ Primordial 1+
Of the chaos of the wilderness, of knowing absolutely • He is a creature of thorns and brambles
nothing about what you’re supposed to do or where to and vines and snakes and being lost.
go, of struggling while pinned to thorns but finding ŭŭ Superior Dreamer 3
only thorns behind them. ŭŭ Superior Snake-Speaker 2: He may speak to
He’s all about “I don’t know what to do.” snakes and do snake-like things, in a fashion
“I give up.” similar to Rinley’s “Cat-Speaker.” This includes
“It’s impossible.” enhanced smell, as long as he can flick his
Supporting Cast 433

Variations
tongue, skill at slithering, climbing, and hiding in
Here’s some quick options to customize the Prince of
vegetation, skill in poisoning things, and skill in
Thorns for your game:
being intimidating.
ŭŭ Superior Plant-Speaker 1: At level 1, his ability
ŭŭ Do you want him to be the half-brother of
to talk to plants slightly better than an average
the Angel of Fortitude—a fellow child of
person can is barely even noticeable, but it does
Attaris Magister?
come with a sense for gardening, plant health, and
ŭŭ Do you want to make him a former servant of
the soil.
Melanie or Reginald Malakh?
ŭŭ Storytelling 2
ŭŭ Assuming 15-year-old PCs, would you want his
apparent age to be:
The Prince of Thorns appears in the first Rinley Arc,
• 10?
4
“Rinley Yatskaya Looks for Trouble.”
• 14?
• 15?
• 16?
The Accursed Simon Brambles • 22?
Here’s an alternative miraculous Arc for him: ŭŭ Would it make more sense to use the female
version, Liza Brambles? (I suspect her title
ŭŭ Accursed 2+ would also be “Prince of Thorns,” because the
• Sanctuary—Simon Brambles can retreat to the formal language of nightmare aristocracy tends
Nightmare World through any briar or bramble to be gender-neutral, but you could substitute
or any sleeping person’s ear and can emerge “Thorns’ Lady” or “Queen of Thorns” if
again, later, from wherever he first emerged you prefer.)
into Town; I’m guessing that’s near a high
window of Professor Hideo Hayashi’s Archive. If the player of the Troublemaker has a strong
• “the World-Breaker’s Hand”: He can opinion as to which variant to use, that wins; other-
unravel the sense in things, confuse and wise, it’s up to the HG.
maze them, make them lost, confused,
and hopeless in one sense or another.
• Falling from the World: When people stare
at him, when they look at him closely, his
form begins to warp and change; he becomes
progressively more monstrous until he is a man
woven from thorny vines, shadows, and snakes.
With this Arc, since he won’t have Primordial to

give an excuse for this, it might be valuable to replace
two points of his Skills with Superior Thorny Vines 2
to give him tangled vine-limbs emerging from unspec-
ified and vague places of his anatomy and clothing that
he can use as manipulator limbs.
434 Supporting Cast

Ill-Made Variations
The second character to come through from the night- There are three takes on what it means that Ill-Made’s
mare world is usually Ill-Made or the Ill-Maiden.98 followers plan to “disassemble” the Haunted Child:
She’s notionally—
She’s notionally all the pieces of yourself that you ŭŭ The worst take is: they have to hurt someone
don’t want to look at. And being forced to see them, to be real. It doesn’t actually have to be the
having your heart and mind ground in them, every Haunted Child, but it has to be somebody. They
moment that you look. She’s this primeval horror and have to take that person, spend a while living in
revulsion that makes you desperate to look away, to their company—acclimate them to their pre-
Supporting Cast
refuse to see. sence—and then vivisect or at least kill and then
She might not be your ugly pieces. Not exactly. dissect them. That’s the only way to make their
It might be a generic quality that she has, it might stay in Fortitude a permanent one.
be an objective “you don’t want to look at this”-ness, ŭŭ A more moderate take: they can find an anchor
rather than a personal and specific quality of her actu- to reality without murder. They may not know
ally being the specific pieces of yourself that you don’t that they can do that, and they’ll probably start
like to think about— out pretty ruthless because they are creatures out
But even so. of nightmare—but they don’t have to commit a
She’s someone that you don’t want to deal with. She’s moral crime.
someone that you don’t want to face. She’s someone ŭŭ In the nicest take, “disassemble” is the wrong
you feel nauseated, disturbed, frustrated, and stressed at word for what they have to do. They are
the thought of encountering. She’s best at manifesting just misunderstood! They might need to use
vaguely, indistinctly—you sense her, you see her in the the Haunted Child for something, but it’s
distance, you intuit her, but by the time you reach her or something that doesn’t actually require hurting
force yourself to look at her straight on, she isn’t there. the kid. Then, afterwards, they plan to settle
If you get past that— down and establish and run the corner conve-
I suppose anybody can, with the right abilities— nience store of their dreams.
She traditionally appears as a tall, hooded figure in
dark, often leather or metallic clothing, with yellow As for Ill-Made herself, canonical variations include:
serpent’s eyes.
She was born in the nightmares of the Haunted ŭŭ You can drop the humanity of her form—she’s
Child, but she’s slipped out into our world. just a twisting mass of serpents, or at least,
Nor is she alone. capable of becoming them. (This may or may not
She is chief of a gang of monsters, mongrels, and ever help.)
nightmares. They will eventually follow her out. Then ŭŭ She is the herald of something much worse—
they will disassemble the Haunted Child to establish whether she’s evil or just wants to run a corner
their reality and they will live in Fortitude. Such, at store, her presence and her gang’s presence will
least, is their plan. lead to a full-on apocalyptic nightmare following
Her gang tends to have low levels of Creature of her through.
the Light/of Fable, Become Somebody, Reality ŭŭ You can, of course, re-cast this entity as a man
Syndrome, and Child of the Ash. A typical motley instead—possibly giving him an alternate name
includes someone with an amorphous body, somebody of Bane Prince instead of Ill-Maiden.
with a gigantic claw for a hand, a sadist with spiky
hair, a femme fatale, and a sweet good-hearted night- Ill-Made is bad with mirrors,. It’s not clear whether
mare kid who believes that the rest will see the light her seeing her own reflection will kill her, annoy her,
freeze her up, or unleash that apocalyptic nightmare
I just mentioned. It won’t make her happy, though,
98 This is technically a title and not a name, but I’m not sure she has that’s for sure!
a name. Maybe Margaret, or Kevin? She looks basically human,
insofar as you can tell.
Supporting Cast 435

if they just keep faith. (Or that last might just be the The Blasphemy
Haunted Child.) [[BEGIN BOX]]
Her Traits are something like:
Properties of the Blasphemy
ŭŭ Creature of the Light 2+ ŭŭ Your guiding star is lost.
• She may appear to those she has a Connection to. ŭŭ You can make no sense of things.
• She may transfix those around her. ŭŭ The ground-bog drags you downwards.
• She may make psychic attacks on others ŭŭ Everything decays.
or evoke flashbacks with her actions. A level 4 Auctoritas guards these laws; to defy them
ŭŭ Superior Shadow-Self 3 in this realm requires a miracle with at least 4 Strike.
• She is elusive. [[END BOX]]
4
• She has some of the nature of the parts In the deepest part of the nightmare realm is the blas-
of yourself you don’t want to look at. phemy that the Headmaster of the Bleak Academy
• She is hard to grasp. embedded into Nightmares’ Angel.
ŭŭ Superior Dreamer 2 It bloats and spreads there like a seeping sore.
ŭŭ A Map in your Head 2 It is consuming the nightmare world, I think, but
ŭŭ Knowledge of the Nightmare Realm 1 slowly; slowly enough not to be another Property of the
place, at least. I do not know if there is anything that
Ill-Made appears in the first Nightmares Arc, can live there, even the creatures of nightmare, not for
long; but there are things with teeth, regardless, living
or not though they may be; they swim beneath the
surface of that realm.
The most prosaic explanation for why things are
beginning to emigrate out of the nightmare world is that
they are fleeing the spread of the blasphemy. I don’t like
that very much, actually, because it’s a bit too tangible
and logistically realistic for a world of nightmare, but it
is at least a consideration—
A thing that makes those who have fled the realm less
likely to willingly return; a reason to sympathize even
with nightmare people, as long as they’re not so bad.
436 Supporting Cast

The Skyship might be the kind of thing that’d need a maxed-out
[[BEGIN BOX]] Jasper Irinka to create.
One can only assume that it Prince stole it, com-
Properties of the Skyship missioned it, or has more powers than this writeup
ŭŭ Your fears drift away from you. might suggest.
ŭŭ This is just a happy dream.
ŭŭ Emotions get out of hand. The Prince of Cats
ŭŭ There are secrets you have yet to explore. A graduate of the College of War and Nightmare, and
ŭŭ Cats come and go as they please. as such a compelling advertisement for the benefits of
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[[END BOX]] higher education, the Prince of Cats flies through the
This great flying ship is the fortress of the Moon Outside on his magical skyship teaching the world that
Prince, aka the Prince of Cats— things will be OK.
A Rider ostensibly allied with but independent from It’s a great ship, but it’s full of cats. It’s a wonder his
the Bleak Academy, a ruler of moonlight and cats but tuxedo can stay clean!
most importantly a Prince of the Principle that things His mundane Abilities look something like:
will be OK.
That it’s safe. ŭŭ Superior Cat-Speaker 5. One look, and a cat
That you can stop trying so hard. That you can stop shares his thoughts.
striving so hard. That the pain, the work, for better or ŭŭ Superior Hunter 2+. A blessing from his
worse—and sometimes it is very much for the better, “Creature of Fable”
when he comes, and sometimes it is so very much for ŭŭ Superior Dreamer 1. He is skilled
the worse—can stop. with dreamscapes.
In many ways the ship will resemble the evil island ŭŭ Prince 2. He is also a mannerly Prince.
of the Angel of Fortitude—it may even have a giant
manta/blowfish/whale creature flying it around.99 It’s He’ll start with some Perks:
more likely that it’s levirock-based technology, though;
either way, it has peculiarly endless basement/ mainte- ŭŭ Connection: the Child of the Sun 3
nance/ engineering levels, despite being of finite height ŭŭ Connection: the Headmaster of the Bleak
(20-30m) when seen from the side. Academy 2
It is a wonder, the pleasure ship of the Prince of Cats: ŭŭ Connection: [PC of the HG’s choice, to be
It floats amidst colorful and aromatic clouds, has a discovered in play] 2
stable of strange flying animals, has endless depths, as ŭŭ Affliction: “The Prince of Cats takes away
noted, despite its finite height, and may cloak itself to your pain.”
vanish from the visible mortal sky. Most of its awesome ŭŭ Accessory: Commands an incredible flying
features are comparable to those that a PC crafter could skyship and all its trimmings.
build with a Shepherd Arc at 1+, so we’re talking...
And his miraculous Arcs will include:
ŭŭ ...useful miracles, if the pilot, captain, or operator
has put some serious time lately into maximizing ŭŭ A Keeper of Gardens 1+
their potential, and... • His presence is oddly giddying (his “Toxin”).
ŭŭ ...unruly, willful magic, if they have not. • He commands at least one
gigantic flying skyship.
The construction of the ship itself must have taken ŭŭ Creature of Fable 2+
something more than that—depending on how it’s built, • He’s nothing more or less than this.
it might be within Leonardo de Montreal’s limits or it
I’d peg his Creature of Fable as closer to 5 under
99 So if your group has ever found itself thinking, “You know what
needs a romantic interest? The giant soul-eating beast that carries normal circumstances, but it doesn’t seem right that the
Principal Entropy’s evil island around,” this dream is finally in your moon should overshadow the sun—
grasp.
Supporting Cast 437

So let’s assume that as the Child of the Sun powers Old Tom
up, so too does he. Old Tom is a hidden agent on the Prince’s ship—
I don’t think there’s anything to say he’s necessarily An intelligent, talking cat working against him; a
malicious, nor anything to say he’s necessarily nice. secret agent long ago won over to the service of either
He’s the temptation of thinking that things will be Jade Irinka, if the Moon Prince is a villain, or Melanie
OK. If they are, then that’s just great, he’s saved you Malakh, if the Moon Prince is an all right kind of guy.
from worry and unnecessary stress. If they’re not, then (He’ll claim to serve whichever of them is most helpful
he’s an evil tempter. I guess that to whatever extent he in any given conversation, like any fast-talking secret
actually embodies that principle rather than just being agent should.)
a metaphor for it, whether he’s good or bad depends Old Tom will spend a lot of time hiding in the
on you. shadows and warning people not to trust the Prince
4
Do you worry too much? of Cats. He’s not hiding because he’s a secret agent,
Or do you not worry enough? though; it’s because he has massive stage fright that
makes it hard for him to talk when he’s not lurking in
the shadows... and almost impossible when everyone’s
looking at him!
His Skills look something like:
ŭŭ Secret Agent 3
ŭŭ Superior Cat 2
ŭŭ Skitter 2
ŭŭ Superior Dreamer 1
His stage fright is a Complex; since the HG is

unlikely to be tracking Issues for NPCs closely, it’ll rise
in rough parallel with some PC’s “(in) Over your Head”
Issue but may need its own, separate resolution.
I don’t think he has miraculous Arcs—this is an
anthropocentric game, so cats don’t actually need mir-
acles or even Superior Skills in order to talk to people
and do people-like things. (They just usually don’t!)
That said, there’s some percentage in giving him a small
ŭŭ Aspect (the Ace) 0+ Arc—
He’s no Prodigy, but he could be intermittently
awfully cool.
You could also swap his gender, up the power-level
some, and rename the character “Puss in Boots.”
438 Supporting Cast

Alexandra Prokofiev ŭŭ Magic. 1/season, she can navigate or diagram
and Melanie Glenn a path to somewhere physically impossible.
Alexandra Prokofiev and Melanie Glenn are two
hard-bitten rat investigators looking into the Prince of Melanie Glenn
Cats. They’re not really concerned about his reasons for Melanie Glenn’s a long-time friend of Alexandra’s.
coming to Town— When the Prince of Cats shows up in the first Spring
I mean, he seems to be looking to make off with the Arc, “the Pleasure Ship,” she gets involved, because...
sun, which is a big deal, but:
They’re much more concerned about the cats. ŭŭ ...she thinks Alexandra needs someone to watch
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See, there are never supposed to be more than a over her.
thousand cats in Fortitude at a time. There are enough ŭŭ ...she’s seen Hedge the Fang before, albeit from
exceptions and special cases that it veers up as high as a distance.
twelve hundred sometimes, but it really shouldn’t. ŭŭ ...she’s always wanted to be a noir-style detective.
The rats have a treaty with humans. There’s a line.
And the reason for that line, besides tradition, is that Melanie Glenn is more of the warrior of the team,
at some point, when there are enough cats, they’re with Skills like:
going to be possessed by the rats’ old nemesis and mon-
ster-god Hedge the Fang, who will then hunt down the ŭŭ Superior Fortitude Rat 3
rats of Fortitude and eat them all. ŭŭ Cool 2
A skyship with hundreds of cats on it is a problem. ŭŭ Tenacity 4
ŭŭ Domestic Skills 1
Alexandra Prokofiev ŭŭ Useful Trivia 1
Alexandra isn’t usually a troubleshooting rat. She’s ŭŭ Noir Detective -1
retired, or she was supposed to be; she’d gotten dis-
tracted from the life of an adventurer by this burning ...and Perks like:
urge to map the skies. She spends more time with a
telescope than a trenchcoat these days— ŭŭ Connection: Alexandra Prokofiev 3
But a distant ancestor of hers was supposed to have ŭŭ Accessory: Awesome trenchcoat.
trafficked with the Prince of Cats, so when his ship ŭŭ Bonus: 1/book, she has a +3 to showing up in the
shows up in the first Spring Arc, “the Pleasure Ship,” nick of time.
she gets involved. ŭŭ Health. She has a bonus Normal Health Level.
That’s her honor! She’s the “face” of a two-rat team, ŭŭ Health. She has a bonus Tough Health Level.
with Skills like:
She isn’t very good at the noir detective part, but man!
ŭŭ Superior Fortitude Rat 2 That coat! Plus, she’s good enough with a sword—it’s
ŭŭ Diagramming 3 part of Superior Fortitude Rat 3, though it doesn’t com-
ŭŭ Charm 2 pletely negate the Obstacle of her size—to take on a
ŭŭ Noir Detective 2 couple of grown men.
ŭŭ Navigation 1
ŭŭ Athletics 1
...and Perks like:
ŭŭ Bond: “I know the skies.” 2

ŭŭ Connection: Melanie Glenn 2
ŭŭ Health. She has a bonus Normal Health Level.
ŭŭ Health. She has another bonus Normal
Health Level.
Supporting Cast 439

Hedge the Fang And when he comes he will have...
I am told that Hedge the Fang, who is named Unmindful,
dwells on the Farthest Roofs. He shapes the sea and the ŭŭ Otherworldly (Child of the Ash) 4+, for he
endless sky. shapes the sea and the endless sky.
The rats tell this story of him: ŭŭ Storyteller (Creature of Fable) 3+, that he
That Vikenti Haru came upon him at his work. He may cut away your sight.
watched and marveled for a while. And such mortal Skills as:
“That’s beautiful, sir Hedge,” he said. Hedge turned. ŭŭ Dissemble 4
Hedge smiled. ŭŭ Devour 3
He did not see the rat Vikenti, for Hedge the Fang had ŭŭ Smile 1
no eyes. He did not touch the rat Vikenti, for Hedge the ŭŭ Bond 2: “Enact the Will of Hedge the Fang.”
4
Fang had no skin. He picked up the rat with his skinless
hand; or rather, held him up upon it, not touching it, not And Shapeshifting of some sort, as a Perk.
flesh to flesh, but above it on a nest of air.
“You poor thing,” said Hedge. He grinned. He In the first Spring Arc, “The Pleasure Ship,” the
grinned at the rat with his alien maw. “You poor thing. arrival of hundreds of new cats in Fortitude has begun
You’ve learned to see.” to stir the wish that enfleshes as Hedge the Fang.
And if you’ve ever wondered what’s wrong with the Even in the early hours of that Arc Hedge is dimly
world today; if you’ve ever thought, how did we wind present, yellow eyes gleaming, in Fortitude. He is
up here? seen taking on the appearance of a cat—or of Rinley,
Well, I’ll tell you how. Kuroma, Caroline, Goro, or Shiori Yatskaya; or of the
He spat in the face of Hedge the Fang. Prince of Cats—as he hunts the local rats and Jasper
That is why, if he should ever have enough cats to Irinka, whispers his dreams of flaying them, and van-
make a try—if there should ever be enough of them ishes into mist and dream if ever seen unobscured and
gathered in Fortitude—Hedge will wear them all, set in good light.
aside their souls and hearts and wear their bodies as his This can have concrete effects, but it’s mostly
skin, gather them up with their maws dripping drool, a symptom—
and he’ll hunt down every last squeaking rat who ever Not so much a thing as a warning: either he’s using
knew Vikenti Haru’s name, or that he once saw the a quest miracle to approach Fortitude, or his future
work of Hedge the Fang. arrival is echoing in the now.
He’d kill you too, now you know those names, but
you’re a bit too big for some cats to eat.
That’s not the whole of the story, I admit. There’s a
little more. But it’s enough to tell for now.
Think of it as a wish, then. That someone made a
bleak and awful wish.
“I wish that if there are ever enough cats for it, enough
to support him, for him to wear their skins, gathered
there in Fortitude—
That he should come there to make an end to the rats
and their seeing:
Hedge the Fang.”
440 Supporting Cast

Kaiju
These are some of the giant monsters that will show up The degree to which it’s an animal, a natural force, or
over the course of this campaign. an intelligent being is a canon flexpoint; you’ll have to
figure that kind of thing out in play! Accordingly, I’m
The Anomaly not sure of its mortal abilities. They include, but are not
This, says Hayden Sorrows, is a “creature of raw, crys- limited to:
talline chaos” purportedly stirred up or created by the
Supporting Cast
reborn sun, whose whispering, from Town, “disturbs ŭŭ Seethe 3
the void.” ŭŭ Whisper 2
Some of this may be Bleak Academy propaganda or
even honest misunderstanding. I think the Anomaly feeds on confusion, disorien-
What’s definitely true is that this creature is tation and fear and may, if sufficiently fed, develop a
becoming a vast, ambiguous presence in the substrate malign intellect—
of Fortitude—either literally beneath the place, in the But it’s also perfectly possible that it’s an empa-
sewers or water table, or metaphysically underneath thetic entity, a shard of Jade Irinka or Attaris (pg.
it yet permeating it all. Its manifestations in motion XX) or something, either trying to live peacefully in
resemble the vibrant chaos of the near Outside; when Town or preparing to infect and destroy the Outside in
still, they resemble the crystalline Outside dust. revenge for Jade Irinka’s death, and that it simply has
It’s a terrifying thing, with its main powers deriving trouble communicating in terms that lower-level minds
from the Arc: can understand.
Or that it’s an animal.
ŭŭ Otherworldly (Child of the Ash) 4+ Or that it isn’t even alive!
• It may radiate chaos, or (once per season/ The Anomaly appears in the first Winter Arc,
story), use a wish to call up an Outside storm. “Flowers in the Ice.”
• Its size is malleable, shifting freely between
insect and Region-sized and able to go
even beyond that once per book.
• It is functionally immortal.
• When it takes a wound, it can abandon
the normal wound advantage and
instead construct a point defense.
• It can launch physical attacks with
miraculous brutality and precision.
• It can commune with the chaos of the Outside.
• It can merge subtly with the landscape,
or solidify into a glittering, Escheresque
tangle of non-Euclidian limbs.
• It can grow natural weapons to hypnotize,
pacify, or enslave the minds of prey.
Supporting Cast 441

Bašmu Chibi-Bašmu
This is a great, horned, venomous snake. It is purport- This is a 108-centimeter-long horned serpent in
edly one hundred and eight miles long, has six mouths, a cute little top hat. It is partially imaginary and as
and devours fish, birds, ships, rats, cats, and humans such is capable of squeezing through surprisingly thin
with equal alacrity. It is a creature of lightning storms gaps and floating around on a little cloud. It cannot,
and justifications/excuses— however, break itself into the chibi-Bašmu sentai team
If defeated in its serpent form, it will likely re-man- unless they’ve already been established to exist.
ifest itself as a horned man, woman, or six-headed Chibi-Bašmu appears in the first Dissolution Arc,
and six-bodied sentai team with the power to blend “Chuubo and the Tiresome Temples.”
its frantic justifications into reality and implement one
plan, no matter how absurd, each week.
4
Its abilities look something like:
ŭŭ Superior Sea Serpent 3

ŭŭ Tortured Reasoning 2
ŭŭ Master of Disguise 2
ŭŭ (Hobby) 1, typically the same as the Wishing
Boy/Girl’s.
Its basic Arcs are probably a lot like Chuubo’s:
ŭŭ Knight (Reality Syndrome) 3+

• It can make its justifications/excuses
visible and even occasionally tangible.
• It can successfully implement
one absurd plan per week.
ŭŭ Otherworldly (Child of the Ash) 0+
• It is likely immortal.
• It can work quest miracles relating to its
element (thunderstorms on the Lake?).
• The HG chooses whether it can radiate...
►► ...plausibility (or implausibility).
►► ...frenetic energy (or dolor).
The exact numbers here are going to depend on when

it shows up in play.
Note that once Bašmu sheds its serpent skin for the
shape of humanity, its ability to gallivant about as a
sea serpent is severely compromised: after all, turning
back into a giant snake is a subset of turning into a giant
snake, and that can’t possibly help.
Bašmu appears in the fourth Nightmares Arc, “The
Death of the Sun.”
442 Supporting Cast

The Graveyard Spirit If you need to treat it as a creature, it has mundane
(or “Grief-Yard”) abilities on the order of:
This creature is a spirit valley where one walks in
endless night, carrying a candle for the dead, but one’s ŭŭ Superior Grief-Hill 3
grief only deepens and one’s body grows ever colder ŭŭ Superior Hunter 3
until you fall and lose your flesh and become one of ŭŭ Superior (Inflict) Torment 1
an endless procession of distant candleflames spiraling ŭŭ Poetry 2
around its distant maw. ŭŭ Camouflage 2
In the living world it takes form as a seven-headed
Supporting Cast
snake made of grave-dirt, its mouths dripping with And its Arcs would something like these:
poison; or a young man named Simon Aluskiy with
slick black hair and a somber countenance. ŭŭ Emptiness (Accursed) 2+
Nominally this is a location or interlude and not • It may take a life from you unfairly.
an entity— • It may maze the paths of a graveyard, turning
A road of trials. them into a path to its spirit valley.
One falls under its influence as a Sickness Issue, ŭŭ Storyteller (Creature of Fable) 3+
or sometimes as a concrete form of the Isolation • It can set a good table or fetch a collection of
Issue; encounters are Corruption, Trauma, Adversity, golden treasures when nobody’s looking.
and sometimes Never Say Die! • It is a skilled hunter.
The shift between reality and the grief-yard is more • It can oppose others’ powers.
often a Transition than a poisoning. • It can mimic others.
At times it may be a thing of epic fantasy or even a • It can afflict you with grief.
Techno creature instead; and what all that boils down • It can summon you.
to is that during the period where the grief-yard has the • It can blind you to some truth.
strongest presence in the game, the genre shifts and
chapters may move quicker or slower than is typical The graveyard spirit appears in the second Arc of
in the game. Winter, “Permafrost.”
Supporting Cast 443

Iolithae Septimian Put to use;
Hear the story of Iolithae Septimian. Subdued them, bound them, chained the world;
A temple stands above the sea. Wrapped it about with the corpse of chaos
Its people fish up a stone. It is a stone of great age. Made their many kingdoms of the earth
On that stone are words. The words are lies. The man And made white rock from the caps of all the waves.
of the temple reads those words. His finger runs along Chaos she raged; chaos she wept.
the stone. It was grievous and she spat up this stone.
He frowns. Let none forget the words of the primal waters.
“These words are sacred,” he says. “But they may not Let them be remembered, sacred be;
be spoken.” To those who forget them shall
He takes the stone. He keeps it in a hidden place. come worse things than salt:
4
A girl lives at the temple. Each week she takes down Chaos was the mother of the waters.
the stone. She cleans the chest it stays in. She replaces The waters of the sea are salt;
the cloth that is its bedding. She polishes the stone and chaos moves within them.
sets it back. Nothing moves in nothing;
She does not know how to read the words of the stone. Before the something, there is nothing:
Yet they haunt her. Before the names of Heaven.
She finds herself knowing them. She finds herself Before the name of Earth.
wanting to say them because it is confusing for that girl
to know the words, when they are not said. Such are the words of the stone, and The Lies of
These are the words of the stone— Iolithae Septimian is their name.
These words trouble her.
Before the name of Heaven, She walks to the sea. She stands over it. She listens
before the name of Earth, to its subtle roar and wonders at the presence of it. She
Nothing moved in nothing. watches the men who haul in their catch; bountiful are
The waters of the sea were salt; the waters of the sea.
chaos moved in them, She asks the man of the temple if the seas have
Chaos was the mother of the waters. always been fresh. He looks afraid. He whips her. He
No field was formed, no marsh was to be seen; cuts out her tongue. He bends her to his will.
The gods were none of them called into being; And again:
None bore a name, no destinies were ordained; Each week she takes down the stone.
Chaos she coiled and the seas were salt. She cleans the chest it stays in. She replaces the cloth
Then came the names of things. that is its bedding. She polishes the stone and she puts it
Then were born the gods. back. She finds the words of the stone rising up in her.
Brightly burst in Heaven, writhing in the Earth, She finds herself saying them in bits and pieces, even
Dank and cold and moving in the deeps below. though she has no tongue.
Everywhere was the noise of them The words come out of her. It is as if they are real. It
And the noise of them was wrong. is as if they are more real than the mouth that no longer
Then did the chaos thrash in the darkness. has a tongue, more real than the man and his whip,
The chaos roared. more real than the piled waters of the sea.
She raised up her children, smote the gods: She keeps them quiet.
Answered the evil of them and the seas were salt.
The gods built walls to hold her out.
Walls and walls: encircled were they all.
Dynasties and kings, manners, places,
They set the world in order. They stripped the seas.
Made them naked, saltless,
Barren of the chaos of them,
444 Supporting Cast

She does not speak them where others can hear, but Iolithae Septimian’s Traits look something like this:
sometimes she goes down to the cliffs and she whispers
them to the waves. She says them in snatches: ŭŭ Reality Syndrome 3
• Iolithae Septimian can borrow the Traits,
...Wrapped it about with the corpse of chaos Skills, and powers of any boy she’s ever
Made their many kingdoms of the earth... kissed or any girl who’s ever let her brush her
hair. However, putting on someone’s powers
Or like that takes her a full day, and while doing
so—while wearing their powers as a “second
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...Chaos she raged; chaos she wept... . skin”—she is also bound by their Afflictions
and a peculiar curse: she can be commanded
Or to grant wishes in their name, and must do
her best to do so (with the powers she and
...Nothing moves in nothing; that second skin possess) or lose the second
Before the something, there is nothing: skin and take a wound at the same time.
Before the names of Heaven. • She can manifest her lies and tall tales,
Before the name of Earth... . to some extent, in the world.
ŭŭ Wounded Angel 2+
The words grow stronger in her. She does not fight • I am not sure what blasphemy is bound inside
them. her; perhaps, if she were weakened far enough
The words travel out into the waters and they come the seas would once again turn fresh.
back strong. She hears them and she speaks them and • I think the power sources for her
they do not quell. Empowered Wounds are lies.
In the temple the man of the temple is afraid. He dis- ŭŭ Storytelling 4
respects the sacred thing. ŭŭ Sighing, Sai Combat, other things relating to
He takes the stone to the cliff above the waters. the sound “Sai” 2
He casts it down. The sea pulls back, the ground ŭŭ Surprising Familiarity with Pop Culture 2
grows teeth; he and the earth together, they shatter the
given stone. He goes home and he forgets the words Traditionally her lies have had the capacity to blur
of the stone. He forgets the Lies of Iolithae Septimian. the boundaries of reality and become the truth. I’m not
The girl stands at the cliff amidst white rocks. sure if that survived the death and rebirth of the sun—
She speaks the lies that turn the seas to salt, and I think that for her, it would represent a quest miracle
Iolithae Septimian is her name, and the seas grow black for Wounded Angel 5, and I don’t know if you want to
with strangled fish and white with salt and green with put her at that level when she first comes into play.
the given poisons. The waves crash; they are loud, as Still, with just the Traits listed, she’s more than a
the waves were never loud before. The temple crum- match for the Titovs that bind her—
bles. The cliffs crumble. The kingdom falls. So I’m going to add one more quality to her list:
The seas are salt; but not the Lake.
There is still a place of all fresh waters, by the shores ŭŭ Defeated.
of a little Town; and Iolithae is haled down there, bound
beneath a temple there, and she does not speak again. The Titov magic most likely saps her interest in
She does not say the Lies of Iolithae Septimian again. freedom, keeps her from being able to conceive of
...not for a long, long time. escaping, keeps her unable to remember what the world
outside her prison is like or how the world outside and
the world inside relate; makes her unable to act against
them or refuse their harmless commands; tangles her
tongue when she goes to lie, particularly if it’s a lie that
could empower her escape—
Supporting Cast 445

But none of that would help save that, like a defeated itself, the larger it grows and the more
PC, she is no longer capable of taking wounds to protect confused and enraged it becomes.
herself against these effects. They simply happen. If one • It can make things lost, confused, or
day she should recover her Health Levels, she would be send them into the world inside itself
able to twist the wounds that come in, use her lies to with “The World-Breaker’s Hand.”
empower escaping anyway, and soon thereafter be free. • It can retreat to a foggy, empty version of the
Iolithae Septimian appears in the second Rinley Arc, Schwan family graveyard as its sanctuary—no
“Rinley and the Titovs.” Schwans, no people in fact at all, a little parallel
world, but still a hillside surrounded by an iron
Ugallu gate and strewn with graves, where an empty
This is a billowing storm of colored vapors that occa- swingset swings inside a golden birdcage
4
sionally manifests a lion’s head and/or the feet of a bird. maybe 12’ tall and 10’ around. This sanctuary
It is amorphous and may be... may or may not be inside its inner world.
ŭŭ ...acidic mist. It may also have some level of Otherworldly

ŭŭ ...poison mist. (Child of the Ash).
ŭŭ ...clean pure water vapor. Ugallu appears in the fourth Nightmares Arc, “The
ŭŭ ...the vapors of the Outside. Death of the Sun.” Often it is not born as Ugallu but
ŭŭ ...ambiguously solid, or at least dense enough to rather becomes it—the Headmaster of the Bleak
open doors with a push and buckle walls with a Academy curses somebody and they slowly dissolve
rush. into this storm.
Often it contains a mind, though a mind scattered,

disoriented, and enraged by being spread out across a
vaporous expanse.
Inside Ugallu there is another world—an endless, Chibi-Ugallu
mist-shrouded alien space. It is sometimes like an This is a cute puffy stormcloud about the size of a
empty Fortitude. At other times it is like chaos and teddy bear with a lion-kitten’s head poking out of
delirium. It is difficult to know oneself when one is the “front” and chicken feet randomly sticking out
inside Ugallu; difficult to know where you are; one is from underneath when it wants to run. It is wearing
lost, both physically and mentally, and eventually most silly glasses.
likely falls into the Outside. It is not spry—it floats around like a tiny zeppelin.
Its mundane abilities are something like: It is pretty much a safe and friendly creature unless
it thinks too much on its insides, in which case I
ŭŭ Superior Evil Storm 4 suppose it’s possible it could evolve all the way into
ŭŭ Ghost Magic 3 a full Ugallu.
ŭŭ Cunning 1 Chibi-Ugallu appears in the first Dissolution Arc,
“Chuubo and the Tiresome Temples.”
Its Arcs probably look like this:
ŭŭ Shepherd (A Keeper of Gardens) 1+

• It can shape its inner world and its sanctuary.
• It is sometimes poisonous/acidic.
• It may be able to create guides, guardians,
and new Properties for its inner world.
ŭŭ Emptiness (Accursed) 2+
• The more it thinks on itself, including the
more attention it pays to the world inside
446 Supporting Cast

Uridimmu Sa’a Lingurth
This is a large cloud-wolf of indeterminate scale and
100
This is a gigantic creature with aspects of a blowfish,
density, ranging from pony-sized to the size of a massive catfish, eel, manta, and whale. It flies around the sun car-
thunderhead. It has three eyes, an elongated snout, and rying an evil island on its back. It can reach tendrils up
an elastic form. Its powers are typically similar to those into the sewers of the evil island, and then somehow—
of the Child of the Sun, save that instead of a connec- This does not make any topological sense—
tion to hope it is liable to connect to anger or possibly Out into Town, where it can hook a person’s soul,
to grief. pull it out, and eat it. Ever since the Angel of Fortitude
Its mundane abilities are something like: imposed new rules on the evil island requiring that its
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creatures not hurt anybody more than three times worse
ŭŭ Superior Celestian 1 than they deserve, Sa’a Lingurth has been getting hun-
ŭŭ Superior Cloud Spirit 3 grier and hungrier.
ŭŭ Best Friend 2 Because there are some people who one-third deserve
ŭŭ [an Art/Craft] 1—probably the opposite of that, sure, but not many, and it’s not like there are all
whatever the Child of the Sun’s is that many actual people anyhow in Town.
ŭŭ Lore 1 Sa’a Lingurth is built something like:
Its Arcs probably look something like this: ŭŭ Child of the Ash 4 (“the Island of the Evil
World” / Mood: Fear of the Other)
ŭŭ Mystic (Primordial) 1+: It is a cloud-wolf ŭŭ Superior Flight 4. Sa’a makes flying whole
of anger or grief. islands around look easy.
ŭŭ Basically a Big Puppy 3. This is Sa’a
Uridimmu shows up in the fourth Nightmares Arc, Lingurth’s strength.
“the Death of the Sun,” as the best friend of some kid ŭŭ Flail Tendrils Around 1. Sa’a can do this!
who has a reason for anger or grief. Then, alas, it’ll ŭŭ Pay Attention 0. This is not Sa’a
take their grievances too much to heart and rage out Lingurth’s strength.
of control— ŭŭ Ethical Philosophy -1. Nor is this.
At least, unless something different happens in play.
The powers of “Child of the Ash” probably aren’t
quite right—they imply that Sa’a Lingurth can turn into
Chibi-Uridimmu
a human... or maybe an adorable puppy?... very easily,
Chibi-Uridimmu is an adorable little cloud-wolf of
whereas the truth is probably closer to “it’s never hap-
sorrow. I don’t know why it doesn’t have the same
pened before, even though it does sound like a fun plot
emotion as a full Uridimmu; maybe the emotion
twist.” And it doesn’t really explain the soul-grabbing
changes as it grows, or maybe it’s actually tied to some
thing.
weird emotion in-between.
But otherwise they seem pretty close!
But, whatever. It’s a wolf of sorrow.
Sa’a Lingurth may appear as a “Guardian Bird” in
It’ll listen to your sorrows. And then, sneeze!
the first Entropy Arc, “Principal Entropy Builds a
Fountain;” if so, you might want to add some of the
standard/default Skills for a guardian bird (pg. XX)
as Perks.
100 a wolf, made from cloud
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...and Other Strange Creatures
Here are some of the miscellaneous oddities liable to The Death Wolf
show up over the course of the campaign. This is a spirit wolf. It represents death in general, and
is a spirit of death in general, but it is specifically the
The Bleak Innocent death of the straw-haired kid (pg. XX). It hangs out
This is a distant-seeming child. It is sent from the Bleak near them, under bridges and howling from rooftops
Academy to break the world, but not by choice; rather, and the like, and one day it will take them away into
it is a creature in the process of transforming into the the lands of death.
death of the world. You can play this a couple of different ways:
4
It may re-use an established character (being a new
evolution of the Haunted Child, say, or Hayden ŭŭ It could be a vast shadowy wolf, full of the power
Sorrows) or it may be a new character, Dula or Aeger of the Outside and the Bleak Academy—a terror
Anacharsis. It may also be the robot or golem, Ix. that stalks the straw-haired kid, a knowledge of
It is a perfectly nice person in itself, with Abilities like: mortality, and something that will readily enjoy
the deaths of insects and branch out to pant
ŭŭ Domestic Tasks 2. You’re good at cleaning, cheerfully outside the windows of PCs when they
cooking, and the like. get sick enough to be on the verge of death.
ŭŭ Polite 2. You know how to be polite. ŭŭ It could be a cute furry dog/wolf that just happens
ŭŭ Lonely 2. You seem lonely. to be the psychopomp for whatever kind of spirit
ŭŭ Good Smile 1. You have a good smile. the straw-haired kid is.
ŭŭ Stylize 1. You like decorating and styling things. ŭŭ It could go back and forth between those forms,
depending on the moment.
But it is becoming, not a person, but a wish for the
ending of all things; not in an explosion, not in a wave Either way it has Skills like:
of terror, but with the slow fading that one experiences
when anesthetized— ŭŭ Superior Spirit Wolf 2
That the world should simply fade into a pale empti- ŭŭ “Spirit of Death” Magic 3
ness, unwind itself, and be away. ŭŭ Uncanny Insight 2
Normally you’ll handle this by quests and Issues; ŭŭ Chase Frisbees/Sticks 1
if you find that you need a mechanical model for this,
though, I’m pretty sure that the Bleak Innocent isn’t the I’m going to leave some room for the HG to create
“actor” in its own fate at all. Rather, it is a Treasure of, or appropriate magical techniques in play, but some of the
something whose dreams are being held by, an “empty techniques of “spirit of death” magic would include:
sun,” a creature using a Primordial or Sentimental Arc
to invoke bleak wishes through it. ŭŭ [Obstacle 0] Smell/sense the presence of
impending death by sickness.
ŭŭ [Obstacle 1] Smell/sense the presence of
impending accidental/fated death.
ŭŭ [Obstacle 1] Slip past barriers into a place where
someone is dying.
ŭŭ [Obstacle 2] Frighten mortals.
ŭŭ [Obstacle 2] Escort someone whose time has
come into the lands of death.
448 Supporting Cast

Dream-Beetles (aka Drama-Beetles, (though it must be careful, lest that kill you, and there
Drama-Bugs, Dream-Bugs) be no longer You in You and You Alone)—
A number of these gigantic beetles will fall off of the It has many wishes.
evil island in the fourth Entropy Arc, “Principal Entropy Its voice is rolling thunder and it coils around the
and the Lost Adventure” and thereupon begin to blur treasure box that contains in it your soul.
the lines between reality, story, and dream.
In swarms, they’re more of a natural hazard than a Long-Eared Goblin Youkai
character. As individual beetles, they’re likely to have... Sufficiently angry and dirty cats are sometimes reborn
as long-eared goblin youkai, expressing their wild will
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ŭŭ Superior Dream-Beetle 3 to destroy the world. Normally the goblin youkai skulk
ŭŭ Superior Dreamer 2 away to the Outside and are not heard from thereafter;
ŭŭ Freak People Out 3101 occasionally, they’ll remain in Fortitude, clambering up
buildings, staring at people with their great round eyes,
...and the rest the HG can season to taste. twitching their long ears, and eventually either going
rogue and hurting somebody or taking employment as
Snake-Tailed Eagle an ordinary sailor, shopworker, or errand runner.
This Guardian Bird is a vast snake-tailed eagle crea- They are taciturn, feral, and I’ve never actually seen
ture which coils over and around a vaguely pyramidal one, so I can’t even hazard a real guess as to whether
mountain or ziggurat containing a shining jewel that is they’re more like people, cats, or monsters. But in the
your soul. It takes the standard Guardian Bird abilities... third Dissolution Arc, “Chuubo is Lost,” they’ll start
coming out of woodwork, metaphorically, and so I’m
ŭŭ Superior Bird-Like Guardian 3 going to take a guess: people, with Skills sort of like:
ŭŭ Sudden, Yet Inevitable Betrayal 2
ŭŭ Abuse Magical Treasures 2 ŭŭ Extremely Sharp Teeth 3
ŭŭ Silver Tongue 1 ŭŭ Clamber 2
ŭŭ Stare Ominously 2
...and to them adds... ŭŭ Navigate, Sail, or Fish 1
ŭŭ Primordial 3+ In that Arc, they’re going to be crew for Chuubo’s

ship as he sails for the island of King Death. I doubt
...to make itself a proper outer sheathing for your they really know what’s going on there any more than
own soul. For, here, in this particular place and at this he will. I mean, maybe they do know, maybe they’re
particular time, the part of you that protects yourself complicit in whatever’s going to happen, maybe they’ll
from life and the world is as a cosmic principle; the even try to abduct Main Characters who don’t come
part of you that would shelter yourself from living is along on their own—
as a vast snake-tailed eagle creature that curls around a But I think it’s more likely that they like, or feel kin
mountain. Its Principle is “You and You Alone” and its to, or are positively disposed towards the cat-headed
Element is the vast Dry Earth. monster, King Death, and they’ve been having dreams,
Naturally it longs to talk to you. In talking to you it as some of the Main Characters will have dreams, of the
may grow new powers. Naturally it wishes to keep you voyage that is to come.
with it forever; or to banish you, of course, it wants that Accordingly, if they do have miraculous Arcs, they’re
too, because there is nothing more dangerous than you most likely:
being allowed to go in and contemplate your soul. And
to eat you, to devour you, to seal yourself completely ŭŭ Otherworldly (Child of the Ash)
ŭŭ Otherworldly (Spiritual)
101 Through freaky dream-story-reality blurring stuff, not by being a

beetle. I am not a super-fan of insects the size of sea turtles but they’re
not intrinsically gross.
Supporting Cast 449

Many-Voiced Minions Minions of the Bleak Academy
These are shapeless, almost identity-less creatures of Minions of the Headmaster of the Bleak Academy often
the Outside; they’ll take on more and more form and fit the template for members of the Great Hunt (as dis-
self, though, the more they interact with you and Town. cussed in the Chuubo’s Marvelous Wish-Granting
Their abilities look something like: Engine RPG):
ŭŭ Superior Amorphous 2 ŭŭ Equestrianism 2. They’re good with horses.

ŭŭ Superior Imitation 2 ŭŭ Archery or Sword 2. They’re good with either
ŭŭ Superior Translucency 1 the bow or the sword.
ŭŭ Chaos Incarnate 2 ŭŭ Sword or Archery 1. They’re familiar with
ŭŭ Fashionable 1 the other.
4
ŭŭ Woodcraft and Hunting 1. They’re familiar with
While this limitation is unlikely to ever be decisive, hunting and living in the wilds.
do note that they must find some sort of coat or hat, ŭŭ Socialize 0. They’re not that good with people.
at minimum, before their Fashionable Skill can come and two points divided between the following
into play. special Skills:
I recommend that they also have: ŭŭ Superior Torment. A Skill in inflicting torment
and encouraging despair.
ŭŭ Mystic (Primordial) 0-1. They are... ŭŭ Excrucian Necromancy. Magic for controlling
• ...shapeless... the dead and deceiving the living.
• ...Outside-element creatures of... ŭŭ Changeling. Magic for concealing themselves
• ...The Way Others See Us. among humans.
ŭŭ the Night-Craft. Magic for crafting nightmarish
This isn’t absolutely necessary, and the HG may wish double minions.102
to reserve miraculous Arcs for more narratively mean-
ingful creatures, but if the HG isn’t doing that, they’ll These minions appear in the second Dissolution Arc,
have that Primordial power. The condition for their “Chuubo Makes a Terrible God-King.”
immortality, in such a case, is that the chaos itself never
dies; only the identities that they have put together for
themselves while in Town and at your service are vul-
nerable to death.
The many-shaped, many-voiced minions of the
Outside appear in the second Dissolution Arc, “Chuubo
Makes a Terrible God-King.”
102 That is, minions of these already minionish entities. Creatures one
step down the ladder of minioning. They are not necessarily double
headed, twins, or chewing onsome sort of delicious “doubled” gum,
although this is certainly within the realm of possibility.
450 Supporting Cast

Totem Unicorn
This is a spirit creature that hangs out with the straw- I am told that Unicorn dwells three steps away and
haired kid. beyond the world.
It’s a little assemblage of trash, river clay, or origami The rats tell this story of Unicorn:
all folded up and come to life. Melanthios heard the footsteps of Unicorn. Melanthios
It’s a typical magical animal companion. It floats in heard the ringing of Unicorn’s bells. So Melanthios
the air, it’s hard for most people to notice even though chased Unicorn and Melanthios did not return.
it’s visible, it lives for the sake of giving hints and Anton and Karel, who were his sons, were wiser than
keeping track of events, and it’s cute. It communicates their father.
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by folding itself into meaningful shapes, writing on They heard the bells but they did not follow. Instead,
itself as if a scroll, or revealing words already written they memorized the scent. They gathered swords, and
onto its wrappers or brass plates—something like that, ropes, and nets, and they went out. They brought food
anyway. It may also produce sound effects and puffs and water and all manner of gear. They clung to the
of smoke. roofs with all four feet wheresoever after Unicorn they
Its name is usually Totem but you can pick went. It proved no good. Anton looked up, and Karel to
Palimpsest if you want to emphasize the writing side his brother.
of its nature. The world came down—
It acts a bit like a video game hint tool or quest journal, That’s what Karel said. He had time to look away. He
and that’s probably the most approachable way to think had time to bury his head in his paws. He did not see the
about it, but the reason I’m putting it in here is so that fullness of Unicorn’s presence. He only saw Anton his
you can make tangible and physical your progress on a brother become unreal.
big and tangled Arc—as you learn things, as you make In the light of the moment of the Unicorn, Anton
progress in solving the mystery at hand, as you map the became as a paper figure in the fire. His reality burned
mazes and unravel the riddles of these Arcs, it can show out. His shadow seared into the roofs behind him.
you the current shape of what you know. It’s here so Where he’d stood, for just a moment, the Steppes of the
that you can metaphorically look at what you know. If Sky came down to touch the Vast and Earthen Court;
it turns out to be helpful to give it sound or even video and Anton was gone away. So Karel ran and Karel ran
recording and playback then that’s cool too. and Karel ran from the Unicorn; and all his life, he
Conversely, if it winds up detrimental to the game, envied but was more fortunate than his brother.
you can have it die with the straw-haired kid, wander In practice, I think Unicorn’s powers are a mix of:
off in grief, or enroll in Horizon’s School and become
an independent entity rather than an asset to the PCs. ŭŭ Storyteller (Creature of the Light) 3+
Totem’s skills are usually: ŭŭ Otherworldly (Child of the Ash)
ŭŭ Superior Totem 3 Its mundane abilities might include:

ŭŭ Superior Memory 2
ŭŭ Superior Celestian 2 ŭŭ Superior Being a Unicorn 2-3
ŭŭ Emoting 1 ŭŭ Mazes and Labyrinths 3
ŭŭ Shine 1-2
ŭŭ Wordless Speech 1
It is a central feature in the third Glass Arc, “The
Maze in the Library.”
[[SEE PG. 225, Corebook—the “Book of Names”
has a specific format.]]
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From Vittore’s Book of Names
The heralds of Unicorn are
the sound of hoofbeats on the roofs; the sound of
bells; flowers growing where flowers ought not grow;
flurries of snow; sudden cold winds; a glimpse of divine
and endless beauty
The weapons of Unicorn are
an almost irresistible impulse to hunt or follow it; the
exhaustion and wear and tear you take on that journey;
its horn
These things defend you against Unicorn:
4
stress; practicality; engaging in make-work; the spell
of Klytië Fujioka, who slew the Unicorn
Unicorn kills by
superseding you, making you and the place you’re
standing in so utterly unimportant that you simply
cease to be
Unicorn is drawn to
open spaces; natural beauty; Churches; ideals of
pure/virginal beauty, put on a pedestal by others
Unicorn hungers to
(this is currently unknown)
You may kill Unicorn by
committing abhorrent deeds in her presence and in
her name; staining her with the blood of total innocents;
binding her with her mane and slaughtering her while
reciting the spell of Klytië Fujioka.
Unicorn is reborn when
a divine or perfect being sacrifices themselves so that
Unicorn may be reborn
You may escape the attention of Unicorn by
finding something or someone worth abandoning the
hunt for; falling into a delirium; standing on ground, or
with some object in your hands, so solid and real that
Unicorn cannot erase your existence when you catch it.
[[END BOX]]
452 Supporting Cast

Wraith-Sailors
When they died, these sailors neither suspired to
Heaven, fell into the Outside, or descended to the world
of ghosts; instead, they sank into the Blasphemy (pg.
XX).
There they suffered, endlessly drowning, decaying,
and lost.
It may be that they are free of that. It may be that
they are still there now, still drowning now, and that all
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we see of them are shadows, echoes, the edges of their
tattered souls.
How can we not know?
It is like this:
If you look into their eyes, sometimes you will see
images of what they have undergone, of what has hap-
pened to them; or of what they want. Sometimes you
will see these things, or feel these things;
But the wraith-sailors do not speak.
Their abilities look something like:
ŭŭ Silent 4
ŭŭ Sailor 3
ŭŭ Ghost Magic or Fishing 1
They also most likely have a level 2 Bond,

“Tormented Wraith.”
They appear in the third Dissolution Arc, “Chuubo
is Lost.”
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Arcs
Let’s talk about the stories that you’ll play through The quest card won’t tell you how the story goes as a
during the course of this game. whole, but it will give you some thoughts for things to
In this section you’ll find 36 classic stories in Town. be doing right now.
For each PC, your first story is pre-chosen and three Like, “investigat[e] the Student Council of
more are recommended. There’s four stories like this Horizon’s School.”
for each of the nine character options. In a 9-player Or, “[talk] with someone about fate and free will.”
game, that may be all that you get... but if you have (And is that Chuubo? A different PC? Or are you
a more reasonable 2-6 players, you’ll also have the unknowingly talking to Impious of the Student Council,
option of playing through the stories for the NPCs that or the latest body of Owler?)
no one played, taking over their role or just taking the The notes on the story itself, on pg. XX, give you
time to get to know them and to help them with their some bigger-picture context on what’s going on. In
5
deal. So if you’re done with your stories, or just want this case, for instance, you’ll get a picture of what that
to try something else, then a 5-8-player game means body-hopping horror and that overenthusiastic jock are
you need to talk to the other players about how to pair, about. The notes also say, in this case, that the quest is
group, or divide things up; in a 1-4-player game you likely to involve a great cost or a terrible mistake on
can just grab an NPC’s story-set and play through. your part...
Here’s how playing through a Fortitude: the Glass- So that’s good to know.
Maker’s Dragon story will work. But mostly? Just play through the options on the card,
The notes on the story tell you which quest set to use whichever ones seem to fit the story that’s going on right
from chapter XX. then. That, plus knowing that you’re playing the story
For instance, if you’re Seizhi Schwan, and you’re of Seizhi being subverted by either the body-swapping
dealing with a body-swapping horror and an overen- horror or the overenthusiastic jock, manipulated to gain
thusiastic jock, that’s the story “Owler and Impious.” access to Chuubo’s wishes, and with a great cost or ter-
According to pg. XX, you’ll play this out as a rible mistake likely in the cards...
Secret History. That should be enough to get you through a satis-
That’s a “quest set”— fying segment of play.
A set of 5 quests that can be played through in dif-
ferent orders.
A Secret History, like most quest sets, can handle
four different colors of quest. You can play it through
as a Bindings, Knight, Otherworldly, or Storyteller Arc.
Let’s say that Seizhi has started to feel that being
Chuubo’s best friend is a lot like being his handler—
tasked with the difficult job of making sure that this kid
and his wishing engine don’t blow up the world. So he
decides to take these quests on as a Bindings Arc.
His first quest will therefore be “Behind the Mask”
(pg. XX, XX).
You’ll review the quest description on pg. XX.
It postulates that someone—in this case, probably
“Impious” of Horizon’s Student Council—gets to
Seizhi. They try to subvert him. Possibly they want
access to Chuubo’s wishes...
And now we ask:
How does that story actually happen?
You’ll take out that quest’s “quest card” and put it in
front of you—either the 25 XP version if you want a
quick quest or the 35 XP version if you want a long one.
456 Arcs
How to Run These Stories
Hi! Are you the HG? You don’t have to provide fun tactical conflict.
If so, I wanted to let you know that it’s safe to coast I mean—it’s great, if you can! But that’s not your job.
a little here. If the players want to be in trouble, point them at the
(be in) Trouble Action. If they feel overwhelmed
Your job isn’t to make sure the plot happens. You by their opposition, like they can’t possibly win by the
can, if you have ideas, but if you don’t feel confident rules, offer them a 20-25 XP quest or group quest to eke
in them? You don’t have to. “Found” plot is fine. The out a triumph.
stories the players should tell in order to earn XP for Tuning the antagonists to provide a tense tactical
Arcs
XP Actions and quests should form a plot on their own; miraculous conflict—that isn’t your job.
remember to hand out Issues and it might even be a
genuinely good one. What is your job?
Your job is just to play the world. Be the world. Be
You don’t have to keep secrets—but you can, if all the random characters and Fortitude and Horizon
you want. and the Lake. Be the weather, be the night, be the sky.
You don’t have to know the answers to the mysteries Be what’s going on in the background and what’s hap-
around the PCs. Your job isn’t to figure them out— pening right now.
unless there’s a PC trying to resolve a Mystery Issue, It’d be great if you knew what was going on in all the
standing at the door of a revelation or something, about players’ stories.
to step through. Even then, though, just go with what It’d be great if you knew their playbooks as well as
your heart is telling you is behind that door and it’ll they did, if you knew their stories and quests better than
be fine. they did, if you could make good, thoughtful calls on
Heck, in general— any rules questions that they had.
If you don’t know something, just go with what your It’d be great if you could keep everything organized
heart’s telling you. And if you don’t feel confident, just for everyone.
reveal as much as you are confident in and punt on the ...but you don’t even have to do that. If you just play
rest. Cut the scene or something, or tell the players you what you’re aware of, and take some time now and
don’t have any more yet. again to learn a little more about stuff, that should be
Building a complex chart of the relationships and perfectly fine.
secrets hiding behind the surface of the game?—That’s You’re the HG. Play the world. And have fun!
not your job.
Arcs 457
Targets ŭŭ Nightmare: stories of “Nightmares’ Angel” (pg.
In general, I think that... XX-XX)
ŭŭ Rinley: stories of “the Troublemaker” (pg.
ŭŭ ...each PC’s first story should be 120 XP, just so XX-XX)
that you can get a sense of how fast the game ŭŭ Winter: stories of “the Prodigy” (pg. XX-XX)
moves. ŭŭ Spring: stories of “the Child of the Sun” (pg.
ŭŭ ...each PC’s second story should be around XX-XX)
165 XP. ŭŭ Entropy: stories of “the Angel of Fortitude” (pg.
ŭŭ ...Each PC’s third and later story should be around XX-XX)
210 XP. ŭŭ Glass: stories of “the Dream-Witch” (pg.
XX-XX), and
5
I think that players should get a discount on mundane ŭŭ Drowning: a handful of generic stories for
Arcs—maybe still 120 XP for the first Arc, but after anyone (but particularly characters from
that a mundane Arc should be fixed at 100-150 XP, Fortitude: by the Docks of Big Lake) to play.
whatever seems good.
I think it should cost more for level 4-5 Arcs—again, Here’s a high concept summary of each Arc.
maybe still 120 XP for the first Arc, but after that
getting to level 4-5 in a miraculous Arc should cost “Dissolution”
200-250 XP. the Chuubo/Shokyou Arcs
...but these are not hard numbers, and here’s why.
If an Arc starts to drag for your group at 101 XP, then Once upon a time, a perfectly ordinary child got a shard
no Arc should go longer than 100. If you need 200 XP of a broken glass dragon stuck inside their dreams.
to explore all the content you want to explore, then no Was that you? Or are you getting swept up in
Arc should be shorter than 200. In the unhappy case their wake?
where both are true at once, you’ll want to skip XP
targets completely and just end each Arc at the happiest Their stories include:
medium that you can find!
XP targets are basically a group decision, but it’s the ŭŭ Chuubo and the Tiresome Temples. In this Arc,
HG who has the final call— a perfectly ordinary child is stalked by the horrors
Basically, how hard does “the world” feel that making of the Outside, haunted by a dream-witch, and
a certain amount of life progress should be? forced to learn self-discipline!
ŭŭ Chuubo Makes a Terrible God-King. In this
Overview Arc, a perfectly ordinary child deals with a
Fortitude: the Glass-Maker’s Dragon is going to mysterious voice urging them to seize power.
play out over the course of 36 little stories— ŭŭ Chuubo is Lost. In this Arc, a perfectly ordinary
Four stories for each of the Main Characters, plus child is forced to sail to the island of King Death
four for everyone who remains. You’ll pick a story and to confront a tree whose roots are wound around
you’ll play through it, each player choosing one—one your buried bones.
of your character’s Arcs, or the Arc of some NPC ŭŭ Chuubo and the Great Glass Dragon. In this
you’re interested in looking in on—and after a while final misadventure, a perfectly ordinary child
you’ll move on to the next. comes back home and plucks a glass shard from
These include: their dreams.
ŭŭ Dissolution: stories of “the Wishing Boy” or “the

Wishing Girl” (pg. XX-XX)
ŭŭ Destiny: stories of “the Best Friend” (pg.
XX-XX)
458 Arcs
“Destiny” “Nightmares”
the Seizhi/Suzy Arcs the Leonardo/Dulcinea Arcs
Imagine that you could break off a piece of the endless Once upon a time the sun went out; and the world would
nothing—the isn’t, the Not, the it isn’t there. have died save that a wretched, ill-favored orphan,
The hopelessness at the end of every failure. The loathed by all around them, gave their own heart up to
meaninglessness of a pointless world. rekindle the broken sun.
Imagine that you could snap off a bit of death and Like the little match girl, all plaintive and lonely,
endings, a piece of soullessness, and give it flesh dreaming in the cold, they ripped out their own
and soul. heart, snapped it into their Abhorrent Sun-Sustaining
Was that bit... you? Is that you, who was made from Superconductor, and fired up the beast; and that is why
Arcs
that awful emptiness? Or are you their mentor, their the world survives.
guide, their friend, their guardian, here to help them That poor little orphan! Clad in rags and grime!
find a place in the extant world? They’re wicked now.
They’re heartless now, and wicked now, and they
These are the stories of how a trashy bit of nothing traveled to the Bleak Academy to make good. There
became real, and more than real; became something the Headmaster of the Bleak Academy poured an awful
necessary, glorious, profound. blasphemy into them instead, filled them up with it until
Or ordinary, I guess; or failed, shattered, tore, it overflowed in them, until it spread from their mind
and died. and soul and flesh into everybody’s dreams.
They include: Don’t look!!
But it’s lurking there, still, the curse he put into that
ŭŭ Schwans and Sovereigns. In this Arc, you experi- orphaned, brilliant child.
ence the weirdness of the Schwan family, a griffin It’s lurking now, even in your dreams. Behind the
comes to Town, and Billy Sovereign bullies you. vibrant realm of nightmare horrors there is a spreading,
ŭŭ Owler and Impious. In this Arc, a body-swap- noisome swamp.
ping evil and an overenthusiastic jock/coach/ And who are you, then? That wretched orphan,
torturer come to Fortitude to make trouble. that carrier of the Headmaster’s plague? Or are you
ŭŭ Schwan Song. In this Arc, you help establish someone to stand beside them and try to save them
“S.E.E.D. project Gamma”—creating a new from their fate?
world, a little Utopian garden, in the near Outside. These astonishing stories of lurid nightmares and
ŭŭ A Spine of the Bleak Academy. In this Arc, you baroque, magnificent science shall include:
must fill in temporarily for a masked wrestler/
hero, fly a zeppelin to the Bleak Academy, and, ŭŭ Nightmares Open. In this Arc, the awful thing
quite possibly, stand trial for reality’s crimes haunting a child’s dreams tears open a gateway
against the Not. into the waking world.
ŭŭ Nightmares’ World. In this Arc, you explore
the world of nightmares from which that awful
thing came.
ŭŭ The House in the Dark. In this Arc, you become
the caretaker of a house that can stand between
the blasphemy and Town.
ŭŭ The Death of the Sun. In this Arc, under a deluge
of giant monsters, the world or its enemies come
finally to an end.
Arcs 459
“Rinley” them. Maybe it’s OK, even if someone isn’t the most
the Rinley Arcs needy in all the world, to save them. Maybe even
blessed people deserve miracles.
These are the stories of that goofy kid whom you’re Are you that child, broken, lost, but perfect, and
kind of fond of but who is always getting in way over brought to Town to mend?
their head. You know, breaking their heart over puppy Or are you someone who’ll be a grace and compass
love, playing on rooftops, hanging out with the wrong to them as the winter in them thaws?
crowd, getting mysteriously poisoned, fencing with
evil giant octopi without clearly establishing the rules These stories include:
of engagement first, and stuff like that?
It’s like, you want to shake them, and say: you’re not ŭŭ Flowers in the Ice. In which a voice troubles
5
immortal, Rinley! the nothingness.
These are, anyway, the stories of that goofy, trouble- ŭŭ Permafrost. In which a man dies, and his
making kid. Are they kind of like your kid sister or kid child grieves.
brother? Or wait—are these stories about you? ŭŭ Thin Ice. In which the world dissolves.
ŭŭ Yet We Go On. The Bleak Academy is broken. In
They are: this story, a prodigy travels there to fix it.
ŭŭ Rinley Yatskaya Looks for Adventure. In this “Spring”

Arc, Rinley meets death, falls in love maybe, and the Jasper/Raven Arcs
duels the Prince of Thorns.
ŭŭ Rinley and the Titovs. In this Arc, you and/or The sun died. The sun was murdered. And her child fell.
Rinley get sucked into that vortex of mess that is Was that you?
the Titovs, and the thing under their shrine. Are you just now landing in Fortitude below?
ŭŭ Rinley is Poisoned. In this Arc, you and/or Rinley Or are you an ordinary, maybe kind of cynical
are mysteriously poisoned. person, whose reserve and disillusionment is going to
ŭŭ Rinley and the Glass Dragon. In this Arc, you be broken by them, who is going to be given hope by
and/or Rinley find a trove of memories stored them, whose life is going to be brightened by the child
in glass. of the sun?
“Winter” These stories include:

the Natalia/Antony Arcs
ŭŭ The Pleasure Ship. In which the Prince of Cats
One day somebody made a wish to rescue somebody swings by to offer an alternative to Fortitude life.
who didn’t deserve it. ŭŭ Sorrows’ Week. In which we remember the death
Someone who should have been able to fix their own of Jade Irinka, who was the angel of the houses of
life, but couldn’t. Someone smarter, stronger, faster, the sun.
better— ŭŭ The Hole in the World. In which we try some-
And yet broken. thing a little goofy.
And yet lost. ŭŭ The Hollow Sky. In which hope is lost; later,
It wasn’t fair that it was that child, and not someone perhaps, to be reclaimed.
slower, weaker, dumber. Someone with fewer advan-
tages. Someone starving. Someone chained. It wasn’t
fair that the best of our mortal generation was the one
who got rescued from the coldness of the world.
...or maybe it was.
Maybe it’s OK, you know, even if someone should
have been strong enough to save themselves, to save
460 Arcs
“Entropy” Their stories include:
the Entropy/Attaris Arcs
ŭŭ Shards of Glass. In this Arc, you investigate the
There’s stories of a mysterious biker who rides the shards of the glass dragon and the strange powers
streets of Fortitude. they sometimes give those who possess them.
Is that you? ŭŭ The Passage to the Left. In this Arc, you investi-
Or did you just see them one night at their work— gate the remnants and the stories of the Magister.
shaping butterflies from motes of a streetlamp’s light, ŭŭ The Maze in the Library. In this Arc you travel a
pulling streets around by hand—and get caught up in strange labyrinth, are shadowed by the numinous,
the mystery of it all? and find a treasure that was lost.
ŭŭ The Archive of Hayashi Hideo. In this Arc you
Arcs
Their stories include: learn the story of the glass-maker, whom a witch
used to build a dragon, long ago.
ŭŭ Principal Entropy Builds a Fountain. In this
Arc, we learn why it is important to wash your “Drowning”
hands after you kill somebody. the Arcs of the Miracle Dead
ŭŭ Principal Entropy Runs for Office. In this Arc,
we present an important cautionary tale about People die. People have always died. Now and then one
excessive zombie influence on the democratic of them gets up as a vampire or something, or lingers as
political process. a ghost, but mostly they head out into... presumably, the
ŭŭ Principal Entropy Takes a Holiday. In this Outside... and then they’re gone.
very special Arc, we learn the true meaning of Until now.
Christmas, Easter, Valentine’s Day, or, you know, And are you one of them? I mean, one of those who’ll
whatever. die, and then not stay dead?
ŭŭ Principal Entropy and the Lost Adventure. In Or are you just someone who’ll be affected, as
this Arc, we learn all about traditional Fortitude practically everybody else will, by the return of the
pest control. Can you stop Glass Spider from miracle dead?
invading your mind? Comes with various activi-
ties for the discerning child. Their stories include:
“Glass” ŭŭ A Far and a Sunless Land. A prologue, specific

the Miramie/Reynard Arcs to those who die.
ŭŭ The Drowned World. In this Arc, you deal with
Long ago, and far away, a Magister of the Bleak the implications of the returning dead. (One of
Academy swore to end the world. Only that didn’t which might be you.)
happen. ŭŭ The Lightless Gates. In this Arc, you witness
That bleak Magister! That prodigy of despair and seven wonders and the Headmaster rides a dead
hate! They have faded as words on water. All that is left leviathan to Town.
is a sweet and bitter teen, a wounded creature, living in ŭŭ The Lifeless World. In this Arc, you start falling
a sleepy little Town. intermittently into a lifeless world.
And is that you? ŭŭ The Science of Dissolution. In this Arc you
Or are you just someone who found them, who is challenge the endless emptiness of death and
learning their secrets, who has perhaps stumbled on the Beyond.
the hidden treasure-room where bits of the Magister
that shattered still survive amidst the keepsakes and The Stories
the glass? So that’s the bird’s-eye view of everything—all
36 stories.
Let’s move on to the stories themselves.
Arcs 461
Dissolution
the Chuubo/Shokyou Arcs
Not all that long ago, in a place surprisingly close to

here, the shard of a broken glass dragon got stuck in How to Play These Arcs
the dreams of an ordinary kid. They lived their life, and Particularly for Chuubo/Shokyou, the Dissolution
for a long time they didn’t even know that there was a Arcs are usually Misadventures (pg. XX), featuring
shard of glass inside their dreams. the quests:
5
That child lived a peaceful, simple, happy life—
Until the day that everything changed. ŭŭ Haunted. Someone haunts your dreams.
These Arcs are about the misadventures and mishaps ŭŭ Wishing for...
of the Wishing Boy (or Girl), who has a shard of a ŭŭ ...Ease: You try to cheat and make your life a
glass dragon buried in their dreams and the power of a little easier.
Marvelous Wish-Granting Engine at their fingertips— ŭŭ ...Power: You pick up a new power.
Maybe you can help them figure out what to do? ŭŭ Wicked Creatures. Some wicked creature tries
to change your nature.
The Tragedy of the Comic ŭŭ Asserting your Existence. You try to reclaim
prologue something you’ve lost.
ŭŭ Wishing for Healing. You try to fix something
Picture it. You’re an ordinary, happy kid. You even have you’ve broken.
a machine that will grant your wishes. Ice cream! Best
friends! Pirate treasure! You can also play these Arcs out as Bittersweet
Anything you want! Sagas (pg. XX), featuring the quests:
And then one day, as you’re living your peaceful,
ordinary life, in Horizon, I should point out, where ŭŭ Beautiful and Far Away. There’s a place you
this kind of thing doesn’t happen, you go up into your can go to escape this troubled world.
closet, standing on a swaying stool, and reach into the ŭŭ Fascination. You’re fascinated by someone/
back to find one of your old comics, and it’s rusted. thing dangerous and irresponsible.
Somehow the dust of the Outside— ŭŭ This is...
Somehow raw, particulate chaos— • ...So Surreal: People are doing just
Has starting blowing in all the way over the hills plain goofy stuff with their powers.
from Fortitude, to corrupt your home. • ...Such a Bad Idea: Someone
That’s when you realized—if you were that kid, gets or seizes new powers.
I mean—that the dreams you’d been having lately ŭŭ You’ve Lost Them. You interact with some-
about a mysterious, masked spirit, some kind of witch body damaged.
of dreams... that they hadn’t been random night- ŭŭ Something Heals. You interact with someone
time experiences! who is trying to make things better and make up
They’d been a warning! for their old mistakes.
A warning of which you’d had no real under-
standing... not until it was... too late.
462 Arcs
Chuubo and the Tiresome Temples “Wishing for Ease / Power”
the First Dissolution Arc Listen.
You’re tangled up in this, right? I don’t know if
It’s a disaster! you’re that ordinary kid, or someone else, but you’re
In the course of this Arc, our perfectly ordinary child, all tangled up in this. That means that this isn’t about
who just wanted the seething, teeming chaos outside the them. It’s about you.
world to leave their comic books alone, finds an answer. I don’t know if it’s you-singular, or you-plural—
An answer that’s going to take... *shudder*... But if this situation you are in is going to get under
discipline. control, you are going to have to learn some sort of shrine
magic, or some other sort of orderly Fortitude-style
For the Wishing Boy/Girl—“Haunted” thing, in order to ward off the interest of the Outside.
You’re haunted. There’s something embedded in your You’re going to have to buckle down.
Arcs
mind, something powerful, like a thorn stuck in a And that’s fine, that’s totally fine, it’s OK, but it’s
lion’s paw. kind of cramping your style.
It’s a power useful in judging the world and, if it’s So it’s time to try out a few wishes to simplify your
wicked, ending it. life and let one or both of you skip out on the hard part of
And because of that— these responsibilities, with three major failure modes:
Even though you live a long way from Fortitude,
Outside dust keeps getting into your house. A masked ŭŭ “...this was always a goofy and self-de-
woman keeps showing up in your dreams—strangely feating idea.”
attractive, strangely menacing, and almost certainly a ŭŭ “...somehow this wish has strengthened the power
real person using magic and not just a dream-image. of the Outside.”
You’ve got to figure out what to do about this, and ŭŭ “...somehow this wish has strengthened
there’s only one place where you can: Melanie Malakh (the evil former identity of the
Fortitude. dream-witch).”
It’s not like anybody there knows what’s going on or
anything, it’s not like this is a common or well-under- You could also try to wish away the glass dragon
stood Fortitude syndrome or anything—but at least the shard or something; if so, this fails because it actually
people there have some experience with the dust of the is or holds or contains a key part of who Chuubo or
Outside and magic dreams. Shokyou is—part of their being or memories, now.
Trying to figure out what they can do to help you P.S. if you’re playing them? That’s you.
plays out as the quest Haunted. The core quest here is either Wishing for Ease or
Wishing for Power.
For Anyone Else—“Haunted”
The standard option is that you—yes, you—are tangled
into this from the start.
You’re going to have dreams that tie right into
Chuubo/Shokyou’s dreams. If you lived far away, you
might get a bit of Outside dust infiltration yourself.
And most importantly—
You’re going to get to know the Wishing Boy (or
Girl) well enough that they’ll let you take advantage of
their Marvelous Wish-Granting Engine for at least one
or two wishes a book.
Anyway, getting to know them plays out as the
quest Haunted.
Arcs 463
Bindings Arcs
“Wicked Creatures”
If you’re on a Bindings Arc, then you’ll play through
Sometimes when you’re near a specific place—near a
the quests like this:
cliff, or near a certain house, or maybe near a certain
flight of stairs—
ŭŭ Wicked Creatures
You find yourself thinking that you can control the
ŭŭ Haunted
flow of chaos around you instead.
ŭŭ Wishing for Healing
You find yourself coalescing daydreams, the power
ŭŭ Wishing for Ease/Power
of Big Lake, and the dust of the Outside into adorable
ŭŭ Asserting Your Existence
chibi-versions of some of the great monsters that could
show up later on—e.g.,
If you’re Chuubo, that means you’ll want to post-
pone figuring out what to do about the weird dreams/
5
ŭŭ Chibi-Bašmu (pg. XX), the great horned snake—
Outside dust stuff until after Wicked Creatures.
108cm long, wearing a top hat.
Similarly, if you’re not Chuubo, you’ll want to post-
ŭŭ Chibi-Ugallu (pg. XX), an adorable lion-headed
pone getting really involved in his situation until then.
storm-demon with silly glasses.
I think you should treat Haunted + Wishing for
ŭŭ Chibi-Uridimmu (pg. XX), the little cloud-wolf
Healing as a conceptual pair:
“who sneezes at your sorrows.”
Instead of trying to resolve anything in Haunted,
simply use that time to form a plan, which you can
And maybe one day you’ll catch those thoughts that
then implement in Wishing for Healing. Ignore the
are giving you control over these things and realize that
stuff I said about “either the whispering of the creature
they’re not coming from you—
or your use of wishes breaks your sense of who you
That they’re actually the whispering of the shadow of
are” until you’re closer to the fifth and final quest.
a snake (cast by a snake, or twig, or snail) that lives at
the bottom of those cliffs, or under the house, or under
the stairs.
The core quest here is Wicked Creatures.
Stretching the Arc Storyteller Arcs
If you wind up needing to go further than this, it’s OK If you’re on a Storyteller Arc, then you’ll play through
to run through an extra iteration or two of Wishing for the quests like this:
Power/Ease.
Alternately, either the whispering of the creature or ŭŭ Wicked Creatures
your use of your wishes breaks your sense of who you ŭŭ Wishing for Ease/Power
are, and you’ll have to repair it over the course of one ŭŭ Haunted
or both of: ŭŭ Asserting Your Existence
ŭŭ Wishing for Healing
ŭŭ Asserting Your Existence
ŭŭ Wishing for Healing If you’re playing through this Arc as Chuubo,
Shokyou, a similar character, or an instigator, then
the tragedy of the comic is probably foreshadowing
instead of a past event—I would suggest postponing
the actual discovery that the comic has rusted until the
end of the second quest.
If you’re playing through the Arc as someone else,
please remember that this quest set assumes that you
have some access to wish-type powers—if you don’t
have the right kind of powers yourself, it might be
best to make contact with Chuubo/Shokyou in the
first quest so you can cadge wishes off of them in the
second, even if you don’t become close or mystically
connected until the third quest, Haunted.
464 Arcs
As a Bittersweet Saga ŭŭ ...a hidden corner of the archive of
For the Wishing Boy/Girl—“Beautiful Professor Hayashi.
and Far Away”/”Fascination” ŭŭ ...a hidden room or ledge in the Yatskaya shrine.
If you’re willing to democratize your wishes a little— ŭŭ ...somewhere near or under the Titov
If you’re willing to say that people can vote on the family shrine.
wishes for the week, or that some of the other PCs or ŭŭ ...someplace else shrine-related.
NPCs have found a way to sneak in and make them ŭŭ ...a recurring dream.
before you can, or whatever—then you can switch ŭŭ ...some mental space created by a shard of
to playing through your story as “a bittersweet saga” the glass dragon that’s in your heart or soul
(pg. XX) and make this whole haunting thing either or something.
Fascination or Beautiful and Far Away. I can’t actu- ŭŭ ...an abandoned treehouse in Bluebell Park.
ally recommend doing this because it is a bad idea but ŭŭ ...the grave of a childhood friend, which you
Arcs
there is some interesting content waiting for you if should visit, just not so often.
you do. ŭŭ ...a cool little place on the cliffs over the northern
Specifically, I think you have a pretty cool list of beach, which is probably a little too dangerous to
Secret Place options (pg. XX)... climb to.
ŭŭ ...the abandoned house where you keep the “This is So Surreal”/”This is Such a Bad Idea”
Marvelous Wish-Granting Engine. From there, the core of this Arc becomes somebody
ŭŭ ...the secret steampunk dimension inside else using goofy powers to try to make their life, or
that engine. maybe your life, better. This’ll play out as a sequence
ŭŭ ...the hidden room of the Dream-Witch, if you’ve of either of these quests:
discovered it.
ŭŭ ...a recurring dream. ŭŭ This is So Surreal
ŭŭ ...a closed temple that used to honor Jade Irinka, ŭŭ This is Such a Bad Idea
which you go to because it makes you feel weird.
ŭŭ ...a rooftop in Fortitude where you like to sit when You’ll probably still feature the stuff with the chi-
the pressures of your daily life in Horizon get bi-horrors and snake shadow thing—it can go in under
to be too much for you. You airily dismiss any either of them, really, although the easiest version is if
investigation into what those pressures—your life someone else is playing around with that stuff and you
being completely lackadaisical and goofy—could take it on under This is Such a Bad Idea.
possibly be.
“You’ve Lost Them”
Note that this option also involves abandoning If you do this quest103, I’d suggest keeping it pretty
your Child of the Ash Arc, complete with your kaiju mundane.
form and peacefulness, and picking up a new Arc like Pick some ordinary person who’s been really helpful
Creature of the Light or A Keeper of Gardens instead. and important to you during this Arc. They have a fall
or a stroke that leaves them comatose, paralyzed, or in
For Anyone Else—“Beautiful and delirium; or they get really sick; or have it be almost
Far Away”/”Fascination” a casual side-effect of some wish or something that
Bystanders in this Arc—people kind of dragged into empties them out and sends their soul out to wander
Chuubo’s goofy world—can also play out this story as the Outside.
a bittersweet saga. They’re with you, but not with you.104 It hurts.
In this case your early encounters with Chuubo
become the subject of Fascination and/or Beautiful 103 On a Shepherd or Emptiness Arc, you don’t have to—you can do
and Far Away, and your Secret Place is probably... an extra run-through This is So Surreal or This is Such a Bad Idea
instead, if you prefer.
104 unless we’re talking the kind of sickness where they’re still com-
pletely with you, they just can’t be in your life in the same way for a
while. In which case, that.
Arcs 465
It’s also possible that some important Main Character The Dream-Voice of the Outside
vanishes during these events and you need to find them. Is it the dream-voice of the Outside?
Then the Chapel or Secret Place for this Arc will be
“Something Heals” a little strand of beach in the far north, a beautiful little
This quest doesn’t need much story-specific contex- place that the Outside is eating away.
tualization—it’s just a healing time. There you can hear its voice the clearest; from there,
the surf breaks into many-voiced, many-shaped minions
Chuubo Makes a Terrible God-King that it will send into your service. The price that you’ll
the Second Dissolution Arc struggle with in the quest “Haunted” is that they are not
well-versed in human interaction, nor in your morality.
This is the story of how a perfectly ordinary kid—give They can get you into trouble as often as they help.
5
or take some magic glass, a wish-granting engine, and
possibly being a secret giant snake of some sort—began The Dream-Voice of the Headmaster
to dream about a voice telling them to seize power. of the Bleak Academy
Or is the tempter for this Arc the Headmaster of the
Introduction Bleak Academy?
Again you’ll be able to play through this Arc as either a He would show you vistas beyond the world. The
misadventure or a bittersweet saga. garden of your home, or a second home in Fortitude,
I’m going to assume that you are the target of that or the most home-like place in Fortitude that this can
voice. You are Chuubo. Or you are Shokyou. Or you’re happen in, would sprout strange and vibrant trees with
not, but, for whatever reason, the voice has decided cool stuff like comics, collectibles, and out-of-season
to tempt you instead. It doesn’t have to be that way, peaches from their branches.
particularly in a bittersweet saga— His servants, necromancers, and changelings would
You can be an instigator, a supporter, someone caught watch you from afar.
up in this. The voice could be targeting a friend, an ally, In time you will find his Chapel (or your Secret
someone you care about, and not you— Place) in dreams or in reality: a shuttered, abandoned
But it’s awkward to use “you or them” all the time. temple to Jade Irinka, where a mural depicts him
So, no. together with her from the time when they were a
I’m going to assume the target is you. If you change couple and not competing poles.
that, well, just read the story in some pronoun-less lan- Over the course of the Arc his power will make that
guage where it won’t make a difference in the text. image of him the dominant image in the temple; it will
I’m going to suggest a number of different options radiate his bleak presence; and if you do not protect the
for the corrupting voice. place, it will shift into a shrine to his unholy grandeur,
If you’re on a misadventure you’re going to need to and eyeless priests will celebrate there strange rites.
know two things about those options: The curse of this, if you are Haunted by it, is that his
voice makes you want to take a pilgrimage to the Bleak
ŭŭ a “price” that your character will struggle with as Academy and submit yourself to his rule. Perhaps appli-
part of the quest Haunted cation materials and pamphlets show up at your house,
ŭŭ a Chapel that will feature in Wicked Creatures and people there begin to suggest that you should try it,
If you’re playing this through as a bittersweet saga... you should go!
• ...you’ll instead need to know
the Arc’s Secret Place.
• ...that “price” may or may not apply
So now that you hopefully now why I’m specifying

those things, let’s talk about some of the different
options for the voice that is tempting that ordinary child.
What is it?
466 Arcs
You can’t, though. At least, I don’t think you can. If you in some fashion into supporting the New Era that
you’re called to go to the Bleak Academy, it’s probably they intend.
too early in the game, and nobody else will be ready for
a group trip. If that’s the case, then the decision to go An Offer from “The Gray Man” of
to the Bleak Academy will only play out in dreams and the Methodology Tower
sudden moments of despair— Or is the letter a request for a meeting from “the Gray
E.g. Man” of the Methodology Tower in Arcadia?
This half-Rider yin-yang master is the official in
PC:”Fine! I’ll go to the Bleak Academy!” charge of protecting Town’s businesses and banks from
HG: “It’s like the bottom falls out of your the inappropriate use of magic. He has an office at the
stomach. The night sky closes in around you. top of the Methodology Tower. He feels that the best
There is nothing good in all the world. A film way to execute his duties is for you to seize control over
Arcs
comes down over your vision; everything is the wealth and businesses of Town, or so he claims—
dark, though everything is exactly as it was. Your But the part that has you Haunted is that every time
mouth has gone dry. You feel despair. Welcome you ride up the elevator to see him, whether to argue
to the Bleak Academy.” with him or accept his service, you find yourself falling
ever-more under his sway. (This plays out mostly as a
I’m not saying that’s how it always goes! That’s just quest/Issue feature—that is, you’ll be deciding OOC
what it would be like for now. how far this goes and playing accordingly, rather than
pitting your miraculous powers against his own.)
Letters from “the Riders” The Chapel for this Arc is, of course, his office, or
Or is the temptation in the form of letters from a leader perhaps the elevator itself; the Secret Place is an old
of “the Riders?” playground in the shadow of that tower, a pretty little
They are the people of the void; once feared as necro- park, which is slated to be torn down.
mancers, head-hunters, and changelings, many of them
have of late settled down to live in Town. The leader As a Misadventure
of a fringe cult of Riders writes a letter to you (or to Putting it all together: there’s this voice. It’s been
another Main Character you are close to), explaining talking to—well, as noted, “you.”
that “...you are the Chosen One,” the one who will lead There’s this voice, and it’s been talking to you. It’s
them into a New Era. been whispering in your dreams. (Or did you get a
It is a recruitment offer that comes with a cult of your letter?) It’s been telling you, you don’t have to live like
very own— this. You can be more than this.
The downside, the thing that might make you You can be a god.
Haunted, being that it gives you a cult of your very own. Is it...
The Chapel for this Arc is the post itself; you will
receive letters there, from your box down at the post ŭŭ ...the dream-voice of the Outside?
office or perhaps even a box at home, and those letters ŭŭ ...a nameless dream-voice?
will bring power to those who listen to Wicked Things. ŭŭ ...the dream-voice of the Headmaster of the
If you are playing it out as a bittersweet saga, the Bleak Academy?
process differs slightly— ŭŭ ...a letter from a Rider cult leader?
Your Secret Place will be your network of pen pals ŭŭ ...an invitation from “the Gray Man?”
across the world, your view of boundless horizons
through the medium of the post, and it will be corroded Haunted will develop your connection and loyalty to
by a slow and awful discovery (as part of this Arc’s that voice or power, but you’ll struggle with the price.
premise, and not as a necessary part of a Secret Place- Then there’s Wishing for Ease/Power. You’ll prob-
based story) that many of your pen pals are lies, decep- ably focus on wishing for power, here, since that’s the
tions, creations of the Riders, created to manipulate direction you’re being tempted, but you could slip into
wishing for ease if that’s your character’s norm.
Arcs 467
Wicked Creatures will showcase the cooler side of [[The following boxes can go anywhere in the
all this—the gifts and minions you’ve been given. Terrible God-King Section, in order. ]]
Asserting your Existence follows what happens
when you break—when you give in to the power that’s
trying to control you from afar, or lose your ability to
An Example Mystic Arc: 1
Perhaps you’ve decided to play through this as a
fight some internal psychological thing like the hallu-
Marvelous Mystic Misadventure and develop
cinations. You know you can get yourself back if you
powers like the Child of the Sun’s.
fight for it, but for right now, you’re broken.
And let’s say that you’ve decided that the Headmaster
Wishing for Healing is, as always, the story of
will tempt you.
how you put things back together and the lessons that
In that case you’ll start with the quest Haunted, as
you’ve learned.
a Mystic 1 quest:
5 The Bittersweet Saga of

the Terrible God-King
“This quest is built of portents. You know some-
thing is coming. You can feel that something
If you’re playing this Arc as a bittersweet Saga, then
is coming.
you’ll have the same general list of possible tempters/
The person you’ve been... is going to have to die.
corruptors, and either you yourself or some Main
And something new, be born.
Character you’re close to is the target.
Result. You are confronted by a miracle.”
Your Fascination will be with the tempter or with
its victim.
You’re hearing the whispering of the Headmaster,
Beautiful and Far Away focuses on somewhere that
and it’s frustrating to you. It makes you want to go to
that tempting voice intrudes on, incurs upon, tramples
the Bleak Academy, but you’re resisting. Then bam, a
on. It’s a characteristic of this Arc that the power that
miracle—something changes how you feel about all
tempts is also slowly crushing or devouring your Secret
this. Maybe you align with him? Or the sun? Or with
Place in some fashion.
some other force, like the Lake?
After the situation is set up, temptations, weird
powers, and strange side effects come into play with
This is So Surreal/This is Such a Bad Idea.
Then all is lost!
Or at least someone is lost; You’ve Lost Them. An Example Mystic Arc: 2
They’ve given in to the temptation of the Arc’s cor- The next quest is Wicked Creatures, as a Mystic
ruptor; they have lost something of themselves. You 2 quest.
don’t have to keep it mundane, not this time around,
but don’t go too far—you don’t want to step on the toes “You’re courted and tempted by your ‘opposite
of the Third Arc, Chuubo is Lost, by having too much number’—by someone who’s playing in the same
get lost for right now. basic cosmology you are, but for the other team.
So softpedal it a bit. Someone with a decent pitch, too...
Someone is broken, a little. Someone is changed, a Result. Your life falls apart. You’re betrayed by
little. something you had faith in or you’re abandoned
You wish that you could get them back. by your own “side” in some fashion. Your spiri-
Something Heals gives you a chance to do that; or, at tual pleas go unanswered.”
least, to fix some of your old mistakes.
Whatever you’ve aligned yourself with, either the
Headmaster or his opponents in Town will provide an
opposite number. And they’ll be tempting. Maybe the
temptation is the cool minions? But no matter what
side you try to ally with, it won’t work out.
468 Arcs
An Example Mystic Arc: 3 An Example Mystic Arc: 5
The next quest is Wishing for Ease or Wishing for Finally, Wishing for Healing plays out as a Mystic
Power, as a Mystic 3 quest. 5 quest—
“Your life’s a mess, and you’re not sure what to “This is your struggle to live as a better person; to
make of things, but over the course of this quest be a blessing unto others, in spite of everything.
you hammer out a plan for moving forward. To be the light of a miracle.
For putting together a new life. A new purpose. To make things right.
A new plan. Result. Unknown...”
Result. Your plan falls apart. Things get confused
and out-of-control and the whole affair sort of And bam! By now I’m sure you’ve unlocked
Arcs
ends with you feeling carried along by events. Mystic (Primordial) 1. Unless you just died or some-
You might get to do something awesome, but it thing, instead.
doesn’t feel like you had much of a chance to be
consciously decisive in how it all played out.”
You’ll go overboard using the powers of the

Headmaster or your own to try to fix things. And
maybe you’ll stumble into a victory, or maybe you
won’t.
An Example Mystic Arc: 4

Then comes Asserting your Existence as a Mystic
4 quest—
“There’s a hole in the world. Or at least a hole

in the way your life is put together. It’s partly
psychological but it’s symbolized by a very real
monster, trap, curse, demon, or miraculous effect.
Result. You manage to suppress it with the help of
your family and friends. Or, if you’re completely
cut off from all of those, by the intervention of a
higher power or an unexpected friend.
...it’s probably not a permanent solution.”
You’ve discovered yourself broken, but you manage

to put yourself back together.
Arcs 469
Chuubo is Lost This Arc Features a Journey
the Third Dissolution Arc The journey to the island of King Death most likely
plays out in spirit. You may board a physical boat, or
Behind that threat or temptation—whatever it was— at least as physical as any other, but come the next
there was something else. There is a tree that grows at chapter, you’re waking up at home.
the edge of the beach on the island of King Death; its You know part of you is still off sailing, but...
great roots are wound in and about your buried bones. The rest is not.
It feeds on your death, already, though you may have You can play out the occasional scene on board that
yet to die. ship, or later on that island, for quest XP, emotion
It is a vast and flourishing thing, and green it grows; XP, in the right circumstances XP actions, or just for
and one day, an ordinary child will sail to that island, fun—but...
5
across the lake to the island of King Death, and stand You are not there.
in the shadow of that tree, and place their hand upon You are free to come up with your own explanations
its trunk; and the leaves of that tree will brush against for this in play. It’s possible that the “you” in Town is
their temples and their shoulders, crown them and cloak just a doppelganger or robot double. It’s possible that
them, and the light of the sun will filter through; and the ship hit a weird patch of the Outside. It’s possible
the tree will whisper to that child that it is that child’s that this is always how sailing to the island of King
father and their mother, and then it will eat them whole Death goes—that the laws of that island are the laws of
or make them King of all the World, and feast upon the Deep Under, and this is the relevant manifestation
their bones. of the flashbacky nature of that Region.
It is King Death’s island but I don’t know if he will be If everyone goes on the ship, and the players are
there. This Arc isn’t about that old cat-headed Mystery. all more excited about nautical stories than staying in
This Arc is about a journey, and a tree. Town, you can probably just skip the phenomena and
the explanations alike and just play nautical stories—
But I’m going to assume that you all stay in Town,
and the journey looks like this:
To the Island of Death! 1-3

Your soul has set sail for the island of King Death...
You’ve found someone who can

take you to King Death’s island.
There will be answers for you there.
To the Island of Death! 1
470 Arcs
A ship’s set sail for King Death’s island,
sailing Big Lake and the near Outside.
There’s a part of you what’s
gone with that ship.
Arcs
There’s a part what has stayed behind.
Somewhere a ship has made

landfall at King Death’s island.
Its crew will find strangeness, death and
apples there, in the shadows of his shore.
Arcs 471
Just hit level 4?
Something will offer you a change soon. Something will claim to be your father, your mother, the source of your
strength. Something will tell you that it is your beginning, and it will attempt to remake you to its ends.
For the Wishing Boy (or Girl), it’s probably a talking tree. It’ll meet you on that island. It’ll claim to be your
ancestor. It’ll offer you its fruit, and with that fruit a change—to something amazing. Something awful.
Something that shouldn’t be.
And it won’t succeed.
Tell the HG that:
That something is about to try to steal you; to change you; but... it won’t succeed. Will it?
5
It can’t.
It wants a thing that you cannot give.
There is a source, and what it wants

from you is a thing you cannot give.
When it fails to change you, you’ll close
the Issue & earn one bonus XP + MP &
cast its corruption in question out of
your heart, mind, body, and soul.
472 Arcs
Just hit level 5? You’re going to have to live with this.
I was wrong. I guess.
Maybe it can change you. Maybe it can’t, but you’ll still suffer the effects.
You’re going to be different, when this story is done. I don’t know how—but different.
Tell the HG that.
Tell them—“look, I still can’t change the way that the island of death is going to want me to, but I’ve just hit Issue
5, so it’s going to affect me a great deal. And for right now? For this story, at least? That’s mostly going to be helpful.
It’s going to be a source of strength.”
Or however you want to say it.
And then tell them what you’d like to become, or fail to become. How you’d like it to play out. The HG can
Arcs
set some boundaries, but in the end, they’re obligated to let you take power over what’s coming up and make it
substantively useful to you in play.
What is the thing that you shall gain

from the island of King Death?
After your first use of that power, you’ll
close the Issue & earn one bonus XP + MP.
Arcs 473
The Marvelous Misadventures of The Bittersweet Saga of
Chuubo & Company the Island of King Death
This story plays out like so: If you’re doing the Arc as a bittersweet saga, your
Secret Place is almost certainly the ship, the island, or
ŭŭ In Haunted, you begin to have intimations and the shade of the tree—
hints at all of this, and an awareness that your The things that call your soul far away.
troubles of the last few Arcs have been stemming It’s an important journey to you, but is it really healthy?
from a single, distant source. In Fascination, you’ll confront your fascination with
ŭŭ In Wishing for Ease/Power, you’ll try to make the island, the journey, the tree, or possibly someone
your life better without tackling that directly, but else (such as Lucy Godsfollow, pg. XX) who’s drawn
it doesn’t work. to sail on that ship.
5
ŭŭ In Wicked Creatures, you’ll hear the voice of the In Beautiful and Far Away, you’ll wrestle with
tree (or possibly something else, if your storyline what it means that you’re on that journey. (If you
is/ought to be different from that of the Wishing haven’t “left” yet, for some reason, you can start out
Boy or Girl.) Cats, Riders, long-eared goblin by dreaming it, foreshadowing it, thinking about what
youkai, cloaked wraith-sailors with burning red it will be like.)
eyes105, and the mystery named Lucy Godsfollow In This is So Surreal and This is Such A Bad Idea,
(pg. XX) are drawn to you, called by a similar you’ll face the miscellaneous fallout of people and trees
voice, to gather around you and form your crew. and islands and death using their powers in goofy ways.
ŭŭ Asserting your Existence is the quest where it In You’ve Lost Them, the ship returns but you realize
becomes clear that you’re lost—that you don’t that someone didn’t make it back; or, if the voyage is
return from the island of King Death. Didn’t, definitely still ongoing, maybe they fall overboard, or
haven’t, won’t. That the you in Town is just a maybe time goes out of synch and they’re fine on the
hollow creature, a fading ghost, fetch, doppel- ship but broken in Town because they’re not going to
ganger, or robot. make it back; or maybe there’s no good reason for it,
Have you just been an amazing mechanical person nothing to do with the ship at all, the part of them that’s
created by Leonardo de Montreal this entire time? in Town just goes rotten or hollows out or vanishes or
ŭŭ Wishing for Healing focuses on the fallout. fades or something, all and entirely on its own.
It’s usually the Wishing Boy (or Girl), this victim,
Lost though you are, you might make it back during but it could be someone else.
one of those last two quests. In Something Heals, you might have a chance
You might sail boldly back into Town and reunite to make up for some of what was lost; or, at least, to
with yourself, or whatever. say goodbye.
Or that might wait until the next Arc; or, you might
rewrite your character a little bit and be a mechanical
person or doppelganger, forever!
105 OW OW OW HOT MY EYES ARE BURNING they probably do

not say
474 Arcs
Chuubo and the Great Glass Dragon The Child of the Sun—
the Fourth Dissolution Arc I suspect. But I am not certain. I suspect she can.
I think even the Angel of Fortitude would crack
In this final misadventure... under its weight.
And that’s why the Headmaster of the Bleak
ŭŭ ...the lost voyager returns to themselves (if they Academy, or Malakh, is tempting you now, in Wicked
hadn’t done). Creatures. That’s why they think they can get you, or
ŭŭ ...an ordinary kid finally plucks the shard of a Chuubo/Shokyou, to give it up.
great glass dragon from their dreams. And afterwards, you won’t be much of yourself,
will you?
The Marvelous Misadventures of Even if you’re not that ordinary child, even if the
Chuubo & Company shard that mattered most wasn’t actually in you, the
Arcs
Haunted is going to focus on those two bullet world will be different afterwards. So much will be
points above. changed; broken; lost. It will be rough, Asserting
Wishing for Ease/Power follows the ordi- your Existence.
nary pattern. You’ll need at least one more quest, Wishing for
Now, in re: Wicked Creatures: Healing, before you can make things right.
If you’ve gotten this far and you don’t know why
anyone would try to corrupt you, or Chuubo/Shokyou, The Bittersweet Saga of the End
right now— As a bittersweet saga, this is a very straightforward Arc.
I’m going to guess that it’s like this. Your Secret Place is the Bleak Academy, I think, or
...this bit isn’t necessarily canon, by the way. It doesn’t a room somewhere in your head or soul where you are
become canon until you’re starting to get close to these alone with Melanie (or Reginald) Malakh.
quests without a better idea coming to hand, you know? With that, and the notes above—
But if you get here, and you don’t know what’s going I’ll leave the rest to you.
on, this is what it’s like. This is how it starts:
With the claim that the shard of the glass dragon in
that ordinary kid’s dreams is also... a kind of notional
key to the cosmos. A jade tablet of destiny. The power
to shape fate.
We’re going to say that a long time ago the
Headmaster of the Bleak Academy took that key and
put it into the hands of a prodigy of despair and hate—
Melanie (or Reginald) Malakh. And Malakh took that
key, and raised it high, and tried to crack the world with
it; but the dragon of that crafting broke, instead.
And all the other shards of that dragon hold echoes
of that power.
And it’d be great if Chuubo/Shokyou could keep it.
But they can’t. It’s growing too heavy with power in
them. It’s gravid with a weight of dreams. It’d probably
kill them to keep it forever.
There’s darn few people in all the universe who can
still bear its weight.
Maybe the Headmaster of the Bleak Academy can.
Maybe Melanie Malakh. Maybe de Montreal, though
I doubt it; or the Dream-Witch in her nascent state; or
even the Guardian Bird.
Arcs 475
Destiny
the Seizhi/Suzy Arcs
The Best Friend’s been looking for a destiny. The Destiny of a Schwan
If someone has a destiny, after all, that makes Prologue
them real.
I will tell you some secrets.
The real and the unreal are built upon a scaffolding
How to Play These Arcs
5
of bones. The creatures that are the substrate of exis-
For Seizhi/Suzy, the Destiny Arcs are Secret Histories tence are alive but they are not aware. They yearn to
(pg. XX), featuring the quests: be aware, they hunger for the fire that is self-awareness
and is life, but they do not have that precious power.
ŭŭ Encounters in the Night. You start to hear the Such is Billy Sovereign, the bully.
call of a higher destiny. He bullies because he wants to see himself reflected
ŭŭ The Troubled Sky. You try to claim it. in others’ eyes. He thinks that when they knuckle under
ŭŭ Behind the Mask. You’re corrupted or threa- to him he will see himself above them; their submis-
tened by some evil that hides behind secrets, sive groveling and entreaties will reveal to him his own
shadows, politics, or masks. existence; instead, it only empties them, leaves them
ŭŭ Atonement. The world’s gone wrong. Set a helpless extension of him, a portion of his pack, as
it right. blind to their own existence as is he.
ŭŭ The Struggle of the Knight. You face the final Such was the creature now called the Best Friend,
trials to become what you wanted to be. once.
It was nothing more than a spine, a tendril, a phys-
For anyone else, these Arcs are Numinous Gardens ical and tangible extension of the Bleak Academy that
(pg. XX), featuring the quests: is beyond the world. It was a construct, a concept: a
façade. Then the Wishing Boy fired up the Wish-
ŭŭ The Story of your Life. You work on your Granting Engine and wished for a best friend; and that
established projects. energy seized up a chunk of the architecture of the
ŭŭ The Sidekick. You become responsible for a unreal and molded it. Turned it into something else.
new pet or sidekick, and usually a larger social Someone else.
responsibility as well. (That is, for some reason, This, I think, was a new thing. An unprece-
taking charge of them is or leads to a political or dented thing.
theological or mercantile act.) ...but what does it actually mean?
ŭŭ Sins of the Father. You confront some legacy of
the first Principal Entropy—e.g., one of the “Six
your comfort zone—into a surreal or
stylized environment.
476 Arcs
Schwans and Sovereigns As the Best Friend—“the Troubled Sky”
the First Destiny Arc Once you’ve got a new role and destiny, the Troubled
Sky is going to showcase how ridiculous your life can
Billy Sovereign isn’t quite so nice as a typical get. It’ll feature the full-on weirdness of the Schwan
Best Friend. family and probably repeated unpleasant encounters
... with Billy Sovereign.
It isn’t any kind of friend at all. You’ll also meet a “guardian bird.”
It’s stirred up, though. It’s angry or intrigued or I’m going to suggest going with a straight-up baby
hungry, because the Best Friend finds a destiny. It griffin here, because honestly, finding a soaked baby
might start out as just a terrifying, mindless force, and griffin during a stormy night and taking it home is a
it’ll probably revert to that by the end of this or the perfect combination of inherent awesomeness and slice
second Arc— of life.
Arcs
But right now, its interest has sharpened and it has An alternative is to skip ahead a little and make either
grown cunning in its need. the Guardian Bird or the Cruel Prince “Owler,”
whom you’ll see featured in the second Arc. Another
As the Best Friend— option is to make the Guardian Bird a Schwan, or a
“Encounters in the Night” destiny duck that someone else used to help you find
If you’re the Best Friend, this Arc starts with your des- your destiny, or a guy named Griffin, or something else.
perate search for meaning. You could even adopt a parrot!
You’re sure you must have one. (Though, I love parrots, so please be kind to them
Well, not sure sure. Just, kind of sure. Sure enough both narratively and IC if you do.)
that when you refuse to admit to yourself that you might Either way, I think it’s the bird that’s the heart of this
not have one, you don’t think you’re necessarily fooling quest, this time around, and everything else kind of
yourself. You don’t think you’re necessarily wrong. spirals around that.
So every time people say, “Hey, you, you should grab
pizza for us,” or “Hey, aren’t you the lost prince of the Stock Features
lake people?” or “Can you organize this party?” you If you’re the Best Friend, you’ll need to know these
make a fist, and salute the world, and say, or think at features for your first Arc:
least, but usually say:
“Yes! This is my destiny!” ŭŭ Vice: Your standard vice is “I’m not real!” It
You were always meant to be a... chef? Food pro- doesn’t matter whether you secretly are real. It
vider? Pizza delivery person? Italian? Perhaps even a doesn’t matter whether being unreal is wrong.
special Schwan-style pie? You think it’s what’s wrong with you, so unless
The lost prince of the lake people? An Olympic you’ve shaken things up, this is your vice.
swimmer? A party organizer, perhaps? ŭŭ the Walker in Darkness: This is usually the
And lately you’ve been dreaming of Jade Irinka, who standard Walker—“the Sacrificial Bull.” (pg.
was the sun. Terrible, terrible nightmares. And you’ve XX) It’s also possible for it to be a family
been feeling called down to the waters of Big Lake. member, but that’s pretty tragic; or, with some
How does this all fit together? What does she have to fiddling, Billy Sovereign (pg. XX).
do with pizza? You don’t even know. ŭŭ the Cruel Prince: The usual cruel prince for this
But you’re sure it’s somehow going to work out. Arc is Billy Sovereign. As noted below, Owler
This plays out as the quest Encounters in the (pg. XX) is another option.
Night.105 ŭŭ the Guardian Bird: This is usually a generic
guardian bird (pg. XX), but, as noted, it could be
Owler, or a Schwan, or something else!
ŭŭ the Hero: This is typically Laodemus Schwan
(pg. XX).
105 Or the slightly tweaked version in the Best Friend’s playbook,
Why Are you Here?
Arcs 477
As the Best Friend –
Alternate Antagonists After “the Struggle of the Knight”
If you wind up deciding that Billy Sovereign should Once you get that closure, doing Knight Arcs will be a
be redeemable, you’ll want a secondary antagonist little more difficult.
for this Arc—I’d recommend bringing in Owler, from One option is to ignore Knight Arcs and just focus
the next Arc, early, but you could choose any member on Bindings Arcs (“People come to me when they need
of the Student Council, an NPC Dream-Witch, or the help handling [Chuubo? Bleak Academy stuff? Semi-
Headmaster of the Bleak Academy. real things? The Guardian Bird?]”), Otherworldly Arcs
Alternately, split off a variant of the Best Friend— (“My destiny is calling me away in dreams!”), and
part of them didn’t get the destiny, and it’s off being Storyteller Arcs (“Now that I have a destiny, my life is
an evil twin. so grand!”).
5
As the Best Friend— ...but what if you really want to work more on
“Behind the Mask/Atonement” Become Somebody or Reality Syndrome
The quest Behind the Mask will focus on a larger plan or a mundane Knight Arc like Knight (of
by a Cruel Prince to corrupt you—typically the Arc’s Pizza Delivery)?
antagonist, which is to say, Billy Sovereign, or Owler, In that case, I’d suggest declaring that...
if you swapped it in. I’d suggest that simple plans are
best here: either they’re using a steady spiritual/meta- ŭŭ ...that first destiny failed somehow.
physical pressure against you, or they have control or ŭŭ ...that first destiny was completely fulfilled,
leverage over some resource you desperately need, and leaving you at loose ends again.
plan to first hint at and then exploit it. ŭŭ ...your fulfilled destiny still leaves room for
It’s standard to mess up somewhere in here—to slip further details—a typical evolution path goes:
up. To make a mistake. • “What am I for?”
E.g., you tell your family that you’re not real and • “...and what is that for?”
they might not be real either, and it breaks them; or, you • “...and why is that important?”
don’t tell them, and they find out, and they don’t trust • “What are we for?”
you ever again. You get someone hurt. Whatever. • “...and why?”
If there’s something like that, then dealing with • “...and what does it all mean?”
it is the heart of Atonement. If not, you’re probably
engaged in spiritual self-purification to be better fit for Numinous Gardens
your destiny; or, you’ve just hit the Guardian Bird’s Other characters play out this Arc as a Numinous
betrayal point, it’s carried off the physical represen- Garden, like so:
tation of your destiny, or of everybody’s destiny, and
bam, you’ve got to make it right. As Anyone Else—“the Story of Your Life”
Normally you’ll actually start this quest just... living
As the Best Friend— your normal life. The Best Friend will probably be
“the Struggle of the Knight” around. The other Arc stuff we’re going to talk about—
If you find yourself moving on to the Struggle of the It might show up during the quest.
Knight, that’s closure on the destiny you’ve found. Billy Sovereign. The sidekick. All of that stuff? It
might show up, in passing.
But mostly this is just the story of your life, as it
always is.
Pay attention to the quest card, but ignore the big-
ger-picture story stuff for now.
The one exception is if you’re on an s Aspect
Arc. If you are, you need to foreshadow a future con-
nection to the Best Friend here—lay some groundwork
478 Arcs
for Seizhi/Suzy naturally becoming important in your to others” is not. I really don’t want to predispose you to
life in your next quest, Triumph. any specifics, because that feels like it would or could
Otherwise? Just play. cheapen your play, but I also want you to have some
reason to care about it when evil threatens that destiny,
As Anyone Else—“the Sidekick” later on.
In ancient Rome, when somebody was born without a
destiny, the gods would send a wise or otherwise rel- As Anyone Else—“Sins of the Father”
evant member of their community a “destiny duck” This quest brings in one of the “Six Sins” (pg. XX, XX,
to redress the situation. The duck would soak in ideas XX) to work with Billy Sovereign, or melds him with
about the target’s destiny and then would be ritually some creature of the evil world, or has him try to take
killed in order to convey those ideas to the proper target over the evil world.
and patch the hole in the fabric of the world.
Arcs
Maybe it’s an unexpected life interruption—partic- As Anyone Else—“Surreal Environments”
ularly if you’re on a Shepherd Arc. Maybe it’s In this quest you’ll experience all too much of the
foreshadowed and predicted. surreal environment that is the Schwan family.
But...
Such a duck arrives at your address in Fortitude. As Anyone Else—“Triumph”
Was it labeled for you? Did it go to a group loca- In a Shepherd, Bindings, or Emptiness Arc, this would
tion like a clubhouse and you’re the one who stepped give you a chance to anchor the destiny that you
forward, took up the quest, and decided to adopt and created/chose/found in the Sidekick—you fix it in
otherwise impress your concepts of things on the duck? place somehow, you reduce it to a concrete form.
Or did it follow you home? On an Aspect Arc, though, this is going to be a
Did it come with instructions? Did you already know little different:
what it was for? Or are you going to have to look up This quest is about how awesome you are, but as an
what the duck is about, maybe after getting a hint or Aspect 2 quest, it’s also about how that awesomeness
two from a mysterious masked and cloaked individual lets you appreciate and build a friendship, romance,
standing beside the road? alliance, lasting teacher-student relationship, or even
Maybe you’ll even come into an understanding of grand rivalry with the Best Friend. It’s about how
this grave responsibility and duty by accident! Seizhi/Suzy becomes important to you.
The destiny duck is normally an adorable duck, such It can work like that in any Arc, of course, but it’s
as one might make into a pet or even a sidekick. most structurally important in an Aspect Arc.
It’s normal but not necessary for you to discover
whose destiny we’re talking about here. (It is, of course,
the destiny of the Best Friend, who was summoned
without complete reality.) It’s normal but again not
necessary for you to perform the proper sacrifice of the
duck—alternately, you keep it alive, and take respon-
sibility for Seizhi/Suzy’s non-destiny, or the duck dies
by accident.
Anyhow, this quest plays out as the Sidekick, and
ends when you’ve become responsible directly or indi-
rectly for the destiny of the Best Friend.
Note!
I’m explicitly assuming that you’ll find a destiny that
connects the Best Friend to the other PCs and major
plot points—that is, “paladin in the service of PC X” is
acceptable, while “destined to deliver delicious pizzas
Arcs 479
Owler and Impious Playing it Through
the Second Destiny Arc In practice the second Destiny Arc is a further explora-
tion of the destiny established in the first; the big thing
The Best Friend’s new destiny is under siege. that the Best Friend is doing in this Arc is settling into
The student Owler Lendsme is a piece of the first and exploring the role. Other than that and a scaling up
Entropy. It thinks itself a God and laughs at the pride of the opposition you won’t see much new—if you’re
and achievement of other souls. It runs the Catering the Best Friend:
Committee at School, but more importantly, it has
learned the trick of stepping from body to body, leaving ŭŭ Encounters in the Night features more dreams,
its old host confused and dazed behind it. strange encounters with Impious or Owler or
It dreams of finding an amazing god-like host that other legacies of the first Principal Entropy, and in
5
can make a new world for it to rule. general an opportunity to get more in touch with
The student Impious is another piece of the first the spiritual side of whatever role you’ve found.
Entropy. He runs the Athletics Committee. He’s only ŭŭ The Troubled Sky builds up tension
actually named that when he wears his student council and weirdness.
mask—he has some sort of ordinary name otherwise. ŭŭ Behind the Mask pits you directly against Owler
He commands many strange weapons left over from and Impious, often at a great cost or leading to a
the first Entropy. He likes to “toughen important people grave mistake.
up,” he thinks that’s his job, so he’ll make assassina- ŭŭ Atonement pays for that mistake, in part, and
tion attempts or kidnap and hurt anyone he thinks has a most likely finishes the main story of their
good chance of being important. interference in your life.
They’ve come to Fortitude with a target. They have ŭŭ The Struggle of the Knight resolves the under-
very high hopes for... lying questions about your role that inexperience,
Owler, and Impious hopefully raised, or if
ŭŭ ...the Best Friend. not, pushes you in general to the next level of
ŭŭ ...someone entangled with the Best your existence.
Friend’s destiny. For anyone else, the Arc looks something like this:
ŭŭ ...you. ŭŭ The Story of your Life. Your life’s gone mostly
back to normal. What are you working on when
What are their weaknesses? What can be done to you’re not dealing with destiny ducks, guardian
stop them? birds, and cruel princes?
Are you like them or unlike them? ŭŭ The Sidekick. The “sidekick” could refer to
Who has the right to chart the world’s destiny for the Seizhi/Suzy, but it’s more likely to be someone
forthcoming days? involved with Owler and Impious—maybe even
they themselves, and you’re stuck trying to ride
herd on them, but it’s also plausible for your new
sidekick to be a random person in Fortitude that
they’re targeting.
ŭŭ Sins of the Father. This is your chance to deal
with Owler and Impious directly.
ŭŭ Surreal Environments. This is often related to
being possessed by Owler or drugged/sent to a
training camp by Impious, but it may also be more
encounters with the Schwans.
ŭŭ Triumph. Again, this’ll show off how awesome
you are. On an Aspect Arc, it’s also likely to focus
on your friendship or other relationship to Seizhi
Schwan, some other Schwan, Owler, or Impious.
480 Arcs
Schwan Song
Stock Features the Third Destiny Arc
If you’re the Best Friend, you’ll need to know these
features for your second Arc: This Arc is the story of “S.E.E.D. Project Gamma”—an
attempt by either the Student Council, the Angel of
ŭŭ Vice: Your standard vice is probably still “I’m Fortitude, or Laodemus Schwan to establish a Utopian
not real!” but it could have moved on to “I’m not community in the near Outside.
good enough,” “I’m not ruthless enough,” “I’m The principle is simple:
not tough enough,” or, for all I know, gambling. The world is going to end. The plan originated by
ŭŭ the Walker in Darkness: This is usually still the first Principal Entropy, the plan that may have been
“the Sacrificial Bull.” (pg. XX) too pure a thing for that evil creature and thereby killed
ŭŭ the Cruel Prince: The usual cruel princes for him, was to train up students whose dreams or sense of
Arcs
this Arc are Owler and Impious (pg. XX, XX). reality or confidence in themselves—whatever!—was
ŭŭ the Guardian Bird: This is usually a generic strong enough to recreate the world, starting from the
guardian bird (pg. XX). sea of the Outside.
ŭŭ The Hero: This is typically still Laodemus But it’s no good to have a plan like that if you’re not
Schwan (pg. XX). going to test the technology. And one day it’s going to
come up to the test, and someone’s going to say, “We
can’t make the world too perfect. We can’t make it too
good. We can’t make it too peaceful. A world like that—
“Why, it wouldn’t even exist!”
So let’s test those things now—that’s the idea. Let’s
build a world in the near Outside; or maybe a little
deeper out, if that doesn’t work. Let’s head out into the
Outside, not to find some portion of the lost, drowned
Earth, or some other world, but to create a perfect
Eden—a new Paradise. And let’s go ahead and make
it good, and beautiful, and perfect, because if that’s
really not going to work, or if it is, then we ought to
know now.
Maybe the Best Friend gets involved in it naturally.
Maybe you’re focused on it yourself, and you can leave
Seizhi/Suzy out of the story. Or maybe someone con-
cludes that they’re going to need something like the
Best Friend at some point—them, or Billy Sovereign,
or something resembling one of them to be captured
from the Bleak Academy at some point—and, well,
inviting the Best Friend or a close associate thereof into
the project is the simplest way to proceed.
This plays out as a typical Arc. For the Best Friend,
that probably means:
ŭŭ Encounters in the Night introduces the idea, and

a suitable walker in darkness.
ŭŭ The Troubled Sky explores the place and its
guardian bird.
ŭŭ Behind the Mask gets into the politics behind it.
ŭŭ Atonement pays for a mistake they’ve made.
Arcs 481
ŭŭ The Struggle of the Knight either establishes the Stock Features
place as a permanent moon or suburb of Town, If you’re the Best Friend, you’ll need to know these
claims control over it, or abolishes it if it turned features for your third Arc:
out to be an atrocity.
For anyone else, it probably means something like: ŭŭ Vice: You can have whatever vice you want,
ŭŭ The Story of your Life. You work on your estab- here, just as long as you think about how to make
lished projects, including something that will get it circumstantially or philosophically relevant
used for the S.E.E.D. project, or in consultation to the project. That might even work out to
with them. be optional.
ŭŭ The Sidekick. You become responsible for ŭŭ the Walker in Darkness: This should be
something involved with the project. someone in the S.E.E.D. program, I think, but
5
ŭŭ Sins of the Father. One of the “Six Sins” tries to this is another good opportunity to have it be
take over the project—most likely Impious, Glass Billy Sovereign. Or, if there’s an old guardian
Spider, or Mourning. bird floating around that never got a good chance
ŭŭ Surreal Environments. You venture out into to betray you, you might want to use them here.
the Outside. ŭŭ the Cruel Prince: The usual cruel prince for this
ŭŭ Triumph. You play a key role in building the Arc is one of the Six Sins—maybe Lee Scathing
new world. (pg. XX), maybe Owler or Impious again. You
could also have a real jerk in charge of the
This Arc is intended as a very limited sort of project or have someone nasty sent by the Bleak
tragedy—that is, while there could be a disaster, or the Academy to intervene. An Owler-possessed
whole place could be taken over by Owler or turn evil Laodemus or corrupted version of the Angel of
on its own or something, or it could be rife with conflict Fortitude would also be a pretty good choice.
and people turning on one another to seize paradise or a ŭŭ the Guardian Bird: You’ll typically want a
shard of the glass dragon or something, it’s much more new guardian bird for project Gamma—a bird
likely to be a gentle tragedy: or bird-like entity created out of nothing as part
People just aren’t made for perfection. But it’s not of the project’s birth. The nice version is that
like they’re anti-perfect or anything. Perfection is someone conceived of it or constructed it. The
just... hard to fit yourself to, and even harder to fit nasty version has it as a naturally-arising severe
yourself to without losing some of the oomph, the fight, spirit, guardian, and angel of paradise—in which
the guts people’ll need to deal with the other threats in case it’ll probably be morally painful when it
Fortitude: the Glass-Maker’s Dragon. suddenly and inevitably betrays you later on,
So the place doesn’t die, or explode. It just... doesn’t declaring you unworthy of paradise.
wind up being a big deal, and maybe doesn’t have the ŭŭ the Hero: This is typically the Prodigy, but
strength to sustain itself forever. if that happens to be you, it’s either one of
That’s just me, though. your NPCs, a partially redeemed member of
I mean, you’re free to end this Arc by crafting the Student Council, a disguised Headmaster
Paradise Enfleshed and making it a superb and the best of the Bleak Academy, or we’re back to
and only answer against chaos; or, conversely, have the Laodemus Schwan.
whole place drown in blood. It’s all up to you!106
[[BEGIN BOX]]
106 You! You know, your whole group of you. It’s possible that it’s more
up to the HG and the person on these quests than anything else, but
really, it’s up to what happens, which neither of you can necessarily
control unless it’s a one-player game.
482 Arcs
A Spine of the Bleak Academy Stock Features
the Fourth Destiny Arc If you’re the Best Friend, you’ll need to know these
features for your third Arc:
You’ve been asked to take over for Laodemus
Schwan—or someone else who’s been an Arc Hero, or ŭŭ Vice: A typical vice is “I’m not Laodemus.” But
larger-than-life hero in general. They have to disappear “I exist, and the world shouldn’t” is also viable,
for a bit, or go undercover. Or they’re dead, and their later on. Or “it’s my existence that has let people
ghost is asking you. come up with this plan.” Or “I was never worthy
That’s how you wound up in the pro racing circuit. of existence in the first place!”
Or wrestling. ŭŭ the Walker in Darkness: This is probably a
Or flying your zeppelin around, wearing a mask, and rival of Laodemus (or whomever) in the racing,
righting wrongs and fighting evil.
Arcs
wrestling, or whatever circuit. It could be
But there’s something wrong in the world, or with Laodemus (who is probably aka “X”) but I’m
your temporary profession; and that’s going to lead hesitant, because the Walker in Darkness often
you, and your mysterious rival/antagonist/...ally?, dies at the end, and there’s two reasons why
“X,” out to the Bleak Academy itself, where you either Laodemus shouldn’t. First, next time you see a
become involved with a group of Town expatriates discussion of media and how sympathetic gay
trying to spread the infection of sentience and life to the characters always die at the end, you don’t want
substrate of the place; or a Magister trying to exploit to feel uncomfortable about how that’s your
the opposite and poison the basic reality of Town with game too. Second, in later supplements he’ll be a
a murderous will; or, if that doesn’t fit, get captured and possible PC, and you don’t want to close him out
put on trial— of your ongoing world!
Use flashbacks or flashforwards if you don’t have the ŭŭ the Cruel Prince: This Arc potentially overflows
time for a long trial because other stuff is going on far with them. A cruel prince of the racing circuit (or
from the Bleak Academy in play— professional baking competitions, or whatever).
For the activities of those expatriates or of A Magister or Judge at the Bleak Academy.
that Magister. Maybe even the Headmaster himself!
[[BEGIN BOX]] ŭŭ the Guardian Bird: There’s a good chance
that at this point, you’ve gotten past trusting
new bird-like entities to guard things; in which
case, it’s probably best to bring a previous one
back for redemption, have you subvert the one
guarding something at the Bleak Academy, or
have them play a more active role (e.g., rival in
the wrestling circuit.) If all else fails, though,
the AI or spirit guarding your mode of transpor-
tation—the car, carriage, horse, boat, zeppelin,
or whatever you use to get around during this
Arc—is a good choice.
ŭŭ the Hero: Since you’re stepping into this role
yourself, you can try a switch by having this be a
heroic sidekick instead of the actual hero. Or, of
course, it could be “X.”
Arcs 483
Nightmares
the Leonardo/Dulcinea Arcs
Nightmares’ Angel went out to the Bleak Academy. He

sought to steal the secrets of the land of death. How to Play These Arcs
Instead he fell victim to the Headmaster of the
For Leonardo/Dulcinea, the Nightmare Arcs are
Bleak Academy.
Scientific Adventures (pg. XX), featuring the quests:
His dreams turned to worms and rot inside his head.
ŭŭ Science! You’ve been presented with a situation
5
A blasphemy was sealed inside his hollow chest. He
or possible tragedy. By gum, you will do science
went away to become a god of dream and nightmare,
to it!
and he came back a god of dream and nightmare, but he
ŭŭ Someone’s in Trouble. Someone’s in trouble!
came back also wrong.
You help them out.
Lately the Outside has been roiling. Lately the
ŭŭ Engineering! You’ve got a sense for the meat of
Outside has been disturbed.
this situation now. It’s no longer an enigma—it’s
This is the story of the Headmaster’s plan for
a technical problem. It’s time to do engineering
Nightmares’ Angel. This is the story of that blas-
to it!
phemy; and of dreams and nightmares; and of what the
ŭŭ Above the Fray. You rise above the situation
Headmaster hoped to gain.
and make moral or philosophical decisions—
Maybe there wasn’t anything.
what should be done with this situation
Maybe it was just a blasphemy he had laying around,
or technology?
and with no better use for it than to punish the errant
ŭŭ Walking the Boundaries. Having made that
Nightmares’ Angel. Maybe he turned the man’s
call, you explore its consequences.
dreams to rot and worms inside his head because that’s
Anyone else will play these out “the Rinley Yatskaya
just what he does.
way” (pg. XX), that is, with the quests:
I suspect, by the end of the quest, that you will dis-
ŭŭ Adventure GET. You’ve gotten involved in
cover otherwise.
something exciting!
Presented here, a set of heroic Arcs and the world
ŭŭ Let’s Doing! You drive forward through
of nightmares: you will challenge the wickedness and
the situation.
blasphemy beyond the world and you will come back
ŭŭ Labyrinth Diving. This is the part where you’re
strong.
a little bit confused. You know where to look for
answers, sort of, but you don’t have them yet.
ŭŭ Climbing the Sacred Mountain. You’re chasing
answers, solutions, or victory.
ŭŭ Down. You’re chasing something subtler, scarier,
or more painful than that.
484 Arcs
The Outside Stirs Nightmares Open
Prologue the First Nightmares Arc
Something’s stirred up the Outside. A gate has opened, or will open, from the dreams of a
There’ve always been occasional riotously col- Haunted Child.
orful storms coming in from Outside, flowing in over Nightmares will spill out into a little Town—
Big Lake, full of the particulate essence of the great Including a hooded monster named Ill-Made and her
beyond—but they’re getting a bit more frequent of late. potentially vivisectionist gang.
There’s an overall increase in the Outside’s ambient
presence in people’s nightmares, and in the ground- As Nightmares’ Angel—“Science!”
water, and people have been dreaming now and then of If you’re Nightmares’ Angel, then let’s start by looking
the mask of a dream-witch and the shine of some vast at your own troubles. I mean, maybe that won’t be your
Arcs
glass creature. first quest if you want to break from the norm of the
And Nightmares’ Angel is investigating. game and do an Emptiness or Aspect Arc, but—
Haunting the shores and cliffs of Fortitude. Taking We’re going to start by looking at things that aren’t
measurements. Trying to figure it all out. Trying haunted kids.
to understand. You’ve been dreaming of Jade Irinka, who was the
sun. You’ve been feeling called down to the waters of
Big Lake.
Maybe it’s just destiny. Maybe you’re being called
there to drown.
Or maybe something is coming.
Because you survived, something is coming. Because
you came back from the Bleak Academy, something is
coming. Or maybe it’s nothing to do with you. Maybe
it’s because of that “angel of Fortitude” you’ve heard
about. Or even—
OK, you know those old stories about the glass
dragon? You know:
“Once upon a time, a witch and a glass-maker made

a dragon out of glass and taught it to hate the world.
It raged and it would have destroyed everything;
...?
You’re pretty sure that those stories were actually
about a particular manifestation of chaos, a particular
way the Outside attacks Town. Before your time, but
not all that many years ago, a glass dragon did show up
in the skies above Fortitude, and seemed like it might
destroy stuff, and then it shattered. Maybe it was just
because it was fragile, but that doesn’t seem right. No.
It’s much more likely that somebody did something.
You just don’t know what.
So you’re investigating.
That’s Science!
Arcs 485
Aside—Why Does the Gate Open?
As Nightmares’ Angel—“Someone’s in
Why does a gate open from the Haunted Child’s
Trouble”
dreams? I figure it’s one of these reasons:
You’ve encountered a child plagued by nightmares—
the Haunted Child (pg. XX). Their nightmares are
ŭŭ Nightmare science, used to help, goes wrong.
touched by some hostile alien force. This kid’s suffering
ŭŭ Some Main Character happens to open such
from severe anxiety and a distorted sense of reality.
a gate.
You’re going to try to help that child.
ŭŭ It’s the natural next stage in the alien force’s
Maybe you’re just coming off of a personal victory.
move against the Haunted Child.
Maybe that’s given you the strength to want to help
ŭŭ The Haunted Child is special and something in
others. Or maybe it’s part of how you manage your own
their subconscious or nightmares always had the
issues—that of course if there’s a kid supernaturally
potential to break through into the world. The
5
plagued by nightmares you’ll help them out.
PCs’ efforts or the alien force that has touched
Maybe they even remind you of yourself.
their dreams just enhances/amplifies this.
This probably plays out as a lot of conversation,
because that’s going to be any reasonable person’s first
tack here, and yours as well. It’s not that you can’t just
fix the matter with science, but a person shouldn’t fear
their nightmares. They shouldn’t fight their nightmares. You have the opportunity to decide what should be done
The way to deal with nightmares is to embrace and about the gate if it stayed open. You have the opportu-
come to an accord with them. Right? nity to decide what should be done about the talents of
I mean, that’s what you did. You explored them. You the Haunted Child. You’re the one who’ll decide the
turned them into power. proper fate of any nightmare creatures stuck in Town or
So you’ll want to help the kid through their therapy. in the other world. Etcetera.
You’ll want to help them find a way to reconcile them- And your own fate—to drown or not to drown, as it
selves with their nightmares. You might not want to were—is a part and parcel of that.
be their therapist yourself, although therapists do get If you’re an advanced user of these rules, and you
to wear long white coats and be called doctor (don’t switched to an Aspect Arc right out the gate, then this is
they?) but the kid’s psychological counseling is a big more of a prelude—you haven’t really gotten engaged
theme for this quest. And if you don’t step in as their with the story yet, you haven’t met the Haunted Child
therapist maybe you’ll see one yourself? or discovered that the Outside is stirring yet, it’s just
All of this gets complicated, though, because night- that you keep dreaming of Jade Irinka and death and
mares have opened; the kid’s nightmare figures are feeling drawn to the water and it’s drawing you out to
slipping through, one by one, into reality. Later on, a Fortitude. On an Aspect Arc, this is almost nothing but
gate will open straight between the nightmare world the story of your personal fate:
and Town, and this kid’s dreams are a big part of why. Of knowing that you are wicked, and ought to die;
In particular, a hooded horror named Ill-Made haunts of wrestling with the blasphemy inside of you; but you
you and the child alike; she and her gang of nightmares have so much to do! You are too valuable to the world!
may wind up... disassembling... somebody, if they are How can you let your magnificent light be drowned in
not first stopped. the waters of Big Lake?
As Nightmares’ Angel—“Engineering” As Nightmares’ Angel—“Walking the

This is your chance to initiate a somewhat more com- Boundaries”
plicated plan. This is your chance to explore the consequences of the
choices previously made—
As Nightmares’ Angel—“Above the Fray” In particular, in regards to the Haunted Child.
This is the story of how you face your death.
In a typical Arc, this comes near the end. It’s you in
your capacity as thinker, planner, and shaper of events.
486 Arcs
The Rinley Yatskaya Way As Anyone Else—“Climbing the Sacred
Other characters—even if they’re not actually Rinley— Mountain”
usually play these Arcs out the Rinley Yatskaya way. Here are some typical subjects for Climbing the
Like so! Sacred Mountain:
As Anyone Else - “Adventure GET.” ŭŭ You’ll have to fight to win the Haunted Child’s
Nightmares’ Angel thinks that something is stirring up soul back from Ill-Made’s gang (pg. XX).
the Outside. They’ve been out taking readings near and ŭŭ Perhaps Nightmares’ Angel gets stolen by or at
in Big Lake. They’ve been studying reports of recent least needs rescuing from some sort of horror.
storms, and the legend of the glass dragon, and the ŭŭ Maybe those dreams I mentioned that have been
death of Jade Irinka (who was the sun.) calling Nightmares’ Angel to Big Lake intensify,
Their dreams have been calling them to Big Lake— and you have to stop them from going down to the
Arcs
Possibly, since they are a wicked creature, to drown water (voluntarily, involuntarily, or accidentally)
themselves therein. to drown.
You become concerned by some of this. Probably the
most interesting part is that Town might be in danger— As Anyone Else—“Down”
that something might in fact be coming: a massive So the premise here in a Knight or Storyteller Arc is that
Outside-fueled hurricane, a new glass dragon, a zombie you’ve failed; at some point in all of this, or in some-
revenant of Jade Irinka (who was the sun), or an army thing unconnected to all of this, you should probably
out of the Bleak Academy. have failed; there is something awful that happened,
It’s an adventure! something painful, and you’ll have to cope with it
Whether you annoy Nightmares’ Angel, compete before moving on.
with them, help them, or investigate them, that’ll If this is the first quest in your Arc, though, then I
usually start with the quest Adventure GET. think you must be having nightmares yourself. You
must be dealing with something rough—I don’t know
As Anyone Else—“Let’s Doing!” what. Some personal tragedy or grief. Or the same
In Let’s Doing!, you’ll play out your further plans for mental invasion that the Haunted Child is dealing with.
Nightmares’ Angel or take the Haunted Child (pg. XX, Or even just the fact that Nightmares’ Angel is being
XX) underneath your wing. called to the water to die.
As a Shepherd quest, that ends when you become
As Anyone Else—“Labyrinth Diving” responsible for what’s going on in this Arc in some
In Labyrinth Diving, you’ll explore a maze. I think way—when you stumble on the Haunted Child and
there are three options here: realize that your own nightmares will have to take a
back seat, or (less usefully, but similarly) first face/dis-
ŭŭ the Haunted Child’s psychological and cover the stirring up of the Outside.
dream issues As a Mystic Arc, it’s more likely to end with the
ŭŭ some labyrinthine warren that Ill-Made’s gang opening of the gate into the nightmare world and all
(pg. XX) sets up in Fortitude manner of trouble soon thereafter ensuing.
ŭŭ your first taste of the nightmare world (pg. XX)
itself
If you need a longer Arc than that, you’ll want to sow

the seeds for it by the end of Labyrinth Diving—it’s
best if there are some floating risks and potential fail-
ures around that you can play out in the next few quests.
Arcs 487
How Should You Help the Nightmares’ World
Haunted Child? the Second Nightmares Arc
Late in this Arc it might become very obvious what
you have to do—but early on, when there aren’t night- Below and beyond people’s individual nightmares
mare horrors running around, figuring out how to help there’s an entire world; and in that world, a blasphemy
a child with nightmares can be pretty tough. forced into Nightmares’ Angel at the hands of the
So here’s my thoughts! Bleak Academy: a horrid bog of muck and poisons and
The “default” plan to help the Haunted Child should endless drowning. It is growing. It is spreading. It is
be reconciling them with their nightmare figures and crumbling the whole of nightmare down into itself.
carefully cleaning the metaphysical “space” of their A wolf-bog. A death-bog. A gap in the universal mind.
nightmares—sometimes in real life, once that gate You’ve found a way in—
5
opens; sometimes using technology or magic to get Past the mundane world, into the world of nightmares.
into their dreams and do it there; sometimes with Maybe the gate from Nightmares Open is still around.
careful psychological work. I’d assume that, in fact, but for all I know your partic-
This doesn’t have to be your plan— ular version of that story had to see it closed. If so, then
If the child’s problems all stem from a “dream eater” you’ve discovered another route. It’s still accessible
that’s skulking over them spiritually, or if some night- through the Outside; or through your dreams, because
mare science device accidentally tore a hole in their you knew the people of nightmares; or through some of
dreams and that’s why they’re having problems, or the technology of Leonardo or Dulcinea de Montreal.
whatever, then you might want to do something else. This Arc is the story of how you visit it; how you
That said, the quests for this Arc implicitly assume explore it; how you deal with it, and what it represents.
that a meticulous and harmonious approach probably ...how are you going to explore it, by the way?
would be best. Will you make a beachhead, or will each new venture
be independent? Are you just poking around or are you
going there as a savior? A conqueror? A destroyer?
Is there anything of goodness there?
Other Options
If you feel you’re already done with the story of the
nightmare world, you can skip this Arc. Conversely, if
you don’t feel done with the story of Ill-Made and the
Haunted Child, then feel free to merge the remainder
of that story into the story of this Arc.
488 Arcs
As Nightmares’ Angel— “The Rinley Yatskaya Way”
“Science!” / “Above the Fray”
I figure that if you’re Nightmares’ Angel you’re drawn As Anyone Else—“Adventure GET”
to the place. Drawn back to the nightmare world. It If you’re not actually Nightmares’ Angel then I think
touches too much on stuff that’s pretty personal. a player-driven exploration of the nightmare world is
The order of these quests is going to depend on the probably less pressing. You can go and do another Arc,
Arc, but— say, one of your own or one for some other NPC, and
In Science! your dreams call you back to a place of then come back and realize:
danger. You have to fix the problems there. Conversely, You know, I should do something about that night-
in Above the Fray, you’re more of the immaculate and mare world. Adventure GET!
glorious destiny-deciding god of dream and nightmare, This is the quest where you go in to deal with it all.
the incomparable de Montreal: To fix it all. To figure out what should be done. It’s
Arcs
What are you going to do about the place? scary but it’s also kind of exciting and cool.
What should you?
As Anyone Else—“Let’s Doing!” / “Labyrinth
As Nightmares’ Angel— Diving” / “Climbing the Sacred Mountain”
“Someone’s in Trouble” These’ll play out in the standard fashion for a Rinley-
I don’t know who’s in trouble here, exactly. Someone styled adventure:
in the nightmare world. If you aren’t actually exploring
that yet, if you’re on an Emptiness Arc and this is ŭŭ You drive forward through the situation...
your very first quest here, then you can go in and poke ŭŭ You tackle or map a complex labyrinth or puzzle;
around for a bit before you meet them— and...
Or maybe you meet them in a dream. Or the Haunted ŭŭ You ascend to a height, respectively.
Child tells you about them. Or dozens of people have a
simultaneous nightmare about being them. I don’t know. As Anyone Else—“Down”
The point is, it’s a nightmare person, most likely, If you’re not Nightmares’ Angel then this’ll play out as
that’s in trouble, a person residing in that world, because a Rinley-styled adventure.
that world is the subject of this Arc.
I think that if you are in the nightmare world, and On a Shepherd/Mystic Arc
you’re hoping as a player to stumble across someone in And if you’re on a Shepherd or a Mystic Arc, then I
trouble to help, that you will find them by a riverbank. I guess it’s probably some awful things that draw you
mean, that’s not an IC rule— back into it—that Arc will start with Down.
Although I’d guess being by a river and being in You’ll be troubled and that’ll lead you back into the
trouble probably correlate statistically— Nightmare World. It might not be your troubles. It might
But I think that a riverbank’s a good place to set the be something that happens to the Haunted Child or to
scene for finding them. If there are innocent souls any- the creatures of the nightmare world currently living in
where in nightmare, they’re most likely by the river, Town (if there are any.) It might be someone you care
running from hunters or living in little cottages heating about having nightmares, or it might be having “night-
kettles on their bone-fueled fires. mares” that someone you recently lost is still alive. Or
nightmares that they’re suffering.
As Nightmares’ Angel—“Engineering!” / What I’m saying is that on those Arcs it’s not so much
“Walking the Boundaries” that you decide to go explore the nightmare world is that
I don’t have anything to say here! In Engineering! your life becomes a bit of a nightmare itself; and then—
you come up with and execute a complicated plan. In Maybe it’s not until the end of the quest that the
Walking the Boundaries you explore the effects of the exploration of the nightmare world kicks off. Maybe
choices that you’ve made thus far. that’s the miracle at the end of your Mystic 1 quest,
that something you thought was hopeless isn’t hope-
less, that something you thought was destroyed isn’t
Arcs 489
destroyed, just lost in the nightmare world. Or maybe The House in the Dark
it’s the responsibility at the end of a Shepherd 1 quest: Some of the things I know about this rambling,
You were going along, just fine, or at least, not fine, sprawling structure—
but making do, pulling your life back together, and then There’s several creaky stairways of dark wood. One
your own problems were cast into shadow as you sud- of them goes down into the basement. One has a place
denly realized or discovered a responsibility to some- you can hide underneath it, or sit on a wooden platform
thing in the nightmare world. halfway up and eat sandwiches and have tea.
Don’t let that stop you from exploring the place There’s a nice semicircular veranda looking out on
during Down. I’m just saying that it doesn’t have to be the sky and on Big Lake.
about that—your first quest here can have a thematic tie There’s caverns underneath it—the cellar opens into
to the nightmare world rather than a real one. a natural water-hollowed cave system. It probably ulti-
5
mately connects to the Lake.
On a Knight/Storyteller Arc It’s multi-story, with a multi-level shingled roof.
If you’re on a Knight or Storyteller Arc, instead, I hope Traditionally there’s an ageless scullery boy, Mizu,
you’ll already know what to do with Down by the time and a young ragamuffin girl, Kona, who helps in the
you get there. It’ll be the fourth or fifth quest, and it’ll kitchen and plays occasional games of pretend out on
be the quest where you’re dealing with hard truths and the roof. There may also be a full staff, or there may
your own sins. If it’s really not obvious what those be a peculiar emptiness in the household rolls between
hard truths might be or what your sins or errors are, you (as lord or lady of the house) and the low-ranked/
though, you can start this quest out by having night- servants’ servants such as the two I just brought up.
mares and night terrors and hope to figure out the rest Some other creatures that could be around include:
along the way.
ŭŭ the former caretaker’s child, Skot
The House in the Dark ŭŭ your neighbor, Lucy Godsfollow (pg. XX)
the Third Nightmares Arc ŭŭ a prisoner of some sort
ŭŭ the spirit or AI of the house itself107
The blasphemy embedded in Nightmares’ Angel is a ŭŭ a creature of the Outside, nightmares, or blas-
thing of stagnant water, rot, and decay. phemy that suffers because the house exists
There is a house at the border of Town whose tra- ŭŭ some random person who lives in the neighbor-
ditional practices help keep that at bay—a house that hood and comes by with a lasagne when you
sinks its metaphorical fangs into the blasphemy and move in (Let’s call them “Mr. or Mrs. Brisby.”)
pours clear water out.
You’ve just discovered it—found hints at it in histor-
ical records, maybe, and traced it to the place, and it’s
still there; or maybe you’ve been given it, willed it by
the former caretaker who’s just died or an enemy trying
to be clever; or, heck, maybe you’ve remade it when it
had been lost, found old plans and rebuilt it or killed a
crawling leviathan born from the chaos and found the
house inside.
It’s a cool, rambling old mansion, but is it an answer
to the problems you’ve encountered in the two pre-
vious Arcs?
Typically the answer is either:
ŭŭ “Yes, but it’ll take more time than you have.”

ŭŭ “No, it’s a horrible trap and a diversion.” 107 In my head their name is “Absinthe Buttersby,” but you probably
want a more somber name like Morgan, Apsu, Liragon, or Dumuzi...
ŭŭ “No, but it’s a pretty cool place.” or a slightly goofier name like “Buttersby Drowning” or “Dill Bayleaf
Absinthe.”
490 Arcs
The Death of the Sun You’ve got to figure out where these things are
the Fourth Nightmares Arc coming from and why. Maybe it’s obvious; maybe it
takes you a little while; maybe you’re at the end of the
Something—the nightmare realm, the blasphemy, the third or fourth quest before it actually makes sense.
Headmaster of the Bleak Academy, the reawakened Then, when you know where they’re coming from,
spirit of Melanie Malakh—is sending horror after you have to figure out what you’ll do about it!
horror into Town. (Possibly including a vampire or
puppet version of the dead sun.) Blasphemy is seeping
in, and the near Outside is drowning.
Can anyone stop it? What’s causing it?
The Lost World
That’s the subject for this Arc. “The Death of the Sun” is the last Nightmares Arc that
First, there are rumors of the great horned snake I’m going to go into, because I suspect it marks the end
Arcs
Bašmu—one hundred and eight miles long, with six of Nightmares’ Angel’s story. That said, it’s possible
mouths, who devours fish, birds, ships, rats, cats, and that there’s one more—
humans with equal alacrity.108 It’s not the first time it’s Specifically, I think that it’s possible that you’re on
been sighted by Fortitude’s sailors, but they’re saying the point of the classic hero’s journey where you’ve
that it’s been coming awfully close to Town. won the day but still have to get home again, and that’s
Legend? Rumor? Fact? even harder yet. If so, then I’d guess that somewhere
Then maybe there’s a curse—someone’s being around the end of this Arc, you’ll wake up and realize
possessed; or transformed into a horror; or, maybe, that you weren’t in Fortitude or Town after all—
not quite transformed, exactly, but imprisoned in a You thought you were wandering around taking care
golden birdcage inside the body of a giant beast. Often of last details and enjoying the fruits of victory, but no!
the result is a manifestation of Ugallu, a lion-headed You weren’t! You’re not!
storm-demon with the feet of a bird. But it could be That was wrong!
that a Main Character loses their self-control under the You are somewhere lost in the Outside, instead.
impact of the curse, or something weird happens with
the Guardian Bird (pg. XX).
Can you save them and Fortitude from themselves?
Or maybe there’s no transformation or possession—
it’s just that there’s someone whose fate is intimately
connected with some horrifically dangerous creature:
Ugallu; or the giant wolf-creature Uridimmu; or a
killer whale or great shark able to swim through land;
or a three-eyed dream demon with a peculiar
Reality Syndrome who accidentally manifests any-
thing wished for in its presence.
It’s got to be a pain to have that kind of fated connec-
tion with something that is completely unacceptable in
Fortitude society.
Maybe you can help?
And if it were just that, then maybe it wouldn’t be
a big deal. You solve them, and the two incidents are
over; heck, maybe one or both are much less threat-
ening than they seemed. But it doesn’t stop.
Town is under attack.
108 I keep saying that turning into a giant snake never helps, but
neither my design aesthetic nor the Sumerians listen!
Arcs 491
Rinley
the Rinley Arcs
These are the stories for Rinley Yatskaya,

the Troublemaker.
How to Play These Arcs
Not the original. Not the famous one. Not the one For Rinley, or someone playing through these Arcs as
who invented pepper and tied together an angel’s Rinley, the proper path through these Arcs features the
shoes. Not the one who dredged up Greenland from the quests (pg. XX):
5
sea and tricked all the Martians back to Mars. ŭŭ Adventure GET. You’ve gotten involved in
But a Rinley, anyhow. something exciting!
These stories aren’t deeply tied to the particulars of ŭŭ Let’s Doing! You drive forward through
the character. If you’re basically a troublemaker your- the situation.
self, and Rinley’s an NPC, then you can probably play ŭŭ Labyrinth Diving. This is the part where you’re
through them as Rinley—someone out there looking a little bit confused. You know where to look for
for adventure. answers, sort of, but you don’t have them yet.
I mean, I like the character, I’d prefer Rinley actu- ŭŭ Climbing the Sacred Mountain. You’re chasing
ally show up, but PCs are more important than NPCs! answers, solutions, or victory.
If you’re into the idea of actively making adventures ŭŭ Down. You’re chasing something subtler, scarier,
happen, and becoming a bit more of a storybook char- or more painful than that.
acter over time, and being a little immature compared For anyone else, these are going to be a Scientific
to the typical PC (but not by much) then you can play Adventure (pg. XX), featuring the quests:
through these Arcs as the Troublemaker. ŭŭ Science! You’ve been presented with a situation
Or you can play through as someone else who gets or possible tragedy. By gum, you will do science
tangled up in these stories—probably a long-suffering to it!
someone else. ŭŭ Someone’s in Trouble. Someone (Rinley?)’s in
trouble! You help them out.
ŭŭ Engineering! You’ve got a sense for the meat of
this situation now. It’s no longer an enigma—it’s
a technical problem. It’s time to do engineering
to it!
ŭŭ Above the Fray. You rise above the situation
and make moral or philosophical decisions—
what should be done with this situation
or technology?
ŭŭ Walking the Boundaries. Having made that
call, you explore its consequences.
492 Arcs Arcs 492

Rinley Yatskaya Looks for Trouble the position of watching the inevitable emotional
the First Rinley Arc trainwreck and helping as much as you can.
This Arc begins with a player-driven exploration of one As the Troublemaker—“Adventure GET”
or two of the mysteries of Fortitude: So lately you’ve been coming out of your shell a bit.
You’ve been starting to get behind the idea of having
ŭŭ the deal with the straw-haired spirit (see “the adventures—of trying to live up to the name you wear.
romantic interest,” pg. XX) You’re going to start by looking into one or two of
ŭŭ the deal with the pirate ship (pg. XX) the mysteries of Fortitude—see the list above!
ŭŭ the deal with the death of Jade Irinka (pg. XX)
ŭŭ the deal with any NPC Main Character: And hey. You’ve been noticing the PCs around. You
• ...particularly the Angel of Fortitude, but... can see that you’re going to get together with these
Arcs
• ...probably not Nightmares’ people one day and have adventures.
Angel or the Troublemaker (I’m not kidding. It’s one of your powers.)
ŭŭ the deal with the glass dragon (pg. XX) So you might as well drag them in!
This plays out as the quest Adventure GET.
In fact, if you find yourself exploring a mystery, and
the Troublemaker is an NPC, you might consider As the Troublemaker—“Let’s Doing!”
exploring it by way of this Arc! This quest is a good time to make sure you encounter all
Most of what I’m going to provide for you here are the characters and set pieces for this quest. See if you can
characters and settings—over the course of this Arc, if get the HG to introduce Simon Brambles, the romantic
you’re Rinley, you’ll... interest, and Totem/Palimpsest, if they haven’t. Visit
one or two of the scenic heights and mazes that I’ll talk
ŭŭ ...overcome or win over the antagonist, Simon (or about below. Have an encounter with the death wolf.
Liza) Brambles (pg. XX). This is the long body of the Arc, the quest where a lot
ŭŭ ...have a developing friendship or romance with of the slow work of investigation happens.
the romantic interest (pg. XX).
ŭŭ ...encounter one or two scenic heights or mazes As the Troublemaker—“Labyrinth Diving”
(pg. XX, XX). This quest is about exploring or mapping a big con-
ŭŭ ...slowly unravel the mystery or portions thereof fusing situation. If you’re investigating a mystery, like
with the help of the other PCs and the spirit you are here, that’s often a sign of progress:
named Palimpsest or Totem (pg. XX). A maze is scary and confusing but fundamentally
ŭŭ ...deal with the weighty presence of death (pg. solvable. So by the time you get around to Labyrinth
XX). Diving you’re actually in a good position, because you
know what you’re doing. You know where to look.
If you’re anyone else, it’s basically the same, This particular quest is in the shadow of one or more
except that: of the labyrinths discussed on pg. XX.
If you’re on a Mystic Arc, then you’ll want to
ŭŭ Simon (or Liza) Brambles might or might not talk to the HG or poke over the material before digging
be your antagonist—they could be your romantic into this stuff—work with them to figure out which
interest, or someone in trouble to help, instead. labyrinth will overshadow the quest, which labyrinth is
For instance, you might be called upon to help the “where to look,” and figure out who your “opposite
them if they’re, e.g., torn between their affection number” is. I assume it’s Simon Brambles, but maybe
for Rinley and whatever’s blackmailing them or it’s the romantic interest, a PC, or the death wolf.
forcing them into opposition. You’ll explore that labyrinth as part of figuring out
ŭŭ The Romantic Interest for this Arc could the mystery that you’re investigating, and you’ll talk to
become your romantic interest, of course, or your opposite number a fair amount.
they could stay Rinley’s, leaving you stuck in
Arcs 493
If you’re not on a Mystic Arc, then you’ve probably A Scientific Adventure
already had a chance and a good excuse to encounter Other characters—even if they’re not actually Rinley—
labyrinths on this Arc, so you should be able to come usually play these Arcs out as a Scientific Adventure
up with a reason why searching through one is part of (pg. XX):
your plan.
As Anybody Else—“Science!”
As the Troublemaker—“Climbing the Sacred It’s not like Rinley has a lock on the market for making
Mountain” trouble and exploring mysteries—if you’re playing
This is you reaching for a solution. This is you trying through this story as someone else, it might take a little
to make things better; or grasp the answer; or become longer before you start shaking the trees and poking
better than you were. around the secret corners of Fortitude, but not neces-
5
It’s often a little mystic. This is the quest of yours that sarily that much longer.
is often a little mystic— So you’ll find some mystery or situation you care
The entire quest is a metaphor for striving beyond about investigating and you’ll do the quest Science! to
your limits. it. At some point you’ll bump into the Troublemaker,
What do you need? What are you reaching for? because Rinley’s investigating whatever you’re inves-
What’s the magic something that you, by way of this tigating too.
quest, could reach for? I recommend soft-selling this meeting—
It’s going to be tempting to assume it’s a weighty
As the Troublemaker—“Down” moment where at last you meet the driving force of
This is a rough one. the Arc, but it’s probably not. Rinley can be played
Maybe it’s the end of the Arc, and you’re having to pushy and proactive or more towards a limpet/tagalong
face the fact that the romantic interest is short-lived. To kid sister or brother, and in most games you’ll want to
really cope with that—it’s rough work. reserve “pushy and proactive” for PCs.
Or maybe you failed somewhere. Not all of them!
Having to accept that is hard. Sometimes a PC group really needs a proactive NPC
If you’re on a Shepherd or Mystic Arc, if you’re just around because they’re all tentative and stuff, and then
starting, then I think you’re coming into this Arc out of having Rinley show up here will be a big deal, but in
a hard time in your life—sickness, trouble, grief, and most games you should expect an NPC version of the
guilt. If that fits your life, then work through it in this Troublemaker to be a sidekick or even a goofy back-
quest; if it doesn’t, then maybe it has to happen now. ground character even in the character’s own Arcs.
If you’re on a Shepherd or Mystic Arc, this mystery, It’s just, it’s important to have Rinley around so that
this investigation, isn’t something that you leapt into in the future, if you bump into any of the stuff designed
because you were feeling great. It was a gift. All of it— for Rinley and it doesn’t fit your PC (e.g., the romantic
the romantic interest, Totem/Palimpsest, maybe even interest, the ally spirit, the poisoning in a later story,
Simon Brambles— etc.) you and the HG can fob that stuff off onto the
It was a gift, something precious, given to you in the Troublemaker and have it remain relevant to the Arc.
world and by the world in your time of trouble to help
you see past it to the end. It was or it will be a miracle. As Anybody Else—“Someone’s in Trouble”
This quest is the one that personalizes things. If Science!
is more about the investigation itself, Someone’s in
Trouble is where you get involved with Rinley, the
romantic interest, or someone else who’s, well, in
trouble. This is where what you’re looking into becomes
personally and not just intellectually important.
494 Arcs
As Anybody Else—“Engineering!”/“Walking On a Bindings, Otherworldly, or Emptiness Arc
the Boundaries” If you’re coming in to Above the Fray on any other
These quests are generic: Arc it’s going to be more focused on the stuff you’ve
already experienced—on the encounters you’ve already
ŭŭ Engineering! focuses on a plan that you come up had with the characters and settings of this Arc. It’ll be
with. about you saying, OK:
ŭŭ Walking the Boundaries focuses on the conse- Here’s what we have to do.
quences of your choices so far.
The Antagonist
You may also find it helpful to tie the quest
Engineering! to one of the labyrinths for this Arc—see The antagonist for this story is Simon Brambles,
the discussion of the labyrinths below, and consider Prince of Thorns, as described on pg. XX.
Arcs
keeping them in mind when trying to come up with the He’ll emerge from the nightmare world and make an
plan that this quest is about! effort to confuse the mystery at hand.
As Anybody Else—“Above the Fray” Things to Investigate

On an Aspect Arc This section covers a few suggested mysteries for you
If you’re on an Aspect Arc, if you’re investigating one and/or the Troublemaker to explore.
of the secrets and mysteries of the game as a way of
training yourself, then Above the Fray is first and fore- The Death of Jade Irinka
most about why you’d do that. Once upon a time, but not all that very long ago, the
It’s going to be about your search for answers on Headmaster of the Bleak Academy rode out onto the
some bigger deal in your life, and how that ties into the clouds above Fortitude, drew back his great black bow,
labyrinths, the high places, the spirits, and the secrets and killed the sun:
of Fortitude. It’ll be a story about how you can’t go Killed Jade Irinka, whom he had—purportedly—loved.
forward on what you’ve been doing until you figure this There’s probably a secret here. It’s probably one of
stuff out, and the end of Above the Fray is also the these three things:
moment when you kind of push past that barrier—
When you see it, for the first time, when you know ŭŭ that she wasn’t killed by the Headmaster of the
that: yes. This is the right direction. This is the path Bleak Academy—it was something else.
that’ll take you where you need to go. If your life prog- ŭŭ that she wasn’t killed at all—she’s a prisoner at
ress was like a ship blocked by a field of icebergs, this the Bleak Academy.
is the summer: ŭŭ that she let the Headmaster kill her, so that she
The icebergs, beginning to crack. could change the nature of death.
Since your next quest will be Someone’s in Trouble,
that means that there’s probably a person who’s going The truth is, if there’s any secret here I want it to
to help you either spiritually or technically—that emerge over a long time—
Rinley or the romantic interest or Totem/Palimpsest I mean, try to get through at least a tenth of your
or someone else who is involved with this story is just game’s planned lifespan before you nail it down, and
what you needed to push past the icelocked sea lanes ideally you won’t be sure until the final third.
of your life. If not then maybe they’re more of a side But you can poke into the matter now. You can get
deal, like, you’ve just pushed past your mental or cir- some hints that point in any of those three directions; in
cumstantial stumbling block, but you have to help them fact, ideally, you could get some early hints that point in
out and maybe celebrate with them a bit before you can all three of those directions, as well as some hints that
go much further. there isn’t actually any kind of mystery at all, that it’s
all exactly as it seemed.
Dig out some truths and hints, I mean, and see what
actually sticks.
Arcs 495
The Glass Dragon High Places
People are pretty vague when they talk about the glass Playing through Rinley’s Arcs, and through
dragon, mostly. Everyone remembers that there was Storyteller Arcs in general, favors the introduction of
one, and the basic stuff that was covered in the campaign “high places” with special meaning to you—metaphor-
premise, but most people’ll be like “oh, somebody must ical mountains and world trees for use in a quest about
know” or they’ll tell their own personal little side story an ascent.
and those side stories won’t fit together into truth.
Maybe you could dig the real truth up? I’m going to talk about three high places here:
The Pirate Ship ŭŭ the “topless tower”

There’s supposed to be a pirate ship, possibly crewed by ŭŭ the heights of the Yatskaya temple
5
ghosts, that hangs around the docks and hasn’t actually ŭŭ the mast of an abandoned ship
troubled the ships there yet. Maybe it’s having trouble
working up the nerve to bother Fortitude. Maybe ...but if none of those fit your interests, you might
they’re just too nice for piracy. Maybe their plans are also look into:
complicated and haven’t come to fruition yet.
You could investigate! ŭŭ the limestone cliffs of the north beach
I actually have no idea where this one will go; I’d ŭŭ the roofs of Fortitude
suggest that that gives you the opportunity to propose ŭŭ the top floor of the Archive of Hideo Hayashi
as outlandish and goofy a set of theories as you like. ŭŭ the stack of ignored paperwork in the office
of Amelia Kozlov, jam guru and Regional
Council member
The Topless Tower

There’s supposed to be a tower down by Imported Cold
that no rat has ever climbed.
It’s under construction. They can’t get in.
They’ve climbed up twenty, thirty floors of girders
from the outside, but they haven’t reached the top.
They’ve gone so high that there’s no way that you
couldn’t see the tower from everywhere in Fortitude;
yet, you can’t, because it isn’t properly in Fortitude. It’s
in the Outside.
The Yatskaya Temple

I haven’t defined how tall the Yatskaya temple is, really.
The real thing isn’t that tall, but it’s kind of unworldly
and daydreams and reality blur. So if you want it to be
one of the “high places” for this quest, you can assume
that either the real temple or its apparent extent when
daydreams and spiritual stuff gets involved is light-
house height—forty to eighty yards.
The temple will also come up as a possible labyrinth,
below.
496 Arcs
The Abandoned Ship Village on a regular basis might be a mess, but all three
Thirty years ago there was a span of two and a half of those things have the labyrinth-nature, so if they
years where there was an abandoned three-master just seem to fit, I’ll just have to deal!
kind of keeled over on the northern beach—the kids
really liked playing on it and there was some holdup The Bramble Rose Sideways
with processing the salvage. Maybe it was ghosts, As noted elsewhere, “Sideway” is a Fortitude abbre-
maybe it was bureaucracy, maybe somebody actually viation for “Outside Alley,” which in turn refers to a
owned it but was too sick to do anything about it and it street whose destination you don’t know. The Bramble
wasn’t doing any harm. I don’t know! Rose Sideways is a tangle of practically unnavigable
If you wanted, you could move that ship and its streets. I’ve never been there, so it’s possible that it’s
secrets to the modern day. being exaggerated; on the other hand, it’s possible that
it’s an extra labyrinth right there in Fortitude!
Arcs
Mazes and Labyrinths
You’ll also want to run a labyrinth or two. The Yatskaya Temple
I’m going to talk a little bit more right now about The temple doesn’t seem to be that big around from the
three possibilities: outside, but it’s really hard to be sure—
There’s a lot of natural obstacles, from brambles to
ŭŭ the Bramble Rose Sideways, a tangled section of fences to a hillside to a drainage ditch, that make it
the Fortitude streets difficult to walk around the temple, and in truth you
ŭŭ the Yatskaya temple, again just can’t unless you’re willing to break into people’s
ŭŭ the labyrinth near the top of Hideo houses and through their walls to make certain of it.
Hayashi’s Archive That said, there’s a lot of space inside. A surprising
amount of space inside. You could get lost there, going
I don’t have any particular notes on them, but I’d also up and down and around indefinitely, particularly given
recommend considering: that there are some Hayashi-made mirrors that I’m
pretty sure you could walk through if you tried.
ŭŭ the banks of the Twisting River
ŭŭ a maze-like junkyard The Archive of Professor Hideo Hayashi
I’m going to talk more about this place elsewhere, but
There may well be a labyrinth under the Titov family it’s worth note that, like the Yatskaya family temple,
shrine, but don’t force that if it doesn’t wind up feeling Professor Hideo Hayashi’s archive is a place of inde-
right—it’s more important to have an evocative, real- terminate extent. In particular, near the top the maze
feeling Titov shrine that works for your player group of shelving starts to slip into the Outside and become a
than to get another labyrinth set up. There’ll definitely labyrinth. On the one hand, this is a crucial set piece for
be a few labyrinths introduced during Nightmares’ the entire Glass-Maker’s Dragon campaign, so using
Angel’s Arcs (both “The Nightmare World” on pg. XX it as a high pace and labyrinth to investigate during the
and “The House in the Dark” on pg. XX are probable first Arc of this quest only makes sense; on the other,
warrens), but I don’t know when those’ll come into it’s a crucial set piece for the entire campaign, so if
play in any given game. you’re looking for something more Troublemaker-
If none of these ideas work for you, and you’re specific or if the nature of the Archive has already been
feeling hard up for labyrinths, you might also look into: determined or if the Dream-Witch wants to keep its
purpose focused on her character stuff, it might not be
ŭŭ the labyrinth under Horizon’s School the ideal choice.
ŭŭ the roofs of Fortitude
ŭŭ the labyrinth in Soma
I don’t want to separate you too much from Fortitude,

and particularly lower Fortitude, and traveling to Soma
Arcs 497
Rinley and the Titovs As Rinley—“Adventure GET” / “Let’s Doing!”
the Second Rinley Arc You’ve been dragged into this mess. You’ve been sum-
moned by Titov magic and given a bargain that you
The Titovs charge the Troublemaker with taking food can’t refuse.
to the creature imprisoned underneath their shrine. That said:
So here’s how this story usually goes— Adventure GET
Bearing in mind that you’ll have to tweak things a
bit, or possibly start with this Arc, if you’re using the For the first quest, you’re probably basically just
character variation Rinley Titov. going with it. The Titovs are an awful mess, and
The story goes that there’s some mystery that’s gotten Iolithae’s imprisonment is scary, and being compelled
near and dear to the PCs’ hearts that the Titovs can help by magic—
5
you solve. Usually that’s... Worse, being offered a bargain by magic that you
could theoretically refuse or abandon, knowing that
ŭŭ ...something to do with the evil previous identity the magic carefully selected you and the bargain so
of the Dream-Witch. that you wouldn’t, so that you would accept, would be
ŭŭ ...something to do with Professor Hideo Hayashi guaranteed to accept, and to keep its terms—
(or the “imaginary country” he once sketched out That’s scary.
in glass). But whatever. You go with it.
ŭŭ ...something to do with the death of the sun. Eventually it begins to wear on you, you begin to
stress over the risks and the pain around you and stuff.
Maybe it’s something else. Ideally it’s not just It gets hard on you. You’ll move on to Let’s Doing! to
Rinley’s stuff—making this bargain with the Titovs try to fix some of this stuff.
could be a great way to tie the Troublemaker to the I’d suggest that it’s around the end of that that Iolithae
other stories in the game. escapes—unless you deliberately free her, before that.
Anyway, the Titovs need Rinley to take over taking Don’t force that if it doesn’t make sense or isn’t fun,
food to the thing under the shrine. but I think that it’s a good moment. Regardless, at that
Maybe it’s just woken up. Maybe it’s been struggling. point, you’re oriented on the long-term elements of the
Maybe it’s just manifest a new face. Maybe this has situation.
always been what Rinley’s “for.” And the Titovs offer a
trade: information or help or something in exchange for As Rinley—“Labyrinth Diving”
Rinley agreeing to this. You know sort of what you have to do. You have to
Normally that thing under the shrine is Iolithae unravel your obligations, catch Iolithae if necessary and
Septimian (pg. XX). put her to sleep again, or strengthen the general bind-
She’s extremely dangerous, but she’s also a cool sto- ings on and the health of the Titov Shrine.
ryteller—she’ll tell you stories of emptiness and dream, Just how—
stories of why the world isn’t worthy, and all kinds of That’s going to be confusing, and may involve a lot of
interesting stuff. visits to dark corners of the catacombs under the Titov
Typically she’ll get out during the course of the Arc shrine, or Bluebell Park, or the Outside, or other scary
and be imprisoned again at its end. places; or navigating the family politics of the Titovs—
That will play out with the quest Labyrinth Diving.
As Rinley—“Climbing the Sacred Mountain”

If there’s a high and lofty goal remaining after that, then
you’d pursue it with Climbing the Sacred Mountain;
if there’s a leftover terrible grief, or pain, or suffering,
after that, you’d have to follow that climb up, no pun
intended, with Down.
498 Arcs
As Rinley—“Down” Rinley is Poisoned
There’s another way to do these quests, of course, the Third Rinley Arc
where Down begins it all. Where that quest, where
the harshness of that quest, is the way in which you The Troublemaker is poisoned in their dreams by the
encounter the Titovs. claw of a dead bird.
Things suck. Things are very bad. And part of that, or (That happens.)
maybe exacerbating that, you’re called to deal with the It poisons them. It sickens them, and they must find
Titovs. You’re dragged into their stuff. And that isn’t an antidote before it is too late.
“Adventure GET.” That’s... it’s awful. It sucks. I’m not going to give you any more than that.
If you’re on a Shepherd/Mystic path, you won’t get Not right now, anyway.
all happy and Adventure GET until much later; not until If Rinley’s an NPC that nobody cares about, then this
there’s a spark of light, a bit of hope, a reason to think can happen to somebody else. Some other NPC, maybe.
Arcs
that maybe, after all, these people can be saved. Or to you. But it’s meant to be terrifyingly inexplicable.
It’s meant to be this elusive thing that happens that’s
“A Scientific Adventure” almost impossible to grasp.
If you’re not Rinley, then you have a choice about
how to start this story: As the Troublemaker
ŭŭ You can assume that you’ve been summoned You’ll play this out with:
instead of Rinley...
ŭŭ ...or that both of you were called for the ŭŭ Adventure GET while the poison isn’t that
same task... bad and the sheer freakiness of it is kind
ŭŭ ...or that you’re investigating the Titovs or the of entertaining.
thing under the shrine on your own recognizance, ŭŭ Let’s Doing! when sickness and uncertainty is
and that Rinley doesn’t show up until you need starting to wear on you.
Someone in Trouble! to help. ŭŭ Labyrinth Diving when you’ve found some-
In general: where to look to try to find answers, antidotes,
ŭŭ Science! is about figuring out what’s going on and and meaning—probably “the near Outside,” “the
formally getting involved. nightmare world,” “the top floor of the Archive,”
ŭŭ Someone’s in Trouble is your chance to help “the depths of Yatskaya temple,” or some other
Iolithae, the Titovs, and/or Rinley. sort of maze.
ŭŭ Engineering! is about immediate solutions. ŭŭ Climbing the Sacred Mountain to hunt down the
ŭŭ Above the Fray is about tackling the philosoph- actual cure; and maybe
ical problems here and deciding what ought to be ŭŭ Down to deal with the nearness of death, the
done about the Titovs and their prisoner—whether worst of the poison, the cost of that cure, or
that’s a compassionate balancing out of the harsh whatever else.
actions taken in earlier quests or an arrogant
meddler’s act of hubris.
ŭŭ Walking the Boundaries explores the outcome.
Arcs 499
A Scientific Adventure As Anybody Else—“Above the Fray”
On a Binding/Otherworldly/Emptiness Arc
As Anybody Else—“Science!” Sometimes, you’ve fixed some stuff—made an antidote
On a Bindings/Otherworldly Arc to the poison, saved Rinley’s life, whatever—but that’s
It’s harder for you to get involved in this particular just treating the symptoms. It doesn’t address the fact
Arc before the Troublemaker does, because, after all, it that dead birds are appearing in people’s dreams and
happens to Rinley— poisoning them now or whatever.
But you could still be doing general Science! about Addressing that kind of thing—leaving the mundane,
some sort of impending threat, poison, dream thing, or tangible, earthly, mucky, biological part of the science
dying birds. In fact, I’d recommend that last: there’s of this behind and floating in aetherial realms of science,
some sort of mysterious epidemic among the birds of philosophy, dream, or whatever to make a bigger-pic-
5
Fortitude, which possibly has some natural relationship ture solution—is handled in Above the Fray.
to dreams or nightmares. Do science to it!
That leaves you free and clear to delay Rinley’s On an Aspect Arc
entrance until Someone’s in Trouble, which has some If you’re on an Aspect Arc, Above the Fray can’t shift
value because the only person explicitly stated by this gears to a philosophical approach—
Arc to be in trouble is the Troublemaker. It’ll be the starting quest and won’t be able to inherit
On an Aspect/Emptiness Arc details from the rest of the Arc. Instead, it should fore-
You’ve already been helping Rinley, most likely—but shadow them: over the course of your normal work,
now there’s a bigger problem! Maybe the dream-poi- studies, and training, try to work in (or to casually touch
soning is somehow infectious? Maybe it’s happening on) dead birds, poisonings, dreams, the Outside, laby-
to other people? rinths, and Rinley:
Something’s going on! Do science to it. Stuff that’ll become resonant and relevant, later on.
As Anybody Else—“Someone’s in As Anybody Else—“Walking the Boundaries”

Trouble!”/“Engineering!” You may be able to get through all of this with rela-
Someone’s in Trouble usually focuses on helping tively pure science—or whatever you use. Wishing.
Rinley. This is usually about finding a short-term solu- Feng shui. The power of friendship. You may be able
tion to keep her from dying. to get through all of this just by addressing the symp-
Engineering! is your search for an antidote. toms and contagion at that level; but I suspect that, like
Rinley, you’ll be better off hunting through some sort of
labyrinthine place for answers, at some point, instead.
Walking the Boundaries likely covers that sort
of thing.
500 Arcs
Rinley and the Glass Dragon As Anybody Else
the Fourth Rinley Arc For anyone else, this Arc plays out as:
ŭŭ Science! covers your investigating or being
The last Rinley Arc focuses on the mystery of the glass dragged into Rinley’s discovery of the cache,
dragon. figuring out what’s going on, and working out
Nominally in this Arc, the Troublemaker finds, gets your strategy.
access to, or otherwise focuses on a trove of the memo- ŭŭ In Someone’s in Trouble, you’ll help someone in
ries of the former identity of the Dream-Witch: trouble—either the Troublemaker, the Dream-
Melanie (or possibly Reginald) Malakh. Witch, or somebody who’s suffering on account
In this Arc, Rinley investigates why the glass dragon of the glass dragon shard inside them;
hated the world and why it died. ŭŭ In Engineering! you’ll pursue a complex plan;
ŭŭ In Above the Fray, you’ll make a big decision—
Arcs
As the Troublemaker resolving something major about the story of the
ŭŭ Adventure GET gets you up to speed and glass dragon or Melanie/Reginald Malakh;
launches the investigation. (Or, on a Shepherd ŭŭ And finally, in Walking the Boundaries, you’ll
or Mystic Arc, marks the point where it becomes explore the world that your choices have made.
an adventure.) Often this ends up with a piece
of those memories getting stuck in your own
head, arguing for the death and the destruction of
the world.
ŭŭ Let’s Doing! is your attempt to fix things and find
answers by just pushing forward. Incidentally,
you are allowed to actually fix a lot of things and
find a lot of answers here; it’s just, there’s usually
at least one big part of any problem that needs a
more diligent, detail-conscious approach.
ŭŭ Labyrinth Diving is generally that approach.
ŭŭ Climbing the Sacred Mountain is about puri-
fying things, about cleaning those memories out
of your head, finding good things about Malakh
(e.g., perhaps the glass dragon was sabotaged by
Malakh’s love for Professor Hideo Hayashi), and
more generally healing some of the legacy of the
glass dragon.
ŭŭ Down gives you an opportunity to gamble your-
self to recover something that’s been lost—e.g., to
venture to the Bleak Academy to convince it that
the world is worth saving.
Arcs 501
Winter
the Natalia/Antony Arcs
The Prodigy comes to Town from Earth. A The Frozen Heart

once-in-a-generation prodigy, with limitless mental Prologue
and physical potential, this Main Character should have
been a hero—but some sort of tragedy pushed her to Because she is a hero she will show up now and then.
retreat emotionally from the world. Now her heart is She will go through the motions of it, at least. She
5
frozen in ice and she refuses to accept hope, her own cannot help investigating the odd, helping the helpless,
worth, and that anything can be done about the broken- standing between bullies and their prey.
ness of the world. It is in her nature.
This is the story of how that winter breaks. She is very cold. She is very distant. I don’t think
it’s clinical depression. It could be. I don’t think it’s the
influence of the Outside. It could be. I think it is unrec-
How to Play These Arcs onciled grief: that at some point something happened,
and she just stopped, and because she is not dealing
For Natalia/Antony, the Winter Arcs are Coming- with that yet, she does not grow.
of-Age Stories (pg. XX), featuring the quests: But it could also be depression. Or the work of some
ŭŭ A Troubled Protagonist. You struggle to evil force upon her. Or a personality trait—that she is
recover from or push past some deal. not a good person being held back from the warmth
ŭŭ An Unlikely Friendship. You meet someone of the world, but an amoral sociopath held back by
who broadens your perspective. some logic or incident that makes her wear morality
ŭŭ Your Social Burdens. People have weird as a chain.
expectations of you. These things are not like one another, but they all
ŭŭ Action! An epic fight with a giant monster or produce such cold.
conspiracy or something. Perhaps you will never care about her.
ŭŭ Coming to Grips with Death. You spend In that case you may wind up skipping this story. You
a while facing death, grief, or some kind of can scavenge these quests for parts to use in dealing
troublesome situation that’s a metaphor for one with your own traumas, and maybe skip ahead to have
of those things. her play a role in some sort of Bleak Academy plan.
For anyone else, these Arcs are Heroic Journeys If you begin to care about her—
(pg. XX), featuring the quests: If you start trying to talk her from her cynicism, or get
ŭŭ Changes. Something is changing in your life, but her to seek help, or if you are playing her, of course—
you’re not sure exactly what. Then you will begin this Arc.
ŭŭ The Refusal of the Call. You try to take a way
out, but it blows up on you.
ŭŭ The Belly of the Whale. You’re separated
from your normal life, threatened, and at risk of
being transformed.
ŭŭ The Trials of the Sun. The cosmos has fallen
out of order; you struggle to fix it.
ŭŭ Apotheosis. You become something more than
you had been.
502 Arcs Arcs 502

Flowers in the Ice As the Prodigy—“An Unlikely Friendship”
the First Arc of Winter An Unlikely Friendship typically both introduces
Hayden Sorrows and focuses on your relationship with
A boy named Hayden Sorrows comes to Town. He’s him. It’s possible that he’s not the right unlikely friend,
a student at the Bleak Academy, and he’s hunting the of course, and you can try out a few other options—it’s
Anomaly—a creature of raw, crystalline chaos. He why I made doing so a weekly option on the card, and
claims that it’s been stirred into existence or stirred up, give 5 XP for finalizing your choice—but in principle,
at least, by the reborn sun and that its whispering, from he’s the Arc’s Unlikely Friend. (If not, it’s probably
Town, is disturbing the void beyond the world. either a Main Character you’ve been talking to or the
By default Hayden is comparatively trustworthy—as Anomaly itself.)
with any NPC, the HG may decide that he’s a jerk and a This quest also probably has a sidelight—linking An
liar, but he’s normally either naturally sincere or under Unlikely Friendship and the later quest Coming to
Arcs
instructions to be so. Grips with Death, if you wind up doing it—wherein
He’ll offer competition for the idea of light— you talk with him about your past and some guilt or
That is, he’ll argue that it’s not warmth and hope that painful legacy of your life before Town.
the Prodigy needs, but peace: the pure dark beyond the
world, vistas of endless quiet. And whether she accepts As the Prodigy—“Your Social Burdens”
his ideas or not, she’ll probably help him track down In Your Social Burdens, your family starts pushing
the Anomaly, uproot it, and cast it out of Town: you to socialize more.
Its whispering has been pervading Town of late, too If you have a lot of free time, they might set you up
subtle for most people to hear, but it’ll be starting to get with a job with a friend of the family—if you’ve been
on her nerves. really intent about cracking the mystery that is Town,
it might be with the Fortitude Regional Council or
As the Prodigy—“A Troubled Protagonist” some sort of investigative agency; otherwise, it could
The truth is that since you have come to Town you have be something like assisting the Widow Morozova
begun to care about things again. You want to believe in with personal stuff (and thus the occasional high-class
the world. You want hope. You want friends. You want occasion, since she’s rich), apprenticing at the House
light. You want life. of Crystal or the Watanabe candy shop, helping at
But it’s hard! a hospice, or joining a social project or initiative. If
Every time something touches your heart, you kind you’re thoroughly engrossed in school-type stuff and
of freak out. You go into denial. You shut it down. can’t be pushed into a job, they or your teachers or peers
Eventually the light and warmth of Town will wear might push you towards more club and extracurricular
through that ice, and you’ll start being able to care activities or out-of-school socializing.
about things again. On some level it’s OK if it feels completely ridic-
This’ll play out in the quest A Troubled Protagonist. ulous—I mean, it’s best if it all makes sense to adult
players OOC and just feels silly IC, but honestly,
there’s something to be said for the social stuff being
incomprehensible or at least archaic on the player level
as well. This is a quest about parents and fellow kids
wanting things that seem, to you, to completely miss
the point, so having it be really weird OOC is also OK!
There is just enough of a debutante tradition in
Fortitude, even among the less important families, that
it’s possible that you’ll be pushed to formally debut. If
you’re on a Shepherd Arc, this is probably when you
meet Hayden Sorrows.
Arcs 503
As the Prodigy—“Action!” / “Coming to Grips As Anyone Else—“the Refusal of the Call”
with Death” In general the Refusal of the Call will focus on your
If you need more to finish things up, Action! is about own relationship with Hayden Sorrows—a potential
how you track the Anomaly down. friend, ally, and opposite number for you, though prob-
And, most likely, get rid of it! ably not a romantic interest as he is for the Prodigy.
The Arc may resolve with an epilogue where you He’ll give you a chance to escape what’s happening
think and talk a lot about your guilt, your past, and to you—
some legacy of your life before Town. With Hayden? Something which you’ll probably want to keep active
Or with someone else? as an opportunity even if you’re certain of your course,
because you’re probably not 100% sure at this point
As Anyone Else—“A Heroic Journey” in the story what is happening to you and whether it’s
5
Something has infected you. entirely good or bad. There’s even a chance that you’re
When the Prodigy hints at or talks about their past, infected by something Bleak (or, if you’re a natural
you taste crystal. You remember shattered bits and ally to the Bleak Academy, by something bright and
pieces of winter nights. wishful) and that you’ll need all the help you can get!
Something is poking about in your head or soul— If it seems to fit you better, the Anomaly could be
Something deeply connected to her past. I’m your ally and opposite number here instead, and Hayden
guessing it’s one of these four things: the real danger in the following Arc.
ŭŭ someone tied to her backstory, like, the ghost of a As Anyone Else—“the Belly of the Whale” /
dead sibling, mentor, or friend “the Trials of the Sun” / “Apotheosis”
ŭŭ the Anomaly (pg. XX) The Belly of the Whale is a series of scary conflicts
ŭŭ something related to Hayden Sorrows (pg. XX) with the Anomaly, but also a chance to bond with the
or the Bleak Academy Prodigy—often, the tangle between the two of you
ŭŭ Melanie Malakh (pg. XX), somehow connecting established in Changes, and with your own connections
to the Prodigy’s despair to Hayden Sorrows, results in you feeling responsible
for one anothers’ fates.
The first two are the simplest answers in a standard If you end things there, then there’s a kind of sweet
game where she’s an NPC, and you can usually make resolution for what you’ve been becoming—the neg-
them work out if she’s a PC, but you might have to go ative elements prove to be exaggerated by fear; the
on to the next two or invent something else if the game building narrative of scary stuff ends in delight, in
has a lot of established canon around this stuff. “eucatastrophe.”
If you plan to move on to The Trials of the Sun,
As Anyone Else—“Changes” though, then it’s the other way around.
Over the course of Changes you’ll figure out just what There’s something in you that’s messed up, some-
that infection is and what it’s doing to you. thing possessing or warping you—a parasite attached
In some sense you’re lucky, I think. to the positive change that a Mystic Arc might bring,
I mean—reaching somebody. That’s really hard. a consequence of your mistakes for a Knight Arc, and
People aren’t things you can fix. People aren’t things its own little bit of nastiness connected to the Prodigy’s
you can connect to when they’re trying to keep you backstory or your own on an Otherworldly or Emptiness
away. Not just by trying. In a sense, the fact that you’re Arc—and it’s breaking free.
being twisted up by the Prodigy’s deal is a miracle. It Apotheosis then represents your chance to find
means there’s a link. meaning in that and to sort everything out again,
In another sense— thereafter.
Well, this could be pretty scary and pretty bad.
If you’re on a Mystic Arc, and this is in fact your
first Mystic Arc, remember that you’ll want to choose
an Element and a Form at some point during the quest.
504 Arcs
Permafrost And then one day his ship goes out, and it doesn’t
the Second Arc of Winter come back.
And later you—well, you, or someone, but probably
The problem with opening your heart to people is that you—find him. Well, what’s left of him. The corpse.
they die. The problem with learning to love the world That’s not hopeless, I mean, there’s a whole other set
is that it ends. of stories about dead people coming back, but that’s not
Just because you trust people a little doesn’t mean your Arc. That’s not part of your Arc. It’s not hopeless,
that anything can ever become better. but, on the other side of that, don’t get your hopes too
This isn’t a story of grand adventure. high up.
It’s a story of how one day Yuri, the Prodigy’s father, (If he dies before you get to this quest, by the way, or
dies. in the middle of it, the social burdens of arranging for a
funeral are a little off-center for this quest but probably
Arcs
Portions of this Arc often break from the normal still an acceptable fit.)
Pastoral genre of the game and become, temporarily, a
road of trials, epic fantasy, or Techno game. As the Prodigy—“Action!” / “Coming to Grips
with Death”
As the Prodigy—“A Troubled Protagonist” Action! is going to assume that when the funeral actu-
This probably starts with A Troubled Protagonist. ally happens, maybe even while you’re escorting the
You don’t know yet that this is the story of your body to the grave or maybe a little after, some spiritual
father dying. It’s the story of how you’re getting closer force or wickedness (the Graveyard Spirit) messes
to people, but you’re a little scared by that. It brings up with you—you fall into a spiritual realm of some sort, a
old, bad memories of bodies in the snow. nasty spiritual realm, the belly of a death spirit of some
You might not even know what those memories are sort.
of. Then either you can petition for the HG to shift the
They might not even be memories of anything in par- game to a short-chapter epic fantasy, Techno game, or
ticular. I’m just saying. People die. road of trials for a bit, or you can quickly escape that
spiritual world but keep stumbling back in at night, or
As the Prodigy—“An Unlikely Friendship” in dreams, or every time your grief gets strong. You’re
An Unlikely Friendship is normally going to focus on being devoured by something that has gotten a good
the sacred child Stefan— taste of your grief and wants to eat it all.
He acts as a kind of mentor in Fortitude spirituality, It’s not really a physical antagonist—it’s just a
and has a personality almost as reserved as yours nor- descriptive thing, a world, a part of this quest. It might
mally starts at, but with a lot more mischievous humor not even be real. It could be something you put together
hiding underneath. You’ll share a lot of tea and talk in your head to try to hang on, somehow, or something.
about the social obligation of the individual to the com- That’s really unlikely, because you’re actually awfully
munity vs. the obligation of the individual to actualize sane considering, but it could be what happens, particu-
the self, and stuff. larly if you’re messing yourself up with guilt.
Probably. Beating it up, anyway, won’t be satisfying on its
And if you’re on anything but a Shepherd Arc, you’ll own, though it might very well be cathartic; Coming
have gone two quests, and your father will still be alive. to Grips with Death is the quest you need to really
solidly process the event.
As the Prodigy—“Your Social Burdens”
Your Social Burdens is the chance to hang out with
your father’s fisherman friends and his Russian expa-
triate socials where people sit around and discuss
exquisitely boring and alienating stuff and in general
really get kind of irritated at him—but also make some
last good memories, if you’re good.
Arcs 505
“A Heroic Journey” Thin Ice
As Anybody Else—“Changes” / “the Refusal the Third Arc of Winter
of the Call” / “the Belly of the Whale”
This is going to be a little cruel. A death god will rise—a great, mute mushroom-beast
I think if you’re playing as anybody but the Prodigy, to fill the sky with woolen, staticky nothingness.
then the Graveyard Spirit touches your life long Before it becomes that, though; before it turns into
before Yuri actually dies. Maybe it’s an event outside that, it will have been a friend.
the causal order. Maybe it doesn’t want Yuri and the
Prodigy specifically— As the Prodigy—“A Troubled Protagonist”
Maybe it only finds them because of you. Once you might have thought you were strong enough
But Changes is a touch of death, or at least a fore- to handle anything.
5
shadowing of that death, working its way through you. But these days—you can’t be so sure.
That probably gives you a strong reason for the So, much of this Arc is a training Arc for you. There
Refusal of the Call. I don’t know whom you actually are limits to your strength. There are things you haven’t
turn to, though. Is Hayden Sorrows or the Anomaly still been able to manage. In A Troubled Protagonist, you
around? Or does the HG have to come up with a new try to push past that.
opposite number for you, a new tempting spirit, to help You try to break through to the next level.
you try to hide Yuri from death or yourself from the You turn to your favorite of...
knowledge of its coming?
The Belly of the Whale is where you fall into the ŭŭ ...the Wishing Boy (or Girl) and their Wish-
Graveyard Spirit’s world or sway. Granting Engine...
Even if you come back, it’s entangled with you. ŭŭ ...the Science of Nightmares’ Angel...
Even if the Prodigy kills it, it’s entangled with you. ŭŭ ...faith in and connection to the Child of the Sun...
It’s stained you, tainted you, become a part of who ŭŭ ...the teachings of the Bleak Academy...
you are. ŭŭ ...the creatures or teachings of the Angel
And during this quest, or the one before it, Yuri dies. of Fortitude...
As Anybody Else— “the Trials of the Sun” / “Apotheosis” ...to start developing your strength.
The Trials of the Sun—this quest is usually about how
you try to revive him. You can figure out your own path As the Prodigy—“An Unlikely Friendship”
here, if you like, or skip the quest entirely. But usually An Unlikely Friendship will usually connect you to
that’s the consequence of your getting entangled with one of two individuals:
the Graveyard Spirit. You feel responsible for that
death, and possibly entangled with a bit of Yuri’s soul— ŭŭ Hayden Sorrows, if that turned out to be a decent
Some hope, or whatever is appropriate, that he shared person; they’ve come back to Town on orders and
with you before he died? need someone to show them around, help them set
It’s not about reviving the dead. I mean, there may up, or whatever.
be other dead people whom you’d normally prioritize, ŭŭ A Bleak Innocent (pg. XX)—basically, if Hayden
or you may have strong feelings against resurrecting was not your friend, or you decided they weren’t
people. But you’re all tied up in this. Yuri and the guilt your friend, then the Bleak Academy sends a
and the graveyard spirit are like a knot in long-un- weapon to destroy Town, but it’s both intelligent
brushed hair. and non-malicious; a distant-seeming child, more
Apotheosis is, as is going to be a regular pattern for or less, who probably reminds you of yourself at a
this quest, just an extra chance to sort things out and younger age.
find closure for it all.
It can be someone else—but a link to an innocent
creature of the Bleak Academy is important at this point.
506 Arcs
As the Prodigy—“Your Social Obligations” Even more than in the Prodigy’s version of this
In the quest Your Social Obligations, you’re distracted Arc, the “death god” is most likely a plot device: while
from your training by the Model Bleak Academy Club. the rules for fighting Bleak effects may be a little bit
This is a club in Fortitude that’s trying to recreate and helpful, it’s likely that the only way to ultimately stop
explore the culture of the Bleak Academy, either as the world from ending is through the structure of these
a cultural outreach, as a way to help connect young quests. (Or some other player-level effect—I mean, if
Riders to their parent culture, or as preparation for you abandon the quests because the game goes in a dif-
potential future attack/infiltration/diplomacy. ferent direction, that’s fine; and, in fact, if you decide
Basically, you’re asked to participate and learn some that something should work, that’s fine too; I just mean
of the ways of the Bleak Academy, either by a Rider that you should probably assume that most of the things
whom you like, or, if you don’t trust any Riders, by you try to stop the Bleak Academy’s superweapon are
someone who wants you to prepare for a potential visit going to fail, because it’s more a framing device for a
Arcs
or infiltration attempt. It’s probably the case that the personal struggle than it is a manipulable event.)
Model Bleak Academy customs are put together from
myths and with more scrupulous attendance to odd As Anyone Else—“Changes” / “The Refusal
details of etiquette and dress than the actual residents of the Call” / “the Belly of the Whale”
maintain, so feel free to let the obligations here be as Changes will focus on Hayden Sorrows or the Bleak
wild as you like. Innocent (pg. XX). An innocent creature from the
There are other ways to do this—you could revisit Bleak Academy has come to Town, sent as a weapon
some of the social obligations encountered in previous to destroy it.
Arcs, or you could skip back a bit and focus on your You can feel the change stirring inside it. You can
escorting Hayden Sorrows or raising a Bleak inno- feel it becoming something wrong.
cent—but the Model Bleak Academy Club is my sug- You may have a chance to help resist some of this
gestion for your onerous obligation here, anyhow. change by merging or melding with the creature
somehow—it depends on your Arc and character
As the Prodigy—“Action!” / “Coming to Grips concept, really—but that won’t help much, or for long.
with Death” In fact, most of what that’ll do is infect you and put
In Action!, your friendship with Hayden or the Bleak you at risk of becoming a world-drowning abomina-
Innocent ends badly. The Bleak power within them tion yourself.
blossoms; they become, as mentioned, a god of death. The Refusal of the Call is generally about the temp-
They are an embodiment of the way the world fades tation to break from your principles in a case like this.
when you’re anesthetized—a pale emptiness that rises I don’t know what those principles are as I write this,
to drown every other thing out. A slow, slippery explo- so I don’t know which way that goes. I assume you’re
sion of nothingness to make existence fall asleep, forget either tempted to kill them now so they don’t become
itself, and unweave into the Outside. a death god, or you’re tempted not to kill them even
Coming to Grips with Death is how you face when it seems like it might save the world, because it’s
having to kill them. As the fourth quest in the sequence, not their fault.
it’s about how you’re losing them; how they’re trans- I think you’ll normally wind up heavily involved in
forming, and nothing you can do will stop it. At most the medical/spiritual treatment that holds this stuff at
you can delay it for a while. bay, either way.
As the fifth quest in the sequence, it’s instead about The Belly of the Whale will have a focus on that
your grief and loss; and possibly, a funeral. treatment. The power in the creature is beginning to
awaken; the world is beginning to end, if slowly; and
As Anyone Else—General Notes you’ll try to survive it, and to comfort the Prodigy and
This Arc isn’t going to focus heavily on the Prodigy, the creature itself, because it’s likely that even if you
and in theory they could sit it out; on the other hand, the can save the world, Hayden or the innocent (as appli-
HG can reasonably assume that the Prodigy is going to cable) will die.
be involved, in the manner described above.
Arcs 507
As Anyone Else—“the Trials of the Sun” / “Apotheosis”
The Trials of the Sun involve trying to master or twist Traveling to the Bleak Academy
that Bleak power with your own.
Usually by this point there’s either a quick way there
Apotheosis is a final chance to sort things out and
and back or a few other people with Arcs that might
find some closure for it all.
take them to the Bleak Academy. If not—if you’re the
only person with a reason to go there, and it’s distant
Yet We Go On
and isolated from the game—
the Fourth Arc of Winter
Then I recommend handling your journey there as
a dream/spiritual experience rather than as a normal
It’s enough. That was enough. This doesn’t need to go
matter of physical travel. You master astral projec-
on any longer.
tion, and anchor your spirit there, while a soulless
5
The Prodigy goes to the Bleak Academy to try to
shell trudges through your life in Town; or, you close
fix it.
your eyes at night and dream of being at the Bleak
This Arc generally involves enrolling there (specifi-
Academy; or, the ship you sail on hits a strange patch
cally at the Colloquium of Magi) and trying to under-
of the Outside and you return even while you go:
stand the place, while still holding on to sanity. Typically
something like that, something that allows you to keep
the story is goofy and baroque for the first third of it,
some portion of yourself in Town even as you play out
turns dark when whatever resource the Prodigy brings
your time at the Bleak Academy. Let your journey be a
with them to escape-or-triumph-if-necessary turns out
metaphor for a mood rather than a place. And feel free
to be useless, and is finally resolved when someone
to come up with equivalents to the other PCs there,
there—a student, a teacher, the hypothetically captive
warped versions of them, people “like” them but moti-
sun, or the Headmaster himself—either reveals them-
vated by bleakness rather than wishing power, for the
selves to be salvageable, or, well, does not.
other players to play when interacting with you there.
This is a story about trust. It’s a story about cleaning
Another option, if none of that seems like it’ll work,
the last of the ice from a frozen heart.
is to travel there for the story but remain in contact
So I think, as a philosophical point, if things go as
with the other PCs by letters for Shared Action and
badly as they can possibly go—
Shared Reactions scenes. If you do that it’s also OK
If it turns out that there’s no fixing it; if the place
to take over some NPC—some lesser prodigy, family
is simply unsalvageable, evil to its core, or too set
member, or temporary Natalia replacement—for when
in its wickedness for a few PCs to fix in even the
you want to physically interact with scenes in Town.
longest lifetime—
I think that you still leave it standing afterwards. It’s
a threat, sure, it’s a problem, sure, and maybe there’s
even a chance to destroy it, but you don’t. You don’t,
and the Prodigy doesn’t. You just go home, in that worst
case, a little older, a little wiser, and glad that at least
you tried.
Sometimes you fail, you know?
Sometimes people betray you.
Yet we go on.
P.S. Happy endings full of victories:
Also OK!
508 Arcs
As the Prodigy As Anyone Else
In A Troubled Protagonist, the focus of the story is This Arc assumes that you accompany the Prodigy to
on the fact that you are nowhere near as confident in the Bleak Academy. As with the last Arc, this doesn’t
this as you pretend. Whether it’s selling your friends on actually need the Prodigy, per se, and it’s OK if they
this plan or convincing the other students at the Bleak kind of get shuffled to the side in actual play once you
Academy that you fit in, you are in way over your head. get there, but I think it’s best if you don’t do that—
An Unlikely Friendship is typically the story of I think the “feel” of the Arc will be better for you
an inspirational teacher or friend that you’ve found in if you’re there as an anchor to someone else, and as
this most unlikely of places. The teacher is the most support for someone else, then if you’re there on your
amusing option, of course, but an enthusiastic or dili- own and adrift. In particular this Arc is going to focus
gent study partner or a mini-dragon of some sort that a lot on a fear of assimilating to the Bleak Academy,
you find on the grounds could also be good. and that works better if there’s someone else to set
Arcs
Your Social Burdens reprises the issues faced with your pace—if you don’t have complete control over
the Model Bleak Academy Club in the previous Arc, the situation!
only—naturally—with the actual culture of the Bleak That said...
Academy. This is vastly stylized, a little different and
much stranger, and there’s a lot more extrasocial weird- Changes probably focuses on your concern that the
ness going on. place is changing you and the Prodigy; or possibly that
Action! pits you against some defense of the Bleak you were already changing even before you arrived. It
Academy—probably after you snooped or poked might be good if you both have a birthday sometime
around too much. shortly before heading out, making it feel more like
Coming to Grips with Death gives you a chance to a legitimate life transition and not like an infiltra-
change the world, or to sign on with the Bleak Academy tion mission.
in truth. It’s difficult here, but so exciting! The Refusal of the Call probably focuses on your
choice of “major” at the Bleak Academy—
You realize the level of the intramural conflicts offers
a scope for finding a legitimate alliance here and turning
or using part of the Academy against the rest, but unless
you stumble on some department that’s actively pro-
Town and pro-existence, you’re liable to find this even
more corrosive to your sense of self.
The Belly of the Whale is when you realize that you
fit in. I don’t know how or why, or whether it’s a real
phenomenon or a deception, but you fit in. You belong
in the Bleak Academy, and no longer can imagine how
you might fit in in Town.
The Trials of the Sun often involves your struggle
to pass classes, exams, or sometimes literal trials at the
Bleak Academy.
Apotheosis finishes everything off; you are either
instigator or key in the redemption of the Bleak
Academy, or you’re the key player in actually getting
everyone to go home in time to make it home if the plan
is failing and your whole team is in danger of assimi-
lating to the place instead.
Arcs 509
Spring
the Jasper/Raven Arcs
“Once upon a time, but not all that long ago, the
Headmaster of the Bleak Academy rode up into the How to Play These Arcs
sky of Fortitude and he drew back his great black For Jasper/Raven, the Spring Arcs are Heroic
bow and he fired an arrow and he killed the sun.” Journeys (pg. XX), featuring the quests:
— from the Best Friend’s quest, ŭŭ Changes. Something is changing in your life, but
5
“Why Are You Here?” you’re not sure exactly what.
ŭŭ The Refusal of the Call. You try to take a way
The sun died, and a new sun shone, and the Child of out, but it blows up on you.
the Sun tumbled from the sky to land in Town. ŭŭ The Belly of the Whale. You’re separated
They start out just a waif, a vagrant— from your normal life, threatened, and at risk of
The new solar deity, sure, but they don’t even know being transformed.
that, much less things like how to get back to the sky or ŭŭ The Trials of the Sun. The cosmos has fallen
why their mother died. A weird and freaky semi-alien out of order; you struggle to fix it.
kid whose memories seem pretty dream-like and who ŭŭ Apotheosis. You become something more than
doesn’t know what they are or what to do at all. you had been.
It’s not like there’s a rule book for solar deities! For anyone else, these Arcs are Coming-of-Age
Plus, while Town was very clear that Jade Irinka Stories (pg. XX), featuring the quests:
was “the angel of the houses of the sun” before the ŭŭ A Troubled Protagonist. You struggle to
Headmaster of the Bleak Academy shot her, it’s not like recover from or push past some deal.
Town’s super-spiritual or like their religion would be ŭŭ An Unlikely Friendship. You meet someone
more than plurality Shinto-esque if it were—the con- who broadens your perspective.
nection between Jade Irinka and the physical sun, or ŭŭ Your Social Burdens. People have weird
any supernatural force, was already as vague as a fairy expectations of you.
tale in a typical resident’s mind. ŭŭ Action! An epic fight with a giant monster or
They’re no help! conspiracy or something.
ŭŭ Coming to Grips with Death. You spend
These Arcs wind up being a kind of after-the- a while facing death, grief, or some kind of
fact cosmogony— troublesome situation that’s a metaphor for one
I mean, the hard work of the reinvention of the of those things.
cosmos and the rebirth of the sun was done long ago,
the same day (at the latest) that Jade Irinka died. But
the measures of that story are still playing out in the
cosmos and the Child of the Sun; the story is yet to be
acted out properly and to completion in their life and
in their heart.
So this is the story of how we go from “a stray on the
streets of Fortitude” to “the logos; the sun; that which
sets the houses of the cosmos in order.”
And maybe, if we’re lucky, a way to get some answers
about the Headmaster and about Jade Irinka’s death.
510 Arcs Arcs 510

The Miracle The Pleasure Ship
Prologue the First Arc of Spring
The Child of the Sun is set apart. They have spiri- This Arc’s pretty goofy. One thing that will help you
tual significance— keep things moving on an even keel is to make sure that
But it isn’t clear, at first, just what that is. all the NPCs involved are extremely cooperative in any
It’s just that there’s something inside this kid, this plan that doesn’t involve them actually going away.
Irinka, that’s practically tearing them apart. Something At its core this story is about the Child of the Sun’s
struggling in them. Something trying to be reborn. opposite number—a Rider named the Prince of Cats
There’s no rule that says that if you’re the child of or the Moon Prince (pg. XX), representing more than
a dead sun goddess and the Headmaster of the Bleak anything else the lure of things just being OK. The
Academy that you’ll be anything special. Implications, chance of all the troubles and weirdness stopping.
Arcs
sure, but no rule. Nothing that says that one day you’ll He may offer a pitch like: “come away with me and...”
be standing on the cliffs above Big Lake and one of
the drownéd horses of the sun will reawaken into life; ŭŭ ...spend eternity on a fabulous, fascinating plea-
gallop into the sky; and be yours to ride. Nothing that sure voyage through strange realms, never having
says that a bird of fire will descend like a spark of light to turn into anything weird or lose yourself in the
from the sky and perch upon your shoulder, or a temple power of the sun.
of Jade Irinka will restore itself, unwind itself from ŭŭ ...learn the secrets of the world—why “it seemed
moldering ruin with your touch. Nothing that says that like” the Headmaster killed Jade Irinka, why it
an old woman who died of grief when Jade Irinka was had to happen.
killed will come back for a day to see her grandchildren ŭŭ “...the Headmaster will grant you an exalted place
or a star that lies dead and iron in the local museum will among the powers of the Bleak Academy.”
rekindle and swirl back up into the sky. ŭŭ ...you can forget your sorrows and end your
But in an early quest here something like that broken life “before you burn this world to ash.”
will happen.
A miracle will come. Or maybe he offers something else; but the point is,
in your game, it’s at least a little bit tempting.
He shows up on a cloaked pleasure skyship carrying
hundreds of cats.
He invites the Child of the Sun to a “masked ball of
the cats” on that ship. But it’s likely that there’s some-
thing very wrong with this scenario—almost certainly
the problem is him, just because romantic guys with
cloaked pleasure skyships tend to be a little rotten, but
the problem could be somewhere else!
The cat Old Tom (pg. XX) will warn you against him.
The rat investigators, Alexandra Prokofiev and
Melanie Glenn (pg. XX) will worry that bringing this
many cats into Fortitude will draw the attention of the
Mystery “Hedge the Fang.” Correctly, as it happens—
Perhaps because he’s using a quest miracle to
approach Town, or perhaps because the world is kind
and his future coming is foreshadowed by echoes in the
now, Hedge the Fang (pg. XX) shows up dimly in the
world early in the Arc:
Yellow eyes gleaming, taking on the appearance of
a cat—or of Rinley, Kuroma, Caroline, Goro, or Shiori
Arcs 511
Yatskaya; or the Prince of Cats—as he hunts the local kind of thing you usually pick up at the end of an Arc
rats and Jasper Irinka, whispers his dreams of flaying and not in the first or second quest!
them, and vanishes into mist and dream if ever seen
unobscured and in good light. On a Mystic, Emptiness, or Otherworldly Arc,
Later, his herald Nikolai Zakharov (pg. XX) will Changes will often play itself out—beginning to
wake to his task, and seek to sell the PCs that are not end—before the skyship arrives and before Hedge the
Jasper Irinka on the idea that losing your self-awareness Fang manifests. At most you’re likely to get a few bits
to Hedge the Fang is actually a pretty good deal. of foreshadowing—a strange momentary glimpse of
And at some dramatic point—most likely, at the ball; something in the sky; an ominous encounter with an
most likely, immediately after the Prince of Cats is echo of the forthcoming Hedge the Fang; the stifled
either dealt with or after the Child of the Sun agrees voice from the bushes of Old Tom, before something
5
to go with him—Hedge the Fang will possess the cats distracts him and he runs away.
attending and try, even before he goes for that whole
rat-killing thing, to eat the sun. As the Child of the Sun—
(Either Jasper Irinka, or, with freaky magic, the sun “the Refusal of the Call”
that burns in the sky.) You’re afraid. Strange things are happening to you.
She’s not very rat-like but I guess the sun is even Life is weird. And your mother, well, she’s not dead,
more appetizing to him than a rat. but she is gone.
So the Prince’s offer is going to be tempting.
As the Child of the Sun—“Changes” When the Prince of Cats shows up and says, “Come
You’re changing. You’re becoming something more away with me and be fine forever,” or whatever else he
than you were. It’s pretty annoying and brutal. says—it’s tempting.
Spiritual experience often is. The Refusal of the Call is going to be about that
You’re bigger on the inside than on the outside, you temptation—about the impulse to find some way, any
know? There is a fire in you bigger than the world. You way, even if it’s the help of the Prince of Cats, to avert
are being called to be more than an ordinary kid can what’s going on.
possibly be. You’ve already been a bit of an alien, a
bit of a space cadet, but the kind of alien you’ve been As the Child of the Sun—
is “naïve sky person unused to the details of the lower “the Belly of the Whale”
world;” what you’re becoming is something alien. In the Belly of the Whale, the skyship becomes a
Really alien. Like, in the sense of “the incarnate, pri- symbol of the way you’re trapped.
mordial divine.” You probably won’t spend the full quest literally
It hurts. It’s confusing. It’s dizzying. trapped there; for one thing, the Prince might not even
It plays out as Changes. be evil, and for another, that’s potentially one or two
seasons without touching the ground. (Not that that’s a
By the way— unique feat for the sun or anything, but still.) But cir-
This Arc relies on the fact that you’re more than a cumstances will make it really hard to maintain even
little uncomfortable with what’s going on. So if you the ghost of a sense of a daily life—
realize midway through the quest that you’re actually You’ll be dreamy, drifted, rootless, trapped, and
pretty confident and secure about it because anything there’s a pervasive feeling of helplessness.
that happens is just tying you closer to your mother? It’s like you’re being eaten. Like you’re being dis-
Add a Bleak element, something that you’re picking solved into something else.
up from your father, or even from some third and awful You’ll wander the depths of the skyship and they will
source, so that there’s a reason to be concerned about seem organic to you.
these changes later on.
Mind, learning to accept the changes life throws at
you is a pretty good thing; it’s just, acceptance is the
512 Arcs
As the Child of the Sun—“the Trials A Coming-of-Age Story
of the Sun” / “Apotheosis” Other characters play out this Arc as a Coming-of-Age
The Trials of the Sun is a good quest to have a major Story, like so:
confrontation with an enemy in—whether that’s the
Prince of Cats, or some other power, or Hedge the As Anyone Else—“A Troubled Protagonist”
Fang. You’ll get to crush them, probably, and you’ll You’re a mess. You’ve always been a mess. You’ve
probably get to reclaim some treasure of Jade Irinka’s closed off part of your heart.
(or maybe of the Headmaster’s, but probably of Jade’s) You don’t believe in miracles:
when you do... They’re powers. They’re just like the ability to punch
But some Bleak power will express itself through people or make a delicious cake, only more abstract. At
you as well, either the thing you’ve been fearing all this most they’re like magic, you know, breaking the rules
time or something that Hedge or the Prince of Cats or of the world to enact your will.
Arcs
Old Tom or something put in you. That’s what you think.
Apotheosis completes your transformation. But that belief is starting to change.
If you manage to crash the skyship, much of This kid you’ve met, this “Irinka” kid, is... some-
Apotheosis tends to take place in its ruins. thing that changes that, somehow. I mean, obviously
they’re just a messed-up vagrant with a weird story,
but... sometimes it slips in. Sometimes it gets to you.
The sense that there’s something there.
There’s something real.
There’s something in the Child of the Sun that’s
bigger than you are, a light that can change the world.
...I know that’s a little specific. If you want, you can

just fall into a temporary doldrum based on the events
of some recent quest and this quest helps with that. Or
you can say, “Oh, I don’t have major doubts, but there’s
a tiny part of my heart somewhere that didn’t trust that
the universe was good.”
Or you can start stuff out by having flashbacks to and
lingering trauma from the long-ago death of the sun.
Or something else!
All that’s really important is...
ŭŭ ...that there’s something wrong with you, and...

ŭŭ ...that the presence of a miracle—of a disordered
cosmos, in the process of becoming orderly again;
of a new sun being born in a sunless night—helps.
That plays out as the quest A Troubled Protagonist,

typically in the Lurid form.
Arcs 513
As Anyone Else—“An Unlikely Friendship” As Anyone Else—“Action!”
Your best options for An Unlikely Friendship here Action! is typically a long-term struggle to suppress
are probably: Hedge the Fang.
It’s also possible that part of your soul gets stuck on
ŭŭ the Prince of Cats (pg. XX) the skyship being hunted by some creature that lives on
ŭŭ a relative or lieutenant thereof or embodies the lower levels thereof.
ŭŭ the Child of the Sun
ŭŭ Old Tom (pg. XX) As Anyone Else—
ŭŭ Alexandra Prokofiev and Melanie Glenn (pg. XX) “Coming to Grips with Death”
Coming to Grips with Death normally flows from
But you could also think about a member of the the events of the previous quests, but if you’re coming
5
Yatskaya family, or someone connected to the Archive, close to doing that quest and there’s no way to bring
or a Main Character that is floating about at loose ends. things around to a natural struggle with grief, you can
either assume that an important NPC to you suddenly
As Anyone Else—“Your Social Burdens” dies or that all of this has awakened a need in you to
The heart of this Arc is still that you’re drawn to the mourn and remember Jade Irinka, who was the sun.
Child of the Sun—that they’re awakening a spiritual
part of you, a hope, that had been sleeping. A sense
that there’s more to the world than just the ordi-
nary existence.
Or, if you knew that already, well—more than
you thought.
And that means that you can’t just let some dashing
Rider come into Town and swoop them up onto a
skyship and carry them away to be eaten by cats or
whatever else. Not even if you wound up being that
Rider’s friend!
I mean, it’s not your call. It’s the Child of the Sun’s
call. You don’t get to decide whether they get swooped
away. But at the least you need to see them through this
and keep them safe as long as you reasonably can.
Your Social Burdens is going to be a little fairy-
tale romantic for you. It’ll focus a lot on the upcoming
“masked ball of the cats.” Whether you find such things
delightful or an annoying inconvenience, you’re going
to have to find suitable attire, practice the relevant
dances and social niceties, and help with any number
of arrangements. You’ll likely meet someone dashing
or beautiful—it’s probably the most amusing if you’ve
decided to hate the Prince of Cats and then he turns out
to be totally swoonable when he focuses his attention
on you, or, if you’re more interested in women, if it
turns out his sister, lieutenant, or mom is. (Or that he’s
a stunning woman in disguise.)
514 Arcs
Sorrows’ Week banned and exiled, though the doors remained open to
the Second Arc of Spring him once a season and he’d swing by now and then for
holidays in Alsvidur his magical silver car.
The Child of the Sun is having flashbacks to the events
leading up to their mother’s death— At another point Jade Irinka traveled to the Bleak
Not just from the Child’s own perspective, but from Academy; this was for one of four reasons:
Jade’s.
Flashbacks of a tempestuous romance with the ŭŭ to attend a funeral for her sister’s husband, a bull-
Headmaster of the Bleak Academy; of their arguments headed Magister who’d died in Town
and reconciliations; of the sky fracturing above her in ŭŭ her dreams were shadowed by the presence of
the moment of her death. death, and she sought to challenge it at its source
And sometimes not just from their perspective— ŭŭ to rescue the toddler Caroline Yatskaya, who’d
Arcs
But from his. been stolen by the Bleak Academy
It’s during this process that Arikel, the older brother ŭŭ because she’d met the Headmaster and he’d
of the Child of the Sun, shows up in Fortitude driving invited her, and she’d finally opted to come
his magical Mercedes Alsvidur. He’s pretty awesome, a
lot like Laodemus really; only, and this is really regret- The first version very likely reprises the Descent of
table, it’s probably not actually him. Inanna, complete with her garbing herself thoroughly
Either his, ah, superpowered evil side has completely in power before leaving but having to abandon it piece
taken him over, or, much more likely, “he’s” nothing by piece at the door; with her showing up to speak
more than a shadow Arikel had cast—a shadow burned pleasantly, but being betrayed and nearly slain; in that
into the world by the death of Jade Irinka, whose name only by some subterfuge of Town’s gods of dream and
will later be Eclipse (pg. XX). nightmare is she freed to leave that place again.
And all of this is building up to his attempt to re-enact In the second and third version, she is more likely
the sun’s death—a special day, possibly the Saturnalia to attend in force, to stride thunderously through in
or Walpurgisnacht or possibly just a random conjunc- triumph and leave the place in ruins behind her; the
tion of celestial bodies or events—in a way that will Headmaster may be lovestruck then, or just dismayed.
ensure that this time, the sun stays dead. The fourth version takes the form of a dangerous
Or maybe, if he’s a little nicer, that this time the new heroic journey and there might be suggestions that while
sun is him. she is welcomed by some of the Academy’s Magisters,
others mean her and even the Headmaster ill.
A Summary of The Past
And there are those who say that the first meeting At another time, on a third occasion, the Headmaster
between the two of them was in a dream: a nightmare, came to Town. He was dazed; he’d all but forgotten
even; that Jade Irinka slept with a wicked god, and in himself, and there was the dust of a far and a sunless
his eyes she saw her death; knew her death, for the first land upon his feet.
time, and screamed; that that vision, that nightmare I suspect Jade was roused to deal with him by alarms;
from which she later bore the child Arikel, was her first by the baying of hounds and the thudding of the spears
sight of the Headmaster of the Bleak Academy. of a thousand guards against the marble floor. I suspect
He was tainted by it from his birth— it was very much, “Night, death, and despair—they
The son of a nightmare, and not of his father; the son walk in Town!”
of the lord of Death’s dominion, and not of the man But he had fallen hard for Jade Irinka when he met
who with his mother lay— her; and on that third meeting, she for him.
And he became a demon of sorts.
When he was good, and just, and a son of light, then It was a troubled love; for ultimately, she believed
he was welcome in his mother’s home; but too often in making an end to death, to seizing up all the endless
he showed in his face the mark of the nightmare that dark Beyond by its tail, smashing it, and sculpting from
was his father, and eventually he was cast from the sky, it crystal mountains, seas of delicate color and floating
Arcs 515
flowers, dazzling thousand-mile bridges of woven gold Jade travels to the Bleak Academy; the Headmaster,
and silver, and in general a majestic, light-filled land. to Town; they refuse the call of their natures and become
He the Headmaster of the Bleak Academy was not “helpless” in the face of their love.109
sanguine to this aim. Meanwhile, in the modern world, your brother Arikel
He found it a blasphemy, I think; she thought it a shows up; and I’d guess that Arikel’s presence is really
blasphemy that they should do anything else. exciting and cool, and he’s probably a good person to
They fought fiercely; and at other times loved turn to to try to fight the flashbacks, although he may
fiercely, eloping from their duties to wrestle beneath also urge you to try to remember, because, well, you
the sea, run through jungles in the night, argue moral never know what you might learn.
philosophy and with the bleed-off from their passionate
debate create the aurora borealis and the comets, and in As the Child of the Sun—
5
general have all kinds of enormous, lawless fun. “the Belly of the Whale”
And they had a child: their first, or second, depending The Belly of the Whale is functionally a struggle not
how you count: to drown in Jade Irinka—in her identity and memories.
The Child of the Sun. You’re at risk of losing yourself.
Their arguments intensified until they reached a des- Often this ends with “death”—you re-live it with her,
perate crux; words were said that could not be unsaid, up to but not including the miracle of not actually dying
words like spears, words unmeasurable in the language all the way.
that can be spoken or remembered; the humming of
cicadas and the white-out of the world drowned them As the Child of the Sun—“the Trials
all out. of the Sun” / “Apotheosis”
It struck her like lightning strikes a tree; and her The Trials of the Sun is your struggle against
words back burned him like fire. Eclipse, and may include further flashbacks, here
And one day, not very long after, he rode up silently focusing upon your father’s role. There’s a power here
onto the clouds over Fortitude, and drew his great black pushing for you to go to your death willingly, to expe-
bow, and he shot her down. rience it as a bleak sacrament, an exultant return to the
moment when by your (father’s) hands all the light in
As the Child of the Sun—“Changes” the world went out.
Changes is going to focus on your flashbacks to Apotheosis is a chance to linger on the memories
these events. In these early stages of the story it’s likely you’ve already recovered and attempt to either return
that they’re proper flashbacks and not full-on memo- Eclipse to being Arikel, or, in the more likely event that
ries—emotes but not words, splinters of events rather he’s just a shadow of your brother and not your brother
than things. The parts that are the most like full-sensory at all, extract or awaken some portion of the real thing
experience are going to be the parts you know best and from him before he dies.
least want to relive, whether from your perspective or
from Jade’s.
As the Child of the Sun—

“the Refusal of the Call”
The Refusal of the Call can play out two different
ways (or, most likely, in a combination of them both);
the first is to seek help in the modern world in escaping
these experiences. The second option is told in the
memories themselves—
109 Scare quotes because I’m pretty sure they both knew what they
were doing. The only question is whether her death was a metaphys-
ical gambit that one of them won, a magician’s trick they pulled off
together, or an abominable act of selfish pride—everything up to that
point was pretty conscious and chosen on both their parts!
516 Arcs
A Coming-of-Age Story As Anybody Else—“An Unlikely
Friendship” / “Your Social Burdens”
As Anybody Else—“A Troubled Protagonist” An Unlikely Friendship is almost certainly with Arikel/
It is normally stipulated when you begin this Arc—not Eclipse; however, if that doesn’t fit, then I recommend
required, but typical—that you have become uncertain that sometime during this quest you start to share in the
and afraid. flashbacks yourself. That gives you a chance to have a
You have withdrawn into yourself for reasons of kind of unlikely friendship with the Headmaster of the
your own. Bleak Academy.
Maybe this is a new thing. Maybe it’s an old thing. In Your Social Burdens, you want to help out with
Maybe it’s a highly specific fear, like, “if I trust any- this flashbacks thing, or hang out around Jasper or
thing, it’ll just die.” Maybe it’s a more general thing, Arikel, but Arikel has a lot of expectations for how the
like, you’re starring as the easily-frightened kid in a people around a solar deity should behave. Like, there’s
Arcs
Saturday morning special about facing fear. this whole etiquette. If you’re going to be on her staff—
But the normal premise of this Arc is that it is the faith this is probably the role he assumes or declares for you,
that the Child of the Sun puts in you that strengthens high-handedly—then you’ll need a lot of training, not
you and frees you from that. That you can go beyond to mention a completely new wardrobe.
that, not because of yourself, but because “the Child of You maybe wouldn’t do it, you totally wouldn’t even
the Sun believes in me.” do it, except that there’s this moment when the appro-
The second option is that you’re increasingly dis- priate one of them is so. Wicked. Hot.
tressed by your own memories of the death of the sun;
by the sorrow of that, by the impact of that, by what it As Anybody Else—“Action!”
means that such a thing once happened in the world. By the time you do Action! you should definitely be a
(Then the last option is that you figure out your own full participant in the flashbacks.
reason why you care.) I’m not going to theorize just yet on why. Maybe
Arikel did something—gave you a drink in a poisoned
Also, I’m going to assume that you have at least a McGuffin cup that tied you into it?
tiny crush on either the Child of the Sun or Arikel at Maybe it just happened.
one or two points during this story. But the point is, while fighting Eclipse may play into
If that’s impossible—e.g., you’re a straight guy that, the core of the quest Action! is going to be your
or lesbian and Jasper is either spoken for or has been struggle, as Jade Irinka, against death; or to escape the
replaced by a boy variant—you can replace Arikel with Bleak Academy; or, possibly, if you’re participating in
“Ariel.” If you’re asexual, I suppose you can go for the flashbacks as the Headmaster, to stop the dead sun
starry-eyed admiration instead. from relighting in the heart of the Bleak Academy and
setting the entire Outside on fire.
In A Troubled Protagonist, that may be all that’s (That’s not necessarily that far from what happened—
really going on here. You’re not strong, but you’re But it’s not quite what happened, so there’s a cause
becoming strong because the new sun believes in you. for struggle.)
You may not be dead center in this Arc, but you’re still
disturbed and troubled by the memory of the death of As Anybody Else—
the sun. “Coming to Grips with Death”
Coming to Grips with Death may be the stage of this
Arc at which the struggle with Arikel/Eclipse actually
takes place. I don’t know for sure what happens; either
defeating him is coming to grips with death, or he dies
early on and that’s part of the melancholy of this quest.
Arcs 517
The Hole in the World element of refusing the change, fighting the change, in
the Third Arc of Spring you as well.
This is the story of how you try to give yourself to the
The Child of the Sun has a good handle on where their Bleak Academy, or to stop being the sun and become
life is going now. They’ve accepted some portion of the earth or moon or stars instead, or infect yourself
who they are. with Rider poison, or appoint the Dream-Witch or
Maybe it’s stuff that happened during the last Nightmares’ Angel as the new sun. Something com-
few Arcs. pletely dumb, but which has a “feeling” like it might
Maybe it’s just... their resistance to it has run just... somehow... solve things, because metaphor!
its course. Because metaphysics! Because nobody will ever
But the problem is, the cosmos is in disorder. The expect it!
5
houses of the angel of the sun were cast into disarray; And it just might work, except...
the sky kingdom is unreachable; there is a hole in the In the Belly of the Whale, it doesn’t. It really doesn’t.
world and maybe even inside the heart of the Child of In the name of your plan or as a consequence of your
the Sun where Jade Irinka died. changes you’ll lose your safety, your solid footing, but
And so they come up with a plan. it won’t be clear how to gain or whether you’ve gained
It’s a boggling plan. It’s a massive leap of faith. It’s anything in return. You’re a figure people can have faith
the kind of plan you come up with when you’re sitting in, but this will be a stern test of whether you can have
around one day, not sure where to go, and you think, faith in yourself.
“Well, at least I’m not doing X.” Or “The worst thing I
could possibly do here is X, haha.” As the Child of the Sun—
And then, after a pause: “the Trials of the Sun” / “Apotheosis”
“...hey.” The Trials of the Sun moves this plan forward,
That... just... might... work. anyway. You drive towards the tiny chance of success
and the greater chance of these events devouring you.
As the Child of the Sun—“Changes” The outcome, as of Apotheosis, is unknown.
Changes is the next step in your evolution into (or (On an Otherworldly or Mystic Arc, anyway. On a
more precisely, your recognition and realization of) Knight or Emptiness Arc, you almost certainly win!)
your nature as the sun.
It’s still a little traumatic, but it’s mostly a good thing. As Anyone Else—General Notes
There’s a hole in the world. There’s a hole in the foun-
As the Child of the Sun—“the Refusal of dations of things, in your ability to trust the foundations
the Call” / “the Belly of the Whale” of things, left by... well, life, but also, in part, by the
So it turns out that the Refusal of the Call is actually death of Jade Irinka, long ago.
about your plan. It’s not about the current changes. It’s I don’t know if you know that. I don’t even know if
about this idea that’s visiting you. This notion, this you’d agree with me. If you disagree as both player and
completely absurdly dangerous notion, that you’ve just character then maybe it doesn’t matter that I think that,
started to feel, more and more deeply, is right. right or not.
You don’t want to do it. But... I think it’s there.
You’re looking for a way not to do it. A way to con- And then, for one of two reasons:
vince yourself not to do it. But the problem is, the more
irrational a plan is, the harder it is to rationally convince ŭŭ because the Child of the Sun goes looking for
yourself that it’s wrong. It’s like reason’s treading water Arikel, but falls into the hands of something
or slipping into quicksand. else instead...
How can it fight this wild hope in your heart? ŭŭ because it was always latent in the sun, ever since
So you fight it, but you give in to it. And, if you like— the arrow of the Headmaster pierced it, a poison
because the best and the worst plans always include stuck into the nature of the sky...
some self-defeating element—the plan can feature an
518 Arcs
...this person, this solar brightness, whom you’ve put As Anyone Else—“An Unlikely Friendship”
a lot of trust in— This Arc is one without an obvious Unlikely Friendship;
They’re going to betray you. First willingly, and then you’ll have to try a few options. I’m guessing it’s prob-
later on unwillingly, they’re going to betray you; and, in ably a Main Character, a rival or enemy who you get an
the second instance, become a more terrible threat than unexpected chance to spend time with peacefully and
anything you’ve faced so far. positively (perhaps the Sacrificial Bull, pg. XX?), or
It all starts when they ask you to fill in for them at an unlikely friend from one of the previous Arcs. It’s
some ceremonial function. OK to have a full social calendar for a few chapters
Then— while you try to figure out whom it could be.
I don’t know why. Maybe it’s social-fu. Maybe it’s
Imperial magic. But when it’s over, the sunniness sticks As Anyone Else—“Your Social Burdens”
to you. You’re still you in the mirror; people still know Your Social Burdens explores the onerous social
Arcs
your name; you still have your own character sheet, but burdens associated with this situation. If there aren’t any
on top of everything else, you’re “the child of the sun.” yet, weren’t any yet, then this is when Fortitude finally
That’s the willing betrayal. wakes up and starts enshrining you as a holy figure; this
The unwilling betrayal is when they come back wrong. is when the Headmaster of the Bleak Academy decides
to start negotiating and sends someone to deal with
As Anyone Else—“A Troubled Protagonist” “you” and feel out how much you know about the death
So, normally, in A Troubled Protagonist you’ll be of “your mother” Jade; this is when the bird-headed
facing a test of faith. minister Jokkun, extremely disappointed that you
See, that willing betrayal? It’s already happened, or, don’t remember them, descends from Celestia to begin
it happens at the start of this quest. And afterwards, instructing you on the thousand books of etiquette and
you’re feeling a little abandoned. practice that “you” will need to learn before being
A little, well. Betrayed. crowned, anointed, and escorted back into the sky.
Maybe you’ll be struggling to hang on to your faith in IT NEVER STOPS.
the Child of the Sun despite this test.
Or maybe you didn’t have any faith in them anyway. As Anyone Else—
Maybe you’re more worried about something like, “Action!” / “Coming to Grips with Death”
what if you can’t manage this? No, you know you can’t In Action!, the Child of the Sun comes back as a
manage this. You can’t hold the hope and light of the roiling thermonuclear... thing. A congeries of dream
world in your hands. ...you think. And now that you’re and fire. Spheres and tendrils. Heat and death to roll
“the child of the sun,” the Bleak Academy is trying to across the sky. You can reverse some of the heat/cold
kill you... and light/shadow stuff in your quest card if you like.
...you think. Coming to Grips with Death is a chance to think
You can feel it sometimes. You can feel its hunger. about how you handled all of this and build something
You can feel the despair inside you grow. It’s horrible, amazing from the pieces.
but also kind of horrifyingly attractive. It’s pulling you
to that terrible place.
Arcs 519
Alternate Plans The Hollow Sky
the Fourth Arc of Spring
If being turned into the Child of the Sun doesn’t seem
right, maybe the ritual is to make a “paired” form—not
In this Arc, hope is lost.
the Child of the Sun, but the Avatar of the World,
Everything’s gone wrong. Maybe at the end of last
or the Temporary Sun Substitute, Double Morning
Arc. Maybe it’s just that the worst thing that could
Star! or something like that. Something that you don’t
happen is about to.
really want to be stuck with, and which can malfunc-
The Child of the Sun is fading into ashes; becoming
tion and trigger the sun-splosion, but which is more
an empty avatar of despair.
about an unexpected duty than stepping into someone
Maybe it’s a parallel to before.
else’s shoes.
You know, before. When Jade Irinka was lost, only it
For a completely different version of this Arc,
5
wasn’t as bad as it could have been. Maybe it’s like that.
instead of selling you out by sticking you with their
Maybe.
job, the Child of the Sun might, well, literally sell
That would be nice. A happy ending would be good;
you out.
though of course, as it was then, well, no, more than it
Maybe the Witch of the Far Roofs has either taken
was then, a happy ending is impossible. It’d be nice but
over Caroline Yatskaya’s body for good or just shown
it can’t happen.
up and Caroline is missing, and she’s set up a vacation
Hope, after all, is lost.
home (a chicken-legged villa) for herself in Town. In
order to find information on Caroline or something to
As the Child of the Sun—
do with Jade Irinka’s death, the Child of the Sun sells
“Changes” / “the Refusal of the Call”
you to her as a servant. This isn’t a legal transaction in
Changes focuses on this slow inversion. You’re hol-
Town or anything but the Witch is adamant and Jasper
lowing out. It’s even possible that during this Arc your
begs you not to make waves—are you really being
powers will reverse—your core Principle will shift
placed there to spy on the Witch?
from Hope into Despair.
...or maybe it’s the Headmaster that’s come to Town,
In the Refusal of the Call, you’ll try to save yourself.
and you’ve been sold to his retinue?
If there’s no one more obvious to turn to, I suggest
These are more sketches than ideas so make sure
traveling to the Bleak Academy. I suggest enrolling
your group is up for it before you go this route. I do
there, and trying to learn enough about what you might
want to note that if you do this you’d almost certainly
be becoming, there, or enough about your mother and
have the Witch/the Headmaster as your Unlikely
why she died, there, to gain control over yourself.
Friend. They might also be your enemy in Action!
If that won’t work—maybe you just finished the
fourth Winter Arc?—
Consider seeking help from Iolithae Septimian (pg.
XX), Ill-Made (pg. XX), or from the Dream-Witch’s
hidden room.
As the Child of the Sun—“the Belly of

the Whale” / “the Trials of the Sun”
In the Belly of the Whale, you’re no longer yourself
any more. You start to withdraw from the world for
fear that you’ll destroy it—but it can’t live without you,
either, so that’s not really any good.
In the Trials of the Sun, you give in and start exper-
imenting with your new powers. Even if you swore
you’d never do that—it becomes obvious that perhaps
you’d best. That you don’t have a realistic choice.
520 Arcs
As the Child of the Sun—“Apotheosis” this quest. In fact, if you do go to the Bleak Academy,
Apotheosis is the endgame. you can use the notes from pg. XX for Your Social
I like to think that this is the story, after Arc after Arc Burdens, An Unlikely Friendship, and Action!
of things going wrong for you, that things go wrong for If you don’t go to the Bleak Academy, though, I think
despair. I like to think that this is the story that recapit- you’ll be sent off to talk to a bunch of different people
ulates the miracle of Jade Irinka not dying exactly— who might be able to help, ranging from established
Of her “death” instead lighting the Nothing and characters (e.g. Iolithae Septimian, pg. XX) to random
making it the Outside. fairy-tale spirits that the HG makes up like “the Deep
But maybe that’s not what happens. Forest God” or “the Seashell Princess” or characters
Maybe you become a murderous god of despair, and that I haven’t detailed herein like Lady Mugain (pg.
take your place at the side of the Headmaster of the XX). And, as you might expect for this quest, it’s not
Bleak Academy, and the sun goes pale as a dead white like they just talk normally. No, it’s all events and hints
Arcs
worm, and the world below grows cold. and etiquette.
It’s your last Arc! Probably anything can happen! Geez!
The world’s at stake!
“A Coming-of-Age Story”
As Anyone Else—
As Anyone Else—“A Troubled Protagonist” “Action!” / “Coming to Grips with Death”
A Troubled Protagonist gives you the chance to move For a second time, Action! is going to pit you against
forward from being shaped and affected by the sun to... an out-of-control sun—but this time, a sun powered
being a light in the world. by despair.
Maybe it’s the last Arc that taught you. Maybe it’s Coming to Grips with Death either is or sets up
just time. the endgame.
But I think it’s core to the series of Arcs that, even if Much as above, I’d like to think that the endgame
you don’t have to focus on it for this Arc, as the sun is here is a saved world. I’d like to think that the last step
fading into emptiness, you’re learning to make light. of this quest, after hope is lost, is a miracle. Best of all
What if you’d reached that point already? What if if it’s a miracle made by your own hands—
you already do that? If you create light where there was only darkness. If
I guess in that case you should try for, maybe, a small you make hope burn again, and the world lights up, and
but meaningful shift in your spiritual stance. it’s even better than before.
It doesn’t have to be that way, but wouldn’t it be
As Anyone Else—“An Unlikely Friendship” great?
This Arc is another without a built-in Unlikely
Friendship; though, I think, given the changes that
they’re going through, your Unlikely Friend here will
actually turn out to be the Child of the Sun. It may
also be a good time for Arikel to come back or for the
Headmaster of the Bleak Academy to show his better
side; or, if not his better side, then a side that implies
this is a test for you and the Child of the Sun rather than
an outright attack against the world.
As Anyone Else—“Your Social Burdens”

Often Your Social Burdens here involve a visit to the
Bleak Academy—
As noted above, the Child of the Sun is likely to go
there to seek help and understanding, and the manners
and customs of the Bleak Academy can qualify for
Arcs 521
Entropy
the Entropy/Attaris Arcs
Evil died, and the Angel of Fortitude fell out of its

broken shell. How to Play These Arcs
He wasn’t the only one. There were others, too— For Entropy/Attaris, the Entropy Arcs are Numinous
Six sins of the father, inherited by the son. Six Gardens (pg. XX), featuring the quests:
members of the Student Council at Horizon’s School, ŭŭ The Story of Your Life. You work on your
5
each with horrible powers. established projects.
And his evil island, it flew on, on the back of a ŭŭ The Sidekick. You become responsible for a
soul-devouring beast; and the Angel’s hands dripped new pet or sidekick, and usually a larger social
with endless blood; and there were enemies all around. responsibility as well. (That is, for some reason,
That was the kind of legacy he got. taking charge of them is or leads to a political or
Is it any wonder that now and again he is driven to theological or mercantile act.)
put all of it aside, leave it all behind, and come out to ŭŭ Sins of the Father. You confront some legacy of
Fortitude to cleanse his heart? the first Principal Entropy—e.g., one of the “Six
your comfort zone—into a surreal or
stylized environment.
For anyone else, these Arcs are Secret Histories
(pg. XX), featuring the quests:
ŭŭ Encounters in the Night. You start to hear the
call of a higher destiny.
ŭŭ The Troubled Sky. You try to claim it.
ŭŭ Behind the Mask. You’re corrupted or threa-
tened by some evil that hides behind secrets,
shadows, politics, or masks.
ŭŭ Atonement. The world’s gone wrong. Set
it right.
ŭŭ The Struggle of the Knight. You face the final
trials to become what you wanted to be.
522 Arcs Arcs 522

Principal Entropy Builds a Fountain As the Angel of Fortitude—“The Sidekick”
the First Entropy Arc The Sidekick is often a kid that starts following you
around. They’re not quite a runaway, but they have
There is a ghostly, creepy figure known to the people of some problem at home—something they have trouble
Fortitude. A figure of urban myth and legend. A biker dealing with, like the recent loss of a loved one, or a
who drives around at night, with an occasional entou- family that’s kind of given up on them, or a family
rage of monsters, changing the shape of the streets and they’re ashamed of, or a mental illness that there isn’t
the feng shui of the gardens. good treatment for in Fortitude. They could also be a
And why? And to what end? potential “sacred child”—someone who’ll be entrusted
In this particular case, because if the proper struc- with the health of Fortitude as a whole, someone with
ture is built—if Fortitude’s energies can be made to the strength of spirit to hold off the Outside, but who’s
flow in certain ways, to carry corruption and negative having trouble dealing with the responsibility and the
Arcs
spiritual energies out into Big Lake—then the Angel necessary partial severance of their family ties.
of Fortitude may wash his hands at a certain fountain, I want to underplay the larger social obligation
and for a day or so they shall be clean. here—instead of an instant wham, it’s more that the
story will wind around, eventually, to...
As the Angel of Fortitude—
“The Story of Your Life” ŭŭ ...the idea that you have to start a training camp
You have a purpose in Fortitude. There’s a reason you for S.E.E.D.s here in Fortitude.
ride those streets, study the feng shui of the place, and ŭŭ ...you running a gang of roustabouts who help you
sometimes make adjustments. with “cases” (think “Baker Street Irregulars”).
You think you can turn a good part of the Mayweather ŭŭ ...placing the sidekick at Hideo Hayashi’s archive
Street area into a spiritual drainage system. and taking up a side role as tutor to the chil-
You want to get the little dried-up fountain in the dren there.
plaza there working again. And get the energy flowing ŭŭ ...you thinking bigger than just “clean my hands”
in all the streets around it to take all taints and poisons and developing or managing a recycling or
and wickedness down to the water and out past the lake cleanup program for Fortitude as a whole.
into the Outside.
And then you’re going to wash your hands. An alternative is that your “sidekick” is something
It might be enough for a whole day—you think. from the evil world—something cute but nasty, nor-
You think if you work hard enough, you can make mally, like a wild dog that exhales snowstorms or some-
that fountain pure enough, clean enough, and perfect thing—that proves extra-difficult to fold into Fortitude
enough that you’ll be able to have a whole day to eat as a whole. That would build in play towards a fuller
sandwiches that don’t have blood on them; and to write acceptance of your duty to mediate between the crea-
letters that don’t have blood on them; when you won’t tures of the evil world and Town.
have to clean the blood off the handles of your bike and It would make sense if an NPC Main Character
you can touch someone’s hand without getting blood on became interested in your story and started following
it and you can rub your cheeks without getting blood on you around as the Sidekick for this quest, but I’m
them; a whole sweet glorious day where you can just hesitant to go that route because they have story Arcs
relax and be. of their own—I mean, if you really wanted to interact
It probably won’t make the Outside too angry, with the Troublemaker, wouldn’t you play her stories?
washing all that impurity out there. You think. That said, it’s an option. An even better option might be
It’ll be OK. hooking in one of the NPCs that one of the other PCs
The Story of your Life looks in on you as you’re have around for their current Arcs.
working on this task.
Arcs 523
As the Angel of Fortitude— Secret Histories
“Sins of the Father” Other characters play out this Arc as a Secret History,
Sins of the Father brings in one of the Six Sins to make like so:
trouble for you and the sidekick that you’ve found; or,
your responsibility for the evil world puts you in an As Anybody Else—“Encounters in the Night/
awkward moral place. Your life is often made more the Troubled Sky”
difficult by the blood that drips from your hands. You’re strangely drawn to the stories of the Angel of
Fortitude. Or, you come across that Angel at work one
As the Angel of Fortitude— night and you’re transfixed. They’re... a marvel.
“Surreal Environments” They feel to you like...
Surreal Environments can be played out a couple Like something that’s been missing, in your life. Like
5
of different ways. One option—particularly if this is the antidote to the vice that’s dragging you down or
the final quest in the Arc—is that you succeed better holding you back.
than you’d hoped. Your hands stay clean for chapters But there’s someone else who meets them with you,
on end... but while they’re clean, you’re functionally or soon after, who disagrees.
human. You might or might not still have your powers, Someone like you—the Walker in Darkness—who,
but you’ve lost your native immunity to being trauma- out of avarice for the Angel of Fortitude’s power, or
tized by them. Being a Magister and King of the Evil fear of the wicked special effects of that Angel—
World is really weird to you now. doesn’t think you should get involved with them at all.
Another option is that you’ve stirred up the Outside Someone who shares your vice, and, accordingly, by
with your work, and you have to deal with that. A third rejecting the Angel, is going to fall to that vice.
option is that as you get closer to success your sleep This plays out like so:
fills up with nightmarish visions or you start running
a high fever. The fourth option is that the streets you Encounters in the Night explores your sense of
change themselves become a surreal environment. This connection to the Angel of Fortitude. You have... well,
last option is probably the most generic and blandest, numinous, mysterious sightings of them. You watch
but it’s also a good default if you’re not sure how any them from afar and see them do strange and won-
of the options will play out. derous things.
This quest usually introduces the Walker in
As the Angel of Fortitude—“Triumph” Darkness and your vice.
Triumph is, of course, the completion of the project. The Troubled Sky is about how you try to use
If it’s the end of the Arc, it could give you your day the Angel of Fortitude as a catalyst to becoming a
without blood dripping from your hands. Otherwise, it better person—usually. It also shows that your life has
could complete a test run—something that cleans your become very weird right now, which you can think of
hands for a few seconds as a proof of concept. as a helpful tool the universe is providing you against
relapse: I mean, if your life was normal, then the
change this Arc pushes you towards would probably be
very easy or almost impossible instead of just challeng-
ingly hard.
524 Arcs
As Anybody Else—“Behind the Mask/
Atonement/the Struggle of the Knight” Stock Features
Behind the Mask is going to focus on a shadowy figure If you’re anyone but the Angel of Fortitude, you’ll
who wants to use you. need to know these features for this Arc:
The most common version here is a “personal Vice: Your vice can be anything here, but you
demon”—some part of you, some element of your vice, should take a moment to identify it. A good standard
has been washed away by the feng shui and taken form is just a sense of something spiritually missing in your
and seeks to break the power of the Angel and reinte- life—a hollow inside.
grate with you. Or, alternatively, the Angel of Fortitude The Walker in Darkness: This is someone whom
melds a creature of the evil world to you to help you you meet the Angel with. If the Best Friend is an
with some problem, and it has an agenda of its own. NPC, you can raid their locker of stock characters
A more sympathetic enemy is a cop or parent who and go with the Sacrificial Bull (pg. XX) or Owler in
Arcs
thinks that the Angel of Fortitude is inherently wicked the body of one of your friends (pg. XX); otherwise,
and wrong and wants to get them out of Fortitude or out I suggest a follower of yours, a friend of yours, an
of your life; or, arguably, someone hurt by a creature of enabler, or maybe Mourning (pg. XX) who has spent
the evil world who’s looking for revenge. a long time, maybe even years of your life, pretending
A less sympathetic version brings in one of the Six to be your friend.
Sins at this point with a plan to use you against the Cruel Prince: The standard Cruel Prince for this
Angel. The most likely Sin for this is Mourning (pg. Arc is the Exultant (pg. XX), but Mourning (pg. XX)
XX), who, as noted in the box, could have spent years also works.
planning for this by disguising itself as your friend. The Guardian Bird: You should be able to go with
If nobody’s doing the Best Friend’s quests, that also the generic option on pg. XX—the only reason you
frees up Owler (pg. XX). might not be able to is if the Best Friend is a PC, and
And maybe it’s your vice, or maybe it’s that enemy, if they’re so out of synch with your Arc that you can’t
but it’s almost certain that as a part of this and an interact with their version of the guardian bird. In a
outcome of this— case like that, I’d recommend going with either Sa’a
You screw up. Lingurth (pg. XX) or just a random evil bird from the
Atonement deals with how you try to make that right. evil world that the Angel of Fortitude is trying to fit
The Struggle of the Knight is almost certainly a into the world.
chance to wash your own hands, literally or metaphori- The Hero: This is typically Laodemus Schwan (pg.
cally; it’s a chance to share in the respite that the Angel XX) or the Prodigy, but it could also be a member of
of Fortitude means to claim. the Fortitude Regional Council—someone cool, like
Dominic Waystreet110, whom you can look up to.
110 He has a pickup truck.
Arcs 525
Principal Entropy Runs for Office Second, you have a couple of different things you
the Second Entropy Arc could be going for as the post you’re actually aiming
for—normally, this is about paving your way to the
In the second Entropy Arc, you’re finding a new life Fortitude Regional Council, but you could also legit-
after the events of the last chapter. Often that means that imately want to be something important like sherriff,
you’ve been tapped or targeted to replace someone on census officer, or, say, catcatcher.
the Fortitude Regional Council. Dogcatcher is just the paving stone on your route!
Meanwhile, the Angel of Fortitude—whether that’s Or you could be getting all official about one of the
you or not—discovers that their Fortitude existence is things you set up last quest (like a S.E.E.D. program
illegitimate. They can’t properly do whatever they’ve in Fortitude, or managing a skate park, or teaching the
been doing or need to do, or what this Arc will ask of kids at Professor Hayashi’s archive), and electoral or
5
them. They’re not a real person, not in that sense. Not bureaucratic politics might just be necessary along
legally, or metaphysically, or whatever. the way.
So to gain legitimate existence, they’ll wind up Unfortunately when you do start your run, one of the
running for the ancient and honorable office of Fortitude Six Sins runs against you—typically but not always
Dogcatcher, which, among other things, grants a legiti- the Exultant.
mate Fortitude existence to an unworldly resident. All this plays out like so:
Now, Fortitude doesn’t really hunt down its dogs The Story of your Life isn’t generally on point for
very much—I mean, barring kid-mauling or some- the Arc. You’re doing stuff. You might have picked up
thing, they’re free-roaming. So the post is mostly hon- a new grand project, or you might be at loose ends and
orary. One could maybe give it some use by arguing kind of ghosting through Fortitude with no clear goal,
that the creatures of the evil world come under animal but this quest doesn’t have that much to do with what’s
control ordinances, and that’s possibly what one of the to come. At most it’s a good place to introduce or hint
villains of the Arc is planning on by running for the at the Exultant or reinforce a project that you’ve got
post themselves... going on.
But it’s mostly honorary. The Sidekick is probably what actually gets your
So that’s what’s going on here. There’s the Angel skin in the game.
of Fortitude running for dogcatcher; and as for you, The standard option here is that you rescue a kid from
whether you’re them or not, you’re trying to get your a house fire or drowning or something. I’m voting for
foot in the door for a higher post—but first, as a require- “genre hero in the wrong genre” here—the mostly-si-
ment, you’ve got to deal with the dogcatcher election. lent Daiichi Murata, say, who has traditional clothing,
Of course, some people would say that it doesn’t dark hair, maybe even glasses gleam, a supreme talent
really matter what the popular vote says, even if that’s at something that’s never relevant in play (like incred-
how the regional law would have it; after all, you can’t ible tennis skills or being undefeated at rock-paper-scis-
very well have a dogcatcher unless they’re approved by sors), but doesn’t like to admit that he isn’t very good at
the legendary “First Free Dog.” (pg. XX) anything in particular else.
And this kid not only kind of limpets to you but also
As the Angel of Fortitude winds up pushing you forward for the “office” in ques-
If you’re actually the Angel of Fortitude here, you tion. They’re probably a relative or friend of Kimiko
have some choices. Dinsbury, of the Fortitude Regional Council.
First, you don’t have to go for dogcatcher. Sure, your Meanwhile, either an established Councilmember is
existence is possibly illegitimate, but you can go for a retiring or they get killed by a creature of the evil world,
different post—sherriff, maybe, or angle for taking over and you’re tapped by Kimiko Dinsbury to replace them.
local garbage collection. One of those other posts with Or they’re just wounded and you’re tapped to fill in for
an ancient proviso allowing for anthropomorphization them?
of a legally inanimate holder of the post and/or redemp- Or Kimiko takes interest because her son or nephew
tion of the unforgivable monster who holds it. is now your sidekick and decides to push for you to
make something official that hadn’t been before.
526 Arcs
Another option is that you wind up hanging out with Behind the Mask is where you find out that there are
the First Free Dog, and that’s actually a big deal—oh, such things as shadowy conspiracies to steal or pervert
sure, it’s a zombie dog, which is kind of ucky, or maybe small-community dogcatcher elections... as the engine
a vampire dog if the HG doesn’t want to deal with the to stop the Angel of Fortitude from claiming the post
sudden existence of zombies, but it’s also the dog that really gets started and one of the Six Sins tries to sway
has to approve a Dogcatcher. It’s the dog that according you (directly or subtly) to their side.110
to legend brought about the current days of dogs mostly At least you’ve got a reliable guardian bird to guard
free-roaming Fortitude, and maybe even the first dog the ballot boxes!
that came to the place at all. It was roused from its grave ...somehow, you usually wind up losing. The Angel
by the love of the community but then rejected by them of Fortitude winds up losing. Bad things are happening.
because it’s an undead, bad-luck uck-dog. But it’s still Or maybe it’s your own post, your own target, that
kind of cute in its way. gets stolen somehow. Like, maybe it turns out that “the
Arcs
Sins of the Father brings in an enemy. You’re Dogcatcher” (né “the Exultant,” pg. XX) also has the
running for Fortitude Dogcatcher, or whatever, and the right to dictate replacement members of the Fortitude
Exultant or maybe Impious runs against you. They’re Regional Council. Or something!
out for your blood, and not even in the flattering way Atonement is where you have to pay for your mis-
Lee Scathing is... and they’ve got a plan. takes. Often you’ll fail right up to the end of the quest,
Surreal Environments here tends to be a study of any maybe even after.
bureaucracy, politics, and the home life of your sidekick. The Struggle of the Knight is a followup which lets
Triumph reaches, and shows off, your victory. you genuinely put things right, and by doing so prove
your own worth.
As Anybody Else
Here’s the story as it plays out for you.
There’s something you’re trying to do in Fortitude—
something you want to achieve that needs public support.
Or, if there’s nothing like that, then out of nowhere an
established member of the Fortitude Regional Council
decides to retire, or gets killed or wounded by a creature
of the evil world, and Kimiko Dinsbury has her eye on
you to replace them.
(Or fill in for them while they’re wounded.)
And one of the tasks you have to take care of to
demonstrate your worth here is helping to run the elec-
tion for Dogcatcher that’s just come up and prove your
discretion and effectiveness thereby.
Encounters in the Night might precede a lot of
this—it’s where your encounters with the Angel of
Fortitude, and possibly with the First Free Dog and the
Arc’s Hero, help shape you to be the kind of person
who seeks out or accepts recruitment for a place on
the Council.
The Troubled Sky is where things get weird. Often
the election for Fortitude Dogcatcher doesn’t really
get going yet, but it may get started. This focuses on
bureaucracy, early politics, and, if it winds up needing
more meat than that, encounters with the Hangman (pg.
XX) or another Cruel Prince.
110 It’s going to be kind of OOC obvious that they’re the bad guys, but
please feel free to treat it as inobvious IC!
Arcs 527
Principal Entropy Takes a Holiday
Stock Features the Third Entropy Arc
If you’re anyone but the Angel of Fortitude, you’ll
need to know these features for this Arc: In the third Entropy Arc, you’re asked to help Fortitude
ŭŭ Vice: Your vice can be anything here, but you prepare for a big festival.
should take a moment to identify it. Try to pick Either it’s at an unknown time—like, it’s when digni-
something that could reasonably stand in the way taries from Outside visit, or when there’s some cosmic
of your progress here! conjunction, or when the archivists finish research on
ŭŭ the Walker in Darkness: While this could be a how it used to be done—or it’s 2-3 seasons away. The
generic Sacrificial Bull (pg. XX), this is often a HG can fudge time and weeks if necessary to keep
tragic twist on the First Free Dog (pg. XX). you from finishing the Arc long before or long after
ŭŭ the Cruel Prince: The standard Cruel Prince for
5
the festival.
this Arc is the Exultant (pg. XX), but Mourning You can run this Arc two ways.
(pg. XX) also works. Or possibly someone who The first is comedic with a touch of heart-warming:
feels entitled to a post on the Regional Council you focus in on the “spirit of the holiday.”
because a parent is on it, but they’re not worthy But that’s not the only way to play it.
of it and will eventually go on to develop evil See, there’s a hole in the world, I think. It’s from
mind-altering or mind-control abilities. Another when the sun died, and evil broke, and from when
possible Cruel Prince is “the Hangman,” a Nightmares’ Angel lost something at the Bleak
wicked ghost that’s been stirred up to murder Academy. Maybe it’s even something to do with the
the descendants of a criminal they hung genera- other characters, too—like, it’s balancing out the Wish-
tions before. Granting Engine.
ŭŭ the Guardian Bird: This is normally the generic And this Arc can be about that, too, if you let it—
option (pg. XX) or another evil bird from the evil about holidays as celebrations of survival, as things
world, but a black ops soldier/accountant who’s people do in the face of great tragedies to remind them-
just come in from America on a mission (“for selves that there is good in the world, that things have
democracy!”) and wields two desert eagles is survived, that light and life endure.
also viable. The treasure you ask them to guard I’m mostly targeting the comedy here...
is very likely to be the ballot boxes. ...but if you find it growing old, and want to tie things
ŭŭ the Hero: Again, this is typically Laodemus back to a real and meaningful core?
Schwan (pg. XX) or the Prodigy, but it could That’s what you need to remember. That’s what you
also be a member of the Fortitude Regional need to have your character face. That hole in the world.
Council—someone cool, like Kimiko Dinsbury,
whom you can look up to.
528 Arcs
A Quick Guide to Fortitude
Holidays As the Angel of Fortitude
You usually wind up getting involved in this because
For those of you without Fortitude: by the Docks you adopt the festival pig. As you know, of course, a
of Big Lake, the most likely holidays to explore festival pig is a pig, a special free-range festival-related
here are— pig, maybe even a white pig with a star on its forehead,
ŭŭ 4th week, Spring: Sorrows’ Week, a mourning and it’s very important to all Fortitude that the pig be
rite for Jade Irinka. healthy and happy until it gets eaten later on.
ŭŭ 5th week, Spring: the Flower-Viewing Festival. (This is obviously more suited to some festivals than
ŭŭ 7th week, Spring: Easter. others, but feel free to have fun explaining why spir-
ŭŭ 10th week, Spring: Celdinar Day, remembering it-honoring day, the flower festival, or Christmas needs
the heyday of vampires and deviant science. a festival pig.)
As an alternative you could wind up quasi-adopting
Arcs
ŭŭ 5th week, Summer: the Star Festival / festival
of wishes. the spirit of the festival, who is amnesiac owing to a
ŭŭ 6th week, Summer: Landing Day, celebrating the particularly hot summer or cold winter and needs help
human arrival in Town. understanding the... spirit... of the holiday, in the other
ŭŭ 9th week, Summer: the Spirit-Honoring Day, sense of the word.
wherein ghosts visit Fortitude. The Sin you’re most likely to deal with here is Lee
ŭŭ 10-11th week, Summer: the Harvest and Scathing (pg. XX), who is running a terrifying experi-
Apple Festivals. ment somehow related to the holiday, the spirit, or the
ŭŭ 8th week, Autumn: Halloween. pig. (It could also be the Exultant again.)
ŭŭ 4th week, Winter: Christmas. The festival itself is your typical Surreal
ŭŭ 12th week, Winter: Valentine’s Day. Environment. Since it’s rare for a festival to last more
ŭŭ 13th week, Winter: Pancake Week. than a week, I’m assuming that something happens to
kind of stick it—you keep encountering lingering ele-
ments, spirits, decorations, or whatever, long after the
festival ends. I don’t know why! If there’s a real reason,
you’ll probably figure it out, but it’s also possible that
it’s just a running joke or a metaphysical detritus.
As Anybody Else
You’ve been called on to help organize the festival. It’s
just too bad that the Six Sins have “holiday spirit” too!
Lee Scathing has a serious scheme here—he’s going
to use the holiday to create an innocent, or possibly
reduce many of the people of Fortitude into an innocent
or even bodiless state.111 The others are probably less
into it: they have holiday plans, sure, but they don’t rise
to the level of “schemes.”
111 This is normally a bit too nasty for him, but nasty interpretations
of this character exist!
Arcs 529
Stock Features of a Comedic Arc Stock Features of a More
If you’re anyone but the Angel of Fortitude, you’ll Serious Arc
need to know these features for this Arc:
ŭŭ Vice: Your vice here is something that runs You’ll want to run this a little differently for a more
counter to your holiday spirit. serious Arc:
ŭŭ the Walker in Darkness: This is generally ŭŭ Vice: Your vice is, basically, that hole in the
a generic Sacrificial Bull (pg. XX), but more world that I mentioned. The fact that there’s
importantly, it’s someone who rejects the something wrong in the world and in your
holiday. This isn’t necessarily a bad thing—I life. Something broken. It’s hard to touch
mean, sure, it’s mean-spirited to hate Christmas on it directly. Just, something’s missing.
or Sorrows’ Week, but there are some serious Something’s wrong.
5 issues with Landing Day and a bunch of holidays

are in between.
ŭŭ the Cruel Prince: The standard Cruel Prince for
ŭŭ the Walker in Darkness: This is generally
a generic Sacrificial Bull (pg. XX), but more
importantly, it’s someone who’ll get corrupted by
this Arc is Lee Scathing (pg. XX), who thinks he that broken part of the world. Someone who’ll
can use the holiday as a “crucible of innocence.” deny it at first but eventually despair because of
This is also a good Arc for an appearance of it and decide the whole place ought to go, that
Billy Sovereign (pg. XX) or a snotty anti-holiday there’s no worth left to it, not after Jade Irinka
kid who becomes empowered by an evil holi- died.
day-hating ghost. ŭŭ Cruel Princes, Guardian Birds, and Heroes:
ŭŭ the Guardian Bird: A few holidays may offer As for the comedic version of the Arc.
their own choices here, including tongue-in-
cheek choices like the Easter Bunny or a Landing
Day turkey. Celdinar Day suggests a great brass- Principal Entropy and
bound, smoke-spewing zeppelin war machine. the Lost Adventure
Normally you’d just use the generic option (pg. the Fourth Entropy Arc
XX) or, if you didn’t get the chance to use them
last time, a black ops soldier/accountant who’s In the fourth Entropy Arc, a handful of dream-beetles
just come in from America on a mission (“for the fall off the edge of the evil island, sprinkling into the
holidays!”) and wields two desert eagles again. dreams and stories of Fortitude Below.
ŭŭ the Hero: The specific holiday may offer you They’re big. They’re sea-turtle big.
a few options here. Otherwise, we’re probably And it looks like they brought a queen. That, or a
talking about Dominic Waystreet or Laodemus compatible queen had always been sealed behind
Schwan. crystal in a secret cave in the hill on Fortitude below.
Because they’re spreading.
More and more people dream about them now. Or
find their dreams being sealed over in amber, walled
away by the bugs, repeating over and over again, there
for the egg-cluster of the dream-bugs to grow.
It’s a good thing, sort of.
I mean, the nectar they leave in the repeating dream
refreshes the mind, maybe?
But mostly it is bad.
And they’ve been appearing in the illustrations of
old books, because they’ve slipped into the stories.
And they show up in flashbacks and flashforwards
too, and sometimes memories. They’re arguably more
530 Arcs
“drama-beetles” than “dream-beetles,” and they’re So this is basically a moral test for you:
hard at work gnawing away at the spaces between peo- Who are you going to be? And can you stick by your
ple’s dreams. guns and be that when it could wind up, quite possibly,
They’ve slipped through into the physical world, wrong?
too—
Into that cave in the western hills. Stock Features
They’re not evil. They’re not even really bad. And If you’re anyone but the Angel of Fortitude, you’ll
the Angel of Fortitude doesn’t want them killed. There need to know these features for this Arc:
has to be some way, the Angel reasons, for them to fit ŭŭ Vice: You probably know your vice by now, but
into Fortitude life in a stable, harmonious way. if you’ve resolved your former vices over the last
There has to be a way to not kill them. few Arcs, then we’re talking about something
This is the story of how that happens; or how it
Arcs
that makes you vulnerable to Mourning or Glass
doesn’t happen, how the whispers of Mourning turn the Spider’s pitch. Basically, probably: something
people of Fortitude against the idea, because who knows that tells you that you are not strong enough
what’ll happen to people when the dream-eggs hatch? to save the world from drowning in chaos; or,
Or maybe it’s a different story. that makes you distrust the Angel of Fortitude’s
Maybe it’s the story of how, while everyone was ability to reconcile the drama-bugs with
distracted, while all of that was going on, Glass Spider Fortitude without killing them all.
came to Fortitude and tried to both save and take over ŭŭ the Walker in Darkness: This is generally
the world. someone who willingly sells themselves to Glass
Spider for luxury, for knowledge, or in the belief
As the Angel of Fortitude that Glass Spider is better able than the Angel
You’ll usually get drawn into all of this by an impulse of Fortitude to help save the world. It could be
to protect the dream-bugs from getting wiped out. almost any major established NPC with a solid
You want to find a proper place for them in the life reason for doing so.
of Fortitude. ŭŭ the Cruel Prince: The standard Cruel Prince
Your Surreal Environment is often either the for this Arc is Glass Spider (pg. XX), but it’s
dream-world or story-world access that the dream-bugs possible for Mourning (pg. XX) and maybe even
open up or the play that Glass Spider (pg. XX) hopes the Exultant (pg. XX) to be involved as well.
to perform. ŭŭ the Guardian Bird: There could be a large
flying glamour beetle with otherworldly beauty,
As Anybody Else associated with the dream-bugs. Someone could
For you this Arc is probably built around Glass Spider bring in an ornithopter from Old Molder named
or possibly Mourning— “the Guardian Bird.” Or, of course, you can use
One of them is looking for your help to save the generic option (pg. XX)
the Region. ŭŭ the Hero: This is often the Angel of Fortitude
And the problem is, they’re monsters, but it’s pos- themselves—they’re likely to be at their best
sible that they’re on the right side here, or at least, that here. It could also be the nominal villain Glass
turning them down isn’t as simple as it looks. Glass Spider (pg. XX), if the HG redeems them or
Spider’s got a play to put on or a mural to design, and just has them put on a really good front, or a
it’ll genuinely strengthen the world; and if Mourning is heroic exterminator, or a knight out of legend or
pushing against what the Angel of Fortitude is doing somebody’s dreams—Sir Lancelot? Or one of
this Arc, well— the rat paragons? Whomever it is probably winds
The Angel of Fortitude is spending this Arc trying up hanging out with Laodemus a lot.
to find a way to fit the dream-bugs into Fortitude, and
that might not be the best thing to do with a hive of
giant insects with no local natural predators who are
spreading through the world of people’s dreams.
Arcs 531
Glass
the Miramie/Reynard Arcs
In the days of your mother, in the days of your father, Note that while this story does allow for some
the Bleak Academy sent a Magister to make an end to direct brain-bending and self-re-engineering through
Town. allegory, it is an allegory and not some postmodernist
It was a terrifying creature, that Magister: a prodigy total-boundary-breakdown; taken too far or too swiftly,
of hatred and despair. efforts like that will fail.
5
It was a witch.
It put a shard of its witch’s dreams into the brain of How to Play These Arcs
young Hayashi Hideo. He had been a glass-maker. He Particularly for Miramie/Reynard, the Glass Arcs
became its servant as well. are usually Bittersweet Sagas (pg. XX), featuring
Together they built a glass dragon and they taught it the quests:
to hate the world. ŭŭ Beautiful and Far Away. There’s a place you
Then they turned it loose. can go to escape this troubled world.
They sent it out to make an end to everything. But it ŭŭ Fascination. You’re fascinated by someone/
didn’t do that. It broke, instead. And the Magister broke thing dangerous and irresponsible.
too. And the sun shone across a sleepy little Town in the ŭŭ This is...
middle of nowhere, and it was still safe, still living on. • ...So Surreal: People are doing just
A long time later— plain goofy stuff with their powers.
Some people have shards of that glass dragon in • ...Such a Bad Idea: Someone
them. In their dreams, in their souls, in their hearts, in gets or seizes new powers.
their brains, in their arms or kidneys or lungs or what- ŭŭ You’ve Lost Them. You interact with some-
ever too, I do not know. Those shards are giving them body damaged.
strange urges, strange impulses, strange powers. ŭŭ Something Heals. You interact with someone
And what’s left of the Magister has coalesced in the who is trying to make things better and make up
Archive of Professor Hayashi Hideo. for their old mistakes.
It has formed itself into a teenager who finds life You can also play these Arcs out as Misadventures
pretty hard and thinks the world kind of sucks but (pg. XX), featuring the quests:
doesn’t think it’s all that impossibly bad. Someone ŭŭ Haunted. Someone haunts your dreams.
who could live in the world, live in Town, and find a ŭŭ Wishing for...
kind of peace there. Someone who is many things—the • ...Ease: You try to cheat and make
Dream-Witch first and foremost among them—but your life a little easier.
isn’t a “prodigy of hatred and despair.” • ...Power: You pick up a new power.
Herein are a set of stories about... ŭŭ Wicked Creatures. Some wicked creature tries
What’s inside a person. How a person gets put to change your nature.
together, out of all life’s shards of memory and power. ŭŭ Asserting your Existence. You try to reclaim
About souls and lives and joys and burdens, as deli- something you’ve lost.
cate as glass. ŭŭ Wishing for Healing. You try to fix something
More helpfully, this is: you’ve broken.
ŭŭ a story of low-powered superheroics (the people
infected by the shards)
ŭŭ a magical-realism-styled allegory for the con-
struction of the self
532 Arcs Arcs 532

The Hidden Room Shards of Glass
Prologue the First Glass Arc
Near the top of the Archive, the books and boxes of Sometimes a shard of the glass dragon or a memento of
papers start to fade into a labyrinth, and the labyrinth Melanie Malakh turns up. They tend to do weird things
fades into the Outside—but if you go left instead of to people. They encourage strange behaviors, grant
right, just when things start getting trippy, you might strange powers, and rouse strange memories—
not wind up in the Outside. You might wind up in the Not just in the Dream-Witch!
place of the Dream-Witch, instead— Dealing with them tends to be pretty flashback-heavy
Where all the pieces of the shattered Magister are. for anyone.
Most of them are kind of scary. I mean, there’s a This Arc is a set of stories of those shards—of things
lot of nastiness there, that the Dream-Witch has left that happen because of them. Not even necessarily trou-
Arcs
behind but hasn’t destroyed. The prodigy of despair and blesome things! Just, you’re looking into the matter,
hate, the Magister of Emptiness and Dream, that person and you meet some interesting people.
still exists, in pieces, scattered through all those shelves This usually includes...
and halls.
And past all of that there is a private little library—a ŭŭ ...someone who’s going a little bit out of control,
hidden room—with all the pieces of the person that e.g. Ardennes or Mazarin (pg. XX, XX).
took the Magister’s place. All the things that make the ŭŭ ...someone who’s likely to get damaged by this
Dream-Witch, well, themselves. power, e.g. Renjiro or Sakura (pg. XX, XX).
It’s a pretty little room: delicate, beautiful, organized, ŭŭ ...a few other people using other options from the
and bathed in sunlight through a beautiful window of mentioned characters’ possible powersets.
Hayashi glass. ŭŭ ...one or two people whose shards are just there,
like Yulia Rozhkova (pg. XX).
And usually—
Not always. But usually!—
At some point early on, you and the Dream-Witch
do something you regret. Maybe it’s something bad.
Maybe it’s just embarrassing and goofy, like getting
drunk for the first time, and way too thoroughly.
Maybe it’s just carelessness that leads to some-
thing traumatic.
You don’t want to think about it. But some-
thing happens.
And as a consequence, later, someone who
shouldn’t’ve finds out about the path to the hidden
room; or one of the nastier shards of Malakh gets into
the hidden room; or the shards are disturbed; or you
cut yourself on a shard without realizing, and it tastes
blood—something. Something happens to disrupt
things. Or maybe it’s not anything as obvious as that,
maybe it’s just a leftover affinity between Malakh or
the dragon and the modern Dream-Witch that gets the
shards acting up against her or in her defense.
More and more people with shard powers are turning
up, and those shard powers are unstable. People are
Arcs 533
burning out. The shards are burning out. Strangeness
lights up the nights of Fortitude. General Notes
As a bittersweet saga, the quests are pretty indepen-
For the Dream-Witch— dent—just play whatever quest comes next until it
“Beautiful and Far Away” feels like a good endpoint. I should warn you that there
It is a place of safety. It is a place of security. It is where are actually six quests here for a five-step Arc, so if
you formed yourself; where you can safely be yourself, you have specific plans for playing through You’ve
and not be at risk of becoming a prodigy of hatred Lost Them make sure you don’t miss its place in the
and despair: Arc.
Your hidden room, in a corner of the Archive’s
upper floors. “Fascination”
5
You have a tendency to retreat there when you’re The main story of the Arc picks up with the quest
stressed. It’s good for you. It’s a place where you can Fascination, wherein you’re drawn to and fascinated
grow stronger in yourself. But it’s also a little scary, by one of these four targets:
because it’s so beautiful and peaceful there. You can
imagine getting lost there, losing track of time there— ŭŭ the shards of the glass dragon in general
Coming out again to discover that ten or fifteen years ŭŭ one of the build-your-own Fortitude PCs, who’ll
have passed you by. have a glass dragon shard in them
It’s an exaggerated risk but a real one. ŭŭ the Wishing Boy (or Girl), who does too
It probably wouldn’t happen. But it could. If you let ŭŭ the prodigy Malakh and/or their history with
it—it could. You could probably live in that room time- Hideo Hayashi
lessly for centuries, moving little bits of self about, and
if nobody else came in and found you, your existence I’m going to assume that it’s the first one—the
would just drift forever-ly on. default here is that you’re made interested by this whole
On the other hand you can’t just give up your place shards-of-the-glass-dragon thing.
of safety. During this quest is a good point in the story to make
That’s like dieting by giving up on food! that mistake I mentioned earlier.
It’s all well and good as an idea but you can’t actually If you’re at a loss for what to do at any point during
do it, and even if you could, in practice it would be bad. this quest, consider chasing a rumor to the doorstep of
So, figuring out what to do here is going to play out as Sakura, Renjiro, Mazarin, or Ardennes.
the quest Beautiful and Far Away.
“This is So Surreal” / “This is Such a Bad
For Anybody Else— Idea”
“Beautiful and Far Away” This is the story of people doing strange things with
If you play this out as a bittersweet saga then the their shard-born powers. They’re usually weird
truth is— enough that they can qualify as “wishes” by the quest
It’s your hidden room too. It’s your sanctum. I don’t card’s definition.
know why or how, but when you find it you will under- This is usually where Mazarin or Ardennes goes out
stand that it is precious to you; that it is a place you may of control.
retreat to, and find sanctuary there. Which quest do you want?
Somewhere Beautiful and Far Away. Do you want to contend with people trying to make
their lives easy? Or people reaching for power? You
might not have the choice, if the characters making
trouble or the trouble itself gets too firmly established
before you get to this quest, but if it’s all kind of vague,
it’ll follow the quest that you choose:
This is So Surreal if they’re being weird;
This is Such a Bad Idea if they’re displaying hubris.
534 Arcs
“You’ve Lost Them” Misadventures
This is the quest where the powers of one of the shards, Normally you won’t, but you’ll have the option of
or the consequences of that mistake that I recom- playing this Arc out as a “misadventure”—
mended, mess somebody up. Something styled after the Arcs of the Wishing Boy
Sakura? Renjiro? (or Girl).
Another PC? This is an option for anyone, including the Dream-
You? Witch herself.
“Something Heals” The Misadventures of the Dream-Witch—

Something gets a little better for you, ideally because “Wicked Creatures”
of the shards of the glass dragon or a friend you make And if you’re the Dream-Witch, and you take this
after emerging from your hidden room. option, it’s quite possible that the hidden room isn’t
Arcs
“really” yours at all—it’s more of a remnant of and
a Chapel to the Magister Malakh. You’re still drawn
there, but it isn’t good for you, it’s just a chance for
your former self to corrupt you—
And that plays out as the quest Wicked Creatures.
The Misadventures of Somebody Else—

“Wicked Creatures”
Or is this a misadventure for somebody else?
Then this is the story of how you come to know the
Dream-Witch—how you wind up seeing the treasures
and the keepsakes of the hidden room and learning the
stories that connect to them.
Is the Witch your friend? Have they trusted you with
this place?
Did you stumble on the hidden room?
Are you trying to investigate the Dream-Witch,
to understand what makes them tick, whether there is
something there that can be saved? Or just to learn the
weaknesses of an enemy?
When the world is too much, the Dream-Witch
retreats there.
They hide among the books and knick-knacks and
reaffirm themselves in who they want to be.
For you, this quest is all about Slice of Life and
Discovery—it’s about getting to know someone and
having the chance to admire their beautiful things. If
that’s not enough—if you want a little sharper an edge
to this—you can deal with the Dream-Witch’s hos-
tility to those who would intrude here, and with the cost
to the sanctity of the room of that intrusion.
This all plays out as the quest Wicked Creatures.
Arcs 535
The Misadventures of the Dream-Witch— The Misadventures of the Dream-Witch—
“Haunted” “Wishing for Ease/Power”
The other possible starting place for a misadventure is As the Dream-Witch, you don’t have many wish-like
the quest “Haunted.” powers, which makes Wishing for Ease/Power a little
In this quest, there’s something that you’re harder, but that’s not actually a big obstacle—what you
Haunted by: do have is the potential ability to...
ŭŭ the Wishing Boy (or Girl), and the way they ŭŭ ...talk an NPC or even PC Wishing Boy (or Girl)
have some of your memories locked up in into making wishes on your behalf.
their head ŭŭ ...develop unusual and practically wish-level
ŭŭ concern about the whole situation with the shards applications of Changeling or some other
5
ŭŭ someone with one of the shards, maybe even magical skill.
Sakura or Renjiro from pg. XX, gains access to ŭŭ ...rewire your own mind by playing around with
your hidden room and/or some sort of power the layout of the hidden room.
over you ŭŭ ...do magic/science in the hidden room to try
to shape the powers of the shards of the glass
If you’re planning on doing the Arcs for the Wishing dragon, with consequences even more unpredict-
Boy (or Girl), then I’d recommend leaving that char- able than a wish.
acter alone for now and focusing on the shards. If So it’s only if none of those work in your game that
someone else is doing those Arcs, or if you’re planning you’ll have to stress out about this point.
to stay focused on your own stuff for a long time—
Then go with that first option. They’re what’s The Misadventures of the Dream-Witch—
haunting you. “Asserting your Existence”
This story would start out as a story of how they’re If you find yourself needing the quest Asserting your
entangled in your dreams, you know? How the shard Existence, it means that stuff has gone wrong with
of the glass dragon in their dreams is a key part of who your hidden room, and therefore with yourself; you’re
you were, and you don’t necessarily want it back, but getting taken over to some degree by either somebody
you’re haunted by it, you need to understand it. with a shard or by the remnants of Malakh.
And maybe you’re having Outside dust problems, or
Horizon-related problems, or little weird wish effects
in your life, because of that connection the two of you
now share.
As a Misadventure of Anybody Else—

“Haunted”
If you’re not the Dream-Witch, this plays out pretty
similarly, with one major exception:
Instead of having a hidden room and part of your
memories in the head of the Wishing Boy (or Girl)—
You don’t.
536 Arcs
The Misadventures of Anybody Else— The Passage to the Left
“Wishing for Ease/Power, Asserting your the Second Glass Arc
Existence”
You may very well have your own wish-level powers— Between the Archive and the hidden there is a pas-
in fact, you may very well be the Wishing Boy, in sageway lined with shelves and offshoot chambers.
which case these quests are practically old hat for you! Here there is a richness of lost, abandoned memories.
But if not, or even if, I think your core schtick in Here, stacked on shelves and tucked away in dusty
Wishing for Ease/Power is that: corners, are pieces of Melanie Malakh, strategist of the
Bleak Academy, prodigy of despair and hate—all the
ŭŭ There is a shard of the glass dragon in you (even pieces, or most of the pieces anyway, that the modern
if your character background doesn’t explicitly Dream-Witch abandoned.
demand one—you have it, and it’s maybe partially There’s something there—
Arcs
responsible for the powers you already had, or Something demanding attention. Something that was
maybe it sticks into you during the quest). lost, but which is needed. It’s just regrettable that the
ŭŭ The shard is connecting you to Malakh and the pieces of her are dangerous things that bring up dark
Dream-Witch somehow. memories and urges in you, in anybody, when you
ŭŭ If you don’t have any wish-like powers you’ll handle them too much.
be able to use Science, Faith, and Sorcery
Actions to jigger this shard into giving you one or As a Bittersweet Saga
two heavily HG-controlled “wishes” per season This begins as a story of someplace Beautiful and
during the course of this Arc; but... Far Away.
ŭŭ ...eventually it may very well damage you. For the Dream-Witch, that’s still the hidden room.
That damage in the last bullet point will leave you For anyone else, perhaps it is the passageway, which,
lost until you play through Asserting your Existence. as I have noted, calls.
Then comes Fascination with...
“Wishing for Healing”
If you find yourself needing Wishing for Healing, ŭŭ ...the Dream-Witch?
that’s your chance to make some of the errors that have ŭŭ ...the Wishing Boy (or Girl)?
accumulated over the course of this Arc good. ŭŭ ...some other Main Character with a connection to
the shards of the glass dragon?
ŭŭ ...Melanie Malakh?
Now, explaining This is So Surreal / This is Such

a Bad Idea should only be necessary in single-player
games with a relatively hands-off HG—
I mean, to be honest, if there are other Main Characters
swirling around doing stuff, things will very likely get
surreal/inappropriate on their own. But if you’re at a
loss here, the surreality or bad ideas could come from
people with shards of the glass dragon in them or people
who fall under the influence of Melanie Malakh.
When you find what you’re looking for in the passage
to the left, it’s a memory or truth that either breaks
someone or leads you to someone that Malakh broke
a long time ago. This plays out as You’ve Lost Them.
Your interactions in Something Heals are likely
to focus on a piece or echo or shadow of Melanie
Malakh that’s remorseful enough to try to make up for
Arcs 537
past mistakes, even if it’s not “good” enough for the The Maze in the Library
Dream-Witch to have included it in herself; or possibly the Third Glass Arc
a similar piece/echo/shadow of the glass dragon; or, if
all that fails, it’s Hideo Hayashi, coming clean about If you turn right, instead of left, the passage leads to
some unexpected level of culpability in events. the Outside.
It’s started calling.
As a Misadventure You’ve started feeling like there’s something beau-
The eponymous Passage to the Left becomes tiful waiting for you out there. It’s terrifying, it’s always
the Chapel of your corruptor, Melanie Malakh, in stressful, but there’s something—
Wicked Creatures. It’s like you’re hunting a grail, or a questing beast. It’s
You’re Haunted by a nameless, voiceless calling that like there was someone you knew, long ago, someone
5
draws you there— you loved, and you can find them again. There’s the
At least, at first. most precious thing in the world to you, somewhere in
You may decide later on that what is really haunting the winding maze of the Outside.
you is someone who needs closure, or Malakh, or the Of course, it’s a crazy place, and it’s in the shadow of
glass dragon, or a Main Character. the Bleak Academy, and if you go too far it’ll bleed into
Your Wishing for Ease/Power is probably influ- the low Outside which is worse; but there’s nothing for
enced by what you find in the Passage to the Left. You it but to wander the stacks and have encounters with the
may find yourself using your powers autonomically, strangeness and stumble into the hidden and faraway
reflexively—I don’t mean that the HG takes them places beyond them until you understand what you’re
over, although you can tell the HG to invoke them; I looking for.
just mean, you invoke them in response to the feelings So this is the story of your recurring visits to that
roused in you by the pieces of Melanie Malakh, and maze; your explorations of that labyrinth.
not to your conscious will. You enter a dream-like and Sometimes you’ll meet other people who are
suggestible state, perhaps, or you react to some vision searching for things there; or find bits and pieces of
that you see by losing your normal self-discipline. other places, usually as small and isolated set pieces that
Eventually you lose some part of yourself here, and don’t let you travel to the rest of the place—but maybe
must fight back by Asserting your Existence. it’ll lead you to somewhere interesting, like the actual
As usual, Wishing for Healing is just you making as St. Petersburg or an air-bubbled Martian city or a lost
much right as you can of the errors along the way. civilization in a library, and you’ll be able to explore.
Or you’ll stumble out, after a few days’ walk, in the
book-mines under Soma Village.
One of the greatest dangers of the place—the default
Arc threat—is Unicorn, which is named Numinous.
This creature dwells atop the labyrinth walls, and on its
tumbled piles of rubble, and on the roofs of the places
that you find there; or sometimes, though it seems to
pain it, it walks delicately and with clicking feet through
the passages below.
It is deadly because it may burn you down to nothing
simply with its presence; or sear an obsession with
itself into even the strongest mind.
What you find there will depend on your Arc, I
suppose.
Perhaps you’ll barely survive the journey, and count
that a victory. Perhaps you’ll find the key to all things
in the world.
538 Arcs
As a Bittersweet Saga As a Misadventure
The setting and Secret Place for Beautiful and Far It is almost certain that it is Unicorn that haunts you,
Away are both typically that maze. That may also be in Haunted.
your Fascination, but it’s more likely that you’re fasci- It will double as your corruptor, with the maze its
nated either by Unicorn or by the thing that you sense Chapel, in Wicked Creatures.
calling to you from the maze. Perhaps one of these things is some other Main
This story is going to need a grail hunter— Character, instead.
Someone else exploring the maze, trying to find It is in the context of the maze and its navigation that
Unicorn or “the True Thing” or something else like that. you’re likely to invoke Wishing for Ease; it is in the
This is often either Sakura or Ardennes, from pg. XX faraway places that you find there that you are most
or XX, unless it’s a leftover Main Character or floating likely to fall back upon Wishing for Power.
NPC that you can revive for the purpose. I don’t know why it wouldn’t just be another Unicorn
Arcs
Once again I don’t feel like surreal situations and bad effect; maybe it is, and maybe you’ll be smarter than
ideas should be hard to come by; I am here and notice it. But I think that it is likely
That said, if you have trouble, Unicorn itself can that Asserting your Existence is more about some-
make things surreal, or the grail hunter can have such thing else—
a bad idea. That there’s something else, somewhere else, in the
You’ll probably meet other characters along the way, maze, where you take a wasting illness; where you get
and there are thus multiple options—but the grail hunter called away from yourself, to wander in a daze among
is there as a candidate for the person who gets damaged, the books beneath Soma or in some Martian ruin. You
burned out by Unicorn or the True Thing that they find: find something there that calls to you in a fashion much
You’ve Lost Them. more specific than Unicorn, and it is eating you alive.
And if you find something amazing therein— And what you do with that, with the True Thing
And there are, of course, many amazing things to or whatever—
find—perhaps it will be the case that Something Heals. That’s Wishing for Healing.
Arcs 539
The Archive of Hayashi Hideo As a Bittersweet Saga
the Fourth Glass Arc There’s a tabletop in the House of Crystal—if it’s still
there—that Hideo had made as a boy, before he left his
“Once upon a time, a witch and a glass-maker made family and his glassmaking behind. The tabletop has
a dragon out of glass and taught it to hate the world. got a map of an imaginary country in it. Hideo had
It raged and it would have destroyed everything; “seen” the country in the glass as a boy, and molded
only, it shattered, instead.” the glass to enhance that and bring it out, complete with
— Campaign Premise a bit of topographic variance smoothed out with clear
glass poured over it.
A long time ago, Professor Hideo Hayashi stopped The setting for Beautiful and Far Away is often the
making glass. He started spending all his time in the entire Archive; or Hideo’s office, if you like to sneak
5
Archive instead, looking for something. in and try to figure things out about his papers; or that
Who knows what? country, in that glass.
The archives are where he found the Dream-Witch, He himself is usually your Fascination—or, if he’s
who is what is left of Melanie Malakh. So maybe it’s too responsible, then one of the miscellaneous archive
that. Maybe he hated her. Maybe he loved her. Maybe NPCs, or the Dream-Witch, or the Wishing Boy (or
he feels responsible to her. But his story might not be Girl). Possibly the country in the glass, if it’s dan-
finished. The truth of his heart might not yet be shown. gerous somehow.
In this Arc, you’ll find... And the truth is—
It’s not something that happens during this Arc. It’s
ŭŭ ...what he is looking for in the Archive, if he’s something that happened long before; you just figure
looking for it still. out now how broken he is, or how broken Malakh was,
ŭŭ ...what he was looking for, if he’s stopped. or how cool the glass dragon could have been. You
ŭŭ ...the last bit of glasswork he completed, a very know You’ve Lost Them now, but the actual loss was
long time ago. a very long time ago.
Maybe Something Heals.
And you’ll find out why he hasn’t explained much
about his feelings or what went on to you. And then— As a Misadventure
Well, there’s nothing actually wrong with being an As a misadventure, you’re going to need an active
archivist instead of a glass-blower, but I think this still corrupting force, and something bad that can happen to
ends with the story freeing him to make something out you along the way.
of glass again. Maybe a goodbye gift for the Dream- So I think that the glass dragon must be reassem-
Witch before he leaves the archive or she does. Maybe bling itself;
a new glass dragon. Maybe something else. Or someone is building a new one;
Depending on how this goes, it is distantly possible Or maybe you’re getting dream-lost in the imaginary
that this ends with him sailing away, e.g., the archive country in Hideo’s glass.
flying off or him sailing off on a ship through the
Outside (via the archives) to a mythical country that
once he saw in dreams.
540 Arcs
Arcs
Arcs 541
Drowning
the Arcs of the Miracle Dead
So, the game isn’t just the 8 main characters. A Far and a Sunless Land
Maybe you’re playing someone else. A Titov shrine Prologue
maiden. A vampire. A shop fox. Or, you know, that
other one. I’m sorry.
Or maybe you’re not playing someone else, but... You’re going to have to die.
5
You want to know what other big stories might be
happening around Fortitude. How, Exactly?
Herein, one of those stories.
This is the story of the miracle dead—they who Death by Misadventure—
drowned in the Outside, were lost to the world of the This is going to be your own fault, really. You’ve found
living, and by the light of Jade Irinka came back home. a place at the edge of Town where you can listen to
the voice of the Outside. It’s important to you. It’s
Is it just the handful of people who have the shards of helping you somehow—teaching you a magical song,
the glass dragon in them? Just PCs and Main Characters protecting you from a bully, inspiring you, or helping
and a few story-relevant folks? you train an awesome pet (a pipe fox, fairy dragon, or
Is everyone who dies going to start coming nixie dog, say) conjured from your dreams.
back soon? And this plays out as Wicked Creatures (pg. XX).
Or will this story play out in some other way? You’ll die when the Outside turns on you.
Herein, four stories of isolation, and how people A Secret History—

may find one another and find comfort in one another I don’t know why you’re going to die, exactly, but I do
in even the bleakest Hells. know that you’ve started to dream of Jade Irinka—lost,
murdered angel of the houses of the sun.
Figure out your vice—something that you want to
overcome in a heroic or saccharine way.
Find a Walker in Darkness to be a friend or enemy,
someone who supports or enables you in that vice and
sneers at the dreams you have of light and life and sun-
light burning in the void.
Then play things out as Encounters in the Night
(pg. XX).
A Scientific Adventure—
You know that you’re dying. It’s obvious. Maybe
you’re sick with something particularly metaphysically
tenacious. Maybe there’s a family curse. Maybe you’ve
just been having dreams that foreshadow it: you don’t
know the details but you can feel it, the moment some-
thing heavy is going to hit you and bam.
You want to save yourself. You’ll try it! You’ll use
Science! (pg. XX)
542 Arcs Arcs 542

A Bittersweet Saga— A Coming-of-Age Story—
You’re fascinated with the idea of death. It’s compel- I don’t know if you know that your death is coming,
ling to you. You’re drawn to it, called to it like a rat to but you’re living as if you’re already dead. Distant.
a Mystery. Withdrawn. Like there’s no light in your life.
You may not want to admit it to people, but you are. Or at least like there’s something wrong.
Called to Death. To King Death. This plays out as A Troubled Protagonist (pg. XX).
To the Headmaster of the Bleak Academy.
You don’t want to die in the physical sense, exactly. Afterwards
You don’t even want your life to end. You’re just caught And anyway, you die.
up in the romance of death, of “the sweet-smelling But...
roses of the night” and the like. “You” are still something special, in a way. I’m not
This plays out as Fascination (pg. XX). talking about the shard of the glass dragon in you,
Arcs
because, who cares? I mean, really. That’s just a thing.
Hint: You’ll want to establish a relationship or The important thing is that you’ve got something
friendship with someone very alive and very much in important about you. You’ve got something in you
love with life, for a possible angst twist later on when that’ll keep you going.
they die. Something solid. Some virtue that you can cling to.
Something that’ll keep you going even after death.
A Fading Flower (Soon to be Reborn)— Even after you should be dissolving into nothing, or
You’ve reached the end of your life. You’ve done all into the Outside, or... whatever happens to the dead...
you can—you’re too weak, now. Too old, too far behind it’ll be there. It’ll be something to hold on to. It will
the times, too tired, too sick— keep you going for a moment, or a forever, or for some
And that’s OK. time in between.
You’ve lived a good life. You’re ready. You can leave
the world to all the rest. So there you are, living out And once upon a time death was a far and a sunless
your final days happily, maybe putting together a last land, or so some say;
few things on, or puttering around with, a final work: Death was a bleak academy;
The Story of your Life (pg. XX) But now there is the light of a sun that shines Outside
the world—the light of the former sun goddess Jade
A Desperate Struggle (Soon to Irinka, who is dead—and it will fall on you. It will be
Become an Adventure)— a miracle. You will find yourself there, in the grainy
You’re a desperate, messed-up kid trying to cling to Outside, with the light falling on you as through a
things you’re losing. A friend or pet that’s dying. A window, and the dust drifting in that light; and the sun
broken family. I don’t know. Things you’ve lost. will reveal to you a path that will lead you back to Town.
You aren’t expecting that you’ll die.
That’s probably why it happens. You’re surrounded
by so much at risk, and you’re all healthy and stuff.
So you push too hard, and you risk your life, and you
lose it.
This quest line starts with Down (pg. XX).
An Unplanned Heroic Journey—

You can feel it coming. It’s like it’s eating you from the
inside.
You know it’s going to happen.
You’re going to die.
Your oncoming death is at the core of Changes (pg.
XX).
Arcs 543
Back to Life The Drowned World
If you were an ordinary person before, you’re not the First Arc of the Outside
any longer.
Specifically, the Fortitude PC archetype gains: So... is it OK?
Is it all right, to be dead and then come back? Is it
ŭŭ 1 Divine Health Level + 2 MP upon returning even real?
from death; and will later earn This is the story of people having trouble coping with
ŭŭ 1 Divine Health Level + 2 MP upon finishing the miracle dead—with the people who find their way
the Arc. back. Are they real or are they delusions spawned by
the Outside? Are they ghosts with flesh or new lives or
Plus, no matter who you were, you’ll come back with the old lives reborn? What’s in their coffins? If there are
5
a sense of something that’s important. still bodies there... why?
You’ll figure out something important about what Does the Child of the Sun freak out at the implica-
you think holds the world together, what you think is tions of their Mom steering the dead back to life?
important and central to there being existence and life Does the Prodigy have trouble accepting it’s even
instead of nothingness and death. possible (or OK)?
You’ll have found something that mattered, out there Does Nightmares’ Angel raise very reasonable
in the boundless Beyond. questions about population growth and stability and the
Angel of Fortitude wake up in night-sweats dreaming
of his father being once again alive?
Someone’s come back from the dead. Heck, eventu-
ally, probably, you’re going to get many people back
from the dead.
This is the story of how everyone who’s ever lost
someone is going to be wrestling with the unfairness of
it, or, possibly, if it seems like it might not be unfair, in
the long-term... with hope.
And of course it’s about welcoming parties for the
miracle dead, like wakes with the guest of honor there;
and about the miracle dead trying to cope with all the
self-doubts and terror and fears of not being legitimate
that this will raise.
And if it was you—if you died and came back—
How can you go back to your life when death is no
longer sacred?
What happens the next time you die?
544 Arcs
Was it You? • ...potentially Mourning, in the near
Outside, though you wouldn’t recognize
Death by Misadventure— them as Mourning of the Student Council if
So, you’re haunted from afar by images of the sun and they’re going around acting like a hero.
the Outside and the Bleak Academy. The forbidden or • ...often the mysterious masked “X” (who may
dangerous powers you learn to command along the or may not be Laodemus Schwan; see pg. XX).
course of this Arc are typically related to death, the • ...and sometimes just a generic
Outside, or the dead sun. iconic hero or heroine.
And, all that taken together, you’re not necessarily ŭŭ And a Guardian Bird:
sure you want to be alive, or that it’s necessarily a good • ...some sort of vast snake-tailed eagle
thing that you came back. creature which stood guard over a rep-
But in Haunted you’re going to decide or discover resentation of your soul (pg. XX).
Arcs
that there’s someone you were sent back to help. It’s • ...the bitter motorcyclist Mavis Wheeler
generally a kid or old person who has given up on (pg. XX), who shared her campfire
their life and is drawn to the Outside like you were; or but stole a secret from your head.
someone your actions hurt in the past; or a PC; or an • ...an albatross or other guiding creature born
NPC entangled in some ongoing plot. from your thoughts or from your heart.
Sometimes it’s the Titov family.
And in Wishing for Healing you’ll get to actually Plus probably all the ally spirits, strange animals,
make things a little better. mostly-silent mentors, and weirdness that you’d expect
This is usually enough for the Arc, but if you need from a surreal journey. Bear in mind that the Outside
more, you can play around with whatever powers isn’t that far from the borders of reality, though: these
you’ve been picking up or can borrow access to in things can all show up later again in play.
Wishing for Ease/Power, and then realize that you’re In Behind the Mask, you’ll work more on sorting
not completely alive again (and struggle to fix that) in this all out in your head. Sadly, one of the people you
Asserting your Existence. turn to for help sorting all of this out—normally a thera-
pist, but possibly a family member, friend, or imaginary
A Secret History— companion—is or is working for the Exultant (pg.
You’re traumatized! Dying was very traumatic! In the XX), who had plans for you in your death; had expected
Troubled Sky we’ll see a lot of flashbacks to your time you, dead, to carry on the toxins it injected into you to
in the Outside—you’ll play them live or just narrate the Bleak Academy; it is disappointed in you that you
them into being. did not fulfill its wishes. You appear to have been a tasty
In the Outside, you met: soul and so you may also see some of the other figures
of this Arc (such as Orderic) follow you into the world.
ŭŭ ...the Exultant, a Cruel Prince who pinioned you Atonement and the Struggle of the Knight give you
with limbs born from nothingness and poisoned a chance to make sense out of your renewed life.
you with horrid toxins or wicked ideas.
ŭŭ Possibly other Cruel Princes:
• ...the owl-headed Rider Orderic Neustry,
who’d take away the lingering remnants of
sense from the Outside and strand you on
landscapes more abstract than surreal.
• ...Ill-Made (pg. XX), or a similarly-de-
signed “Lamia,” who’d torment you with
the knowledge of your own faults.
• ...or a more generalized repre-
sentation of your faults.
ŭŭ Probably the Hero:
Arcs 545
A Scientific Adventure— A Fading Flower (Soon to be Reborn)—
So, being one of the “miracle dead” is... weird. It is not It’s great to be alive again! You’re full of new energy.
what you wanted. You’re not even sure that you’re you. You have great plans and things to do with your
But there’s someone else who is dying of whatever new lease.
you were dying of, before. In Triumph you’re young; strong; fresh; renewed.
So it’s time to figure out what’s going on and whether Unfortunately, someone like you—someone who
you can save them or at least guarantee that they’ll come can return from the dead, apparently—is of interest
back too. You commit to this in Someone’s in Trouble! to Owler (pg. XX) and possibly Impious (pg. XX).
In a short Arc, you’ll probably fail, and they’ll die in This plays out as Sins of the Father. You as one of the
this or the next quest. In a longer Arc, there’s hope. miracle dead have caught their attention.
Either way, you’ll try to understand what’s going on Nor are you alone.
5
with the miracle dead in Walking the Boundaries and You find yourself responsible for someone—
Above the Fray, but actual solutions will have to wait I’d suggest an orphan who refuses to go live with their
for Engineering! grandparents because they’re sure their parents will
come back (just like you did). You take in this scrappy
A Bittersweet Saga— kid—Lisa or Dominic is their name, I’d guess—just to
Often, even after coming back, you’ll spend a lot of get them to accept shelter instead of standing staring
time roaming the near Outside. You might even have a at the shores of Big Lake and to get them to eat some-
favorite place there—an overgrown garden or tire park thing instead of just waiting. You tell them stories of
or something, full of shards of your experience of death. the Outside, and you eventually become a bigger part
It’s Beautiful and Far Away. of the “miracle dead” community, helping to arrange a
And why wouldn’t you? holiday in celebration of your return and the like.
I don’t know if you took your own life or just didn’t But the kid’s caught Owler or Impious’ attention
take care of yourself, but coming back was kind of... too. There’s a daring experiment attempted, something
weird. And when you do look up and pay attention to like “what if I can kill them, send them out after their
what’s going on around you, it’s... parents, and then reel them back in?”
I mean, there are people with wish-granting engines All that stuff is the Sidekick; if you have to
and glass dragon shards in peoples’ heads and lord only chase them out into the lands of death, that’s
knows what. This is So Surreal. Getting involved with Surreal Environments.
the world again:
This is Such a Bad Idea.
But you do.
If you go on to Something Heals, you get used to
living in the world again. If you go on past that to
You’ve Lost Them, there’s a bitter twist, because
someone who wanted to live, someone in love with
life—they die.
And they don’t come back.
Do they?
546 Arcs
. A Desperate Struggle (Soon to A Coming-of-Age Story—
Become an Adventure)— This Arc is about your connection with grief; your
Once you get back it’s important to push forward on wrestling with grief from... kind of the other side. As
your life again. You analyze what’s going on with this someone who wants to be able to grieve, but can’t,
whole “miracle dead” thing. You try to figure out how because it was you who died, and you’re not even dead.
to exploit it to recover things you’ve lost, make people Kind of?
immortal, and whatever. This Arc is probably going to connect you to someone
You don’t really have the faintest idea how, for clarity. who really should be an enemy—
You just... you’re into it, you know? Generally Mourning (pg. XX) or Uridimmu (pg.
This plays out as Let’s Doing! XX)—
And then you overhear it, or find it, or think it up— Except that, for some reason, they’re not. For some
something. A really difficult task, a climb up a meta- reason, they’re drawn to you. They’re friendly. They
Arcs
physical or literal summit, but something that you think find comfort in you, because of what lingers on you of
you can use to make someone you’d lost previously death. They are your “An Unlikely Friendship” for
come back too. this Arc.
That’s Climbing the Sacred Mountain. Your Social Burdens probably comes from the fact
If you don’t know what to do here, I suggest that that your whole family and everyone expects you to be
you’re building an elixir of life or philosopher’s stone celebrating coming back to life, being a miracle, maybe
of some sort, and part of this involves tasting poisons even being this angelic figure, certainly someone worth
and bargaining with a spirit griffon (or, well, a strange showing off to everyone, but seriously, it’s not like that.
lizard-tailed lion-clawed bird, anyhow) that you some- (I don’t know why it’s not like that. You tell me! Or is it
times see in your dreams. one of those nameless teenage angers, where you can’t
The best part, though, is: you win. put words to what’s wrong?)
Maybe you win right there. Or maybe you’re dying Coming to Grips with Death is your trying to
of poison now, or had to promise the spirit griffin both understand it all.
your lives a year from now to get a key part of the If you move on to Action!—
answer, and either way to survive you’ll have to find That might be flashbacks to your escape from death.
a grail or griffin chick hidden somewhere in Fortitude It might have been more heroic than you let on!
and pay it off.
But that’s OK! You can figure this stuff out! That’s
Adventure GET and finally Labyrinth Diving.
An Unplanned Heroic Journey—

The subject of these quests is generally flashbacks and
psychological work—you try to come to terms with
what happened to you during your trip into the Outside.
Most of the quest events come into play as things you
tell people about or are psychological aftereffects.
You’re stuck, in short; you’ll have trouble moving on
until you finish the Belly of the Whale, the Refusal of
the Call, and possibly even the Trials of the Sun.
The events of Apotheosis might involve your moving
past that stuckness, or they might be the final bits of
memory and flashback.
Arcs 547
Death and Life, from the Other Side An Apparently-Doomed Friend or Client?
So, I guess, one of the random people from Town— This plays out as an adventure, Rinley Yatskaya style!
they’re going to die. (pg. XX)
They’re probably not anybody important. They’re Despite your best efforts, you’ll lose them in Down,
not gods or whatever. They’re just a person, and they but they’ll come back either when it ends or at the end
are going to die. And when they die they will dissolve of Climbing the Sacred Mountain.
into the Outside—their self will, anyway; I don’t know
what will happen to their body here. And they will go to Someone who Inspires You?
the Bleak Academy, perhaps, or simply go away; This plays out as a coming-of-age story (pg. XX)
Or that’s how it was supposed to go. You’ll usually meet this person in An Unlikely
This is the story of how you meet them and how you Friendship. You’ll lose them at the end of Your Social
5
lose them. How you search for them, maybe, because Burdens or Action! You’ll tend to get them back at the
you miss them. How you grieve for them. end of Coming to Grips with Death.
And then they come stumbling back.
They held to something in themselves while they A Student or Sidekick?
were out there, and then the light of the sun—not Jasper, This plays out as a “numinous garden” (that is, a
the light of the dead sun. The light of Jade Irinka— magical realist adventure/allegory, pg. XX)
Showed them the way back. The Sidekick probably focuses on this person. You’ll
lose them at some point during Sins of the Father, and
This plays out as an ordinary Arc—one of the Arcs they’ll tend to come back during Triumph. (Though, if
for a Main Character. you’re on an Aspect Arc, they probably come back at
I’m giving you a lot to work with, but there’ll still the end of Sins of the Father instead.)
need to be some prep here—think of this as a toolkit
to design your own Arc with, rather than a finished, Someone Tied to Your Soul?
polished Arc. This plays out as a bittersweet saga (pg. XX)
There’s just too many different ways that this can go! They’re someone you meet outside of reality, or grow
For starters, which Arc you play out isn’t going to close to there—somewhere Beautiful and Far Away.
depend on you; it’s going to depend on who you lose. Later, you realize You’ve Lost Them...
Is it... But they probably make it back at the end of that quest.
Some Kid You Couldn’t Help? Or Was it Somebody You Wanted to Protect?
This is going to play out as a “scientific adventure.” This plays out as a heroic journey (pg. XX).
(pg. XX). You’ll meet them in the first quest. You’ll typically
They’re going to die in Above the Fray, and lose them at the end of the Refusal of the Call. You’ll
come back at the end of either that quest or Walking recover them at the end of the Trials of the Sun.
the Boundaries.
A Mentor or Teacher?
This is going to play out as a “secret history.” (pg. XX).
You’re going to lose them in Encounters in the
Night. They’ll come back at the end of Atonement.
A Mysterious Fascination?
This is going to play out as a “misadventure.” (pg. XX)
You’re going to lose them in Haunted. They’ll come
back in/after Wishing for Healing.
548 Arcs
The Lightless Gates The Course of this Arc
the Second Arc of the Outside Typically there’s an underlying Arc that you’ll come
up with a concept for and run through using a quest set
This is a story of seven wonders. of your choice.
There is a child of the swan people—Setsuna Kaneko, (Well, I mean, among the quest sets that fit the Arc
a moon child, given prophecy at her birth, paled to color you want and that make sense with the concept.)
the color of coffee and cream—and she is given to For instance, you might have an Arc wherein you...
understand that she will die, but first she will see seven ŭŭ ...are drafted to run logistics or accounts or some-
great wonders. thing for a small community or company fitting
Over the course of this Arc six amazing things your character type.
will happen. ŭŭ ...face something genuinely inexplicable: you start
The seventh comes on a day of festival, in honor to the intermittently turning into a car or you’re ran-
Arcs
spirits of the dead, when the Headmaster of the Bleak domly appointed King of the World or whatever.
Academy comes to Town on the back of a dead, grey ŭŭ ...find yourself summoned by some great and blas-
leviathan; and it sings, and all those touched by death phemous creature that claims to have “spawned”
and all the miracle dead hear the argument of death: your character type or family; this summons
likely plays out as Sickness or Vice.
That they have lived, and that may ŭŭ ...get dragged into managing a character-type-rel-
be good and that may be bad; evant holiday.
The flashiness and fire of them, moving figures ŭŭ ...deal with a friend or family member or SO
in the dark, may be good or it may be garish; basically getting appointed as your new opposite
But it is done. number—made the big new evil that you’ll have
It is done. Let go. to defeat/oppose.
ŭŭ ...since/if you made friends with Mourning
earlier, maybe you have to stop his plans to steal
Christmas and introduce him to the holiday?
ŭŭ ...find yourself suddenly in control of a haunted
house, shop, or project fitting your character type.
ŭŭ ...find yourself haunted by a beautiful vision.
ŭŭ ...come up with a world-changing plan that might
be a little goofy.
Over the course of this Arc you’ll pay attention to the
presence of wonders—
Particularly towards the end of an appropriate quest.
When the Issue Kaneko’s Tide peaks, the levia-
than arrives.
Arcs 549
Kaneko’s Tide 1-2
The leviathan approaches...
You’ve met Setsuna Kaneko.
You’ve seen her recently, too.
She will see seven great wonders, and she will die.
It won’t be a pretty death. You can feel it. It won’t
be the kind of end you just come back from.
You don’t want to think about it.
5 Stop.
Kaneko’s Tide 1
You’ve seen a wonder. Maybe it doesn’t count, but

you’ve seen a wonder. A great and marvelous thing.
Did it glimmer in moonlight, slick with surf?

Did it burn like the rising sun? Whatever.
It’s like this gigantic bubble in your mind and heart. It

makes everything else seem unreal. Thinking about it—
It makes you feel unreal.
Kaneko’s Tide 2
550 Arcs
Kaneko’s Tide 3
What is this? What is this feeling?
This... it’s like something is moving beneath the waters of your life. It’s like something is coming. Something
blunt, something awful. Something shining. Something shark.
Sharp. I mean sharp.
It feels good. It feels good that it’s coming. The world is full of wonders. Just... just don’t get eaten. Don’t get
pulled under into these feelings and eaten, dissolved, gone.
You just need to see something more. Another beauty. Another wonder. Just a few more.
Surely?
Kaneko’s Tide 4
Just hit level 4? OK. You think this is it.
Arcs
You think you’ve seen the sixth wonder. You think the world is shifting. A new era is coming.
In the distance you can hear a song.
Tell yourself what you need to do. Tell yourself what has to happen now. Give yourself space to say what’s in
your heart, but don’t worry about getting it “right.” It’s a deep mystery, it’s a rough weird strangeness, but the truth
is, you already know.
You just have to say it. Just give yourself the space and let it out.
Kaneko’s Tide 5
Just hit level 5? OK. You can face this now.
Haha. You must have been wrong, before. Or just... too scared?
Why was that?
Say it. To yourself, at least. Maybe to the group. Say why you didn’t close it out. Say what was wrong, that it
didn’t happen, and what you’ll have to do.
You can feel the tide coming.

You can feel—something moving
under the waters of your life.
Watch for wonders. Watch for great and
numinous things and you may yet survive.
Kaneko’s Tide 3
Arcs 551
You know what has to happen.
You know what you have to do.
And then the seventh wonder comes.
Doing so will close out the Issue
& bring the leviathan to Town &
earn you one bonus XP + MP
5 Kaneko’s Tide 4
You still know what you have

to do, right? Do it now.
The tide must come or the world will drown in life.
Doing this thing will close out the Issue & bring the
leviathan to Town & earn you one bonus XP + MP.
Not doing it—well, there is a cost.
Kaneko’s Tide 5
552 Arcs
The Lifeless World An annoyance. I don’t have time to
the Third Arc of the Outside keep falling into the ghost world!—
This is the beginning of a goofy misadventure (pg. XX).
Since the song of the dead leviathan you have begun to Starting with the quest Haunted, can you find a way
fade in and out of the ghost world. You have begun to to fix this without having to change your way of life?
fall, sometimes, from reality into somewhere that may
be the ghost world or the Far Outside. Something magical, sacred—
It is mostly strange and lonely. But there are a few From here we shall discover the secret history (pg. XX)
creatures there that are hungry and jealous. of the ghost world;
It is intensely shameful and frightening. It is hard to Beginning with Encounters in the Night.
tell anyone. It makes you ashamed to be alive. It makes
you ashamed to be dead. It is like a knife in your head, Something I have to be strong enough to face—
Arcs
twisting, telling you you’re worthless, to even think of This is a scientific adventure (pg. XX).
these episodes. It begins with Above the Fray as you struggle to
Even when others start to slip into there too— find objectivity in the face of the crippling shame these
Others affected by the song; others close to you— experiences provoke.
You do not talk about it outside of it. The alienation
closes in. ... (something you don’t want to talk about)
It’s not until after you find the ghost-kid who is eaten This is a heartwinning, heartrending coming-of-age
by other ghosts every night; until after you’re hunted story (pg. XX).
by the jealous ghosts of Jotun slain by Ivan in the early It begins with A Troubled Protagonist (pg. XX).
days of Town; until after you meet the ghost of someone
important to you; until after you meet Arthur (probably Something achingly beautiful
not the actual King Arthur, but still, a ghost who stands This is a bittersweet saga (pg. XX).
between you and some hunting evil)— Let it begin with the quest “Beautiful and Far Away.”
It isn’t until it all finally all piles up that you realize
you have to break the silence and find help. Death. It’s me fucking dying, OK?
This is an adventure. (pg. XX).
That’s how it goes—or is it? The greatest adventure! ...except, it doesn’t feel that
way, because it’s starting right in at the bumpiest pos-
What is the Song/Calling into the Ghost sible bit:
World Like for You? With the quest, Down.
I didn’t hear it myself—but...

You bind yourself to someone or something who is
falling into the ghost world and learn to follow them
there, so that you may help them through it.
This is a gentle story with magical realism overtones,
beginning with the Sidekick (pg. XX).
Something I fear—
This is a heroic journey into the afterlife, to seize its
treasures for reality—
Beginning with your attempted Refusal of the Call
(pg. XX)
Arcs 553
The Science of Dissolution I don’t know how to calculate whether that’d be
the Fourth Arc of the Outside accurate for Town.
...still, I think we can safely say, there are a lot
There are continents of them—I think. Whole civiliza- of ghosts.
tions, buried in the Outside. So...
In the default game where you don’t contend with What are you going to do?
this issue I’m going to assume there aren’t that many This isn’t OK. Fix this.
of them. But this, here, if you’re on this Arc? If you’re
playing through Fortitude: the Glass-Maker’s How?
Dragon, and you’re strong-souled enough to get
this far? Science!—
5
Continents of them. Whole civilizations. ...why even bother to ask “how?”
In this game I will drop my fervent hope and asser- This is a scientific adventure to do science, starting
tion that this isn’t true and just accept it: with the quest: Science! (pg. XX) As long as you have a
The sun died, and the King of Evil died, and a tide properly “mad scientist” attitude towards it, the judges
rose and swept over all of them, and filled the endless will also accept the answer, “with magic!”
bleak eternity but it also drowned—
I can’t count them. [[SWORD]] If I say I’m going to do it, I’m gonna do it!
Too many. You don’t want to think about it. You want to do it! This
Peoples with a longer history than ours. Children. is an adventure, and it starts with Adventure GET. (pg.
Trees. Life forms you’ve never heard of. Distant worlds. XX)
People with forks on their heads. Tooth-stomach people.
People snazzier and more fashionable than you could I don’t know, but I better figure it out!
ever dream to be. People living their ordinary lives. Because you—and you’re pretty sure this isn’t just you
They didn’t even drown in water. They drowned in... being neurotic—think you left some of yourself out
the loss of detail. there. Or down there. You know. Wherever.
The attenuation of experience. You’re getting concerned about this stuff because
They’re out there living lives like Mondrian paint- you can feel a part of you, far away,
ings. Like the people of a simulated world on a com- Dissolving into noise.
puter that’s begun to rot. This is a misadventure (pg. XX). A rather bleak one. It
Maybe they notice. Some of them certainly notice. starts with you desperately Asserting your Existence.
Maybe, more likely, they can’t.
What are you going to do about it? ...ummm...
You don’t know how. You don’t have a clue. You just...
...heck, you don’t even have to go that far afield. you just feel like you must.
Think of the ghosts. You’ve been seeing their faces at night. Their...
They’re not lost in quite the same way, I mean, the unfaces.
ghost world is colder but far more pleasant than the Their facelessness.
deep Outside—but dying and becoming a ghost still It’s really creeping you out.
seems to involve a slow fading of experience into noth- This is a secret history (pg. XX), and it’ll start with
ingness, and if you don’t become a ghost it’s probably these Encounters in the Night. I suggest the Cruel
even worse. Princes from pg. XX, e.g., Orderic Neustry and the like,
Scientific American tells me113 that about 95% of as suitable enemies for this Arc, and possibly Glass
humanity is already dead. Spider (pg. XX) as well.
113 (in “Fact or Fiction?: Living People Outnumber the Dead,” by

Ciara Curtin, an article, writer, and magazine that ironically prob-
ably won’t be dug out of the Outside until a few years after this point
in the campaign)
554 Arcs
... (you wish you knew)
This is a heartwinning, heartrending coming-of-age
story (pg. XX) about countless trillions of suffering
people and a protagonist who’s completely stuck on
how to even start helping them.
A Troubled Protagonist (pg. XX).
Work. Slow, careful work. Bit by

bit until the world’s made new.
This is a story of “numinous gardens” (pg. XX), begin-
ning with the Story of your Life.
Arcs
...I’ll go out there or down there
and study it until I know.
This is a bittersweet saga (pg. XX), and begins with the
quest Beautiful and Far Away.
I don’t think the ghost world or the deep Outside are
beautiful that way, though. Maybe the ghost world,
sometimes.
I think you might be pushing yourself to believe it
must be.
I don’t know. I only know I

will. I can feel it coming.
This is a heroic journey (pg. XX), and begins with pre-
sentiment of Changes.
Arcs 555
Timeline
[[ LAYOUT NOTE: the timeline needs clock icons There are three ways we can start the game.
as bullets. Can you find such a thing that won’t com- The first option is to start in the modern day. In this
promise IP (wingdings might complicate rights) or do case, I’d like to put the death of the sun seven years
I need to buy these from an artist?]] behind us and compress most of the major events of
This game is usually set around seven years after the your backstories into the past couple of years.
death of Jade Irinka. By Town timekeeping it’s set in The second option is a prologue that plays through
the middle of what Town calls history’s “Tenth Hour:” the characters’ childhoods at a fairly fast clip (50x
[[1 o’clock icon]] The days of legend acceleration, say), starting around age 5. The simplest
[[2 o’clock icon]] Fortitude is founded; the way to do this is to move the timeline around—
human-youkai war; the Lake is sealed. Say, “Oh, the sun died when Chuubo was 3, and the
[[3 o’clock icon]] Humans dwindle but do not ‘present’ is 2009.”
6
die out; Elizaveta reopens the Lake. That way you don’t have to worry about the way the
[[4 o’clock icon]] This and that happens; the setting changes when suddenly Jade Irinka and the first
Celdinar Mayoralty starts and ends; the sun rises. Principal Entropy and such are around in-game.
[[5 o’clock icon]] The Fifth Hour of Town: a The third option is to start play three years before
golden age. the death of the sun and tough all the issues this raises
[[6 o’clock icon]] For the purposes of this out. I’ve given suggestions in the playbooks for all the
campaign, nothing happened here—the Sixth Hour was characters this impacts. A master timeline would look
just a bunch of dull names and faces. something like this:
[[7 o’clock icon]] Again, nothing much hap-
pened—until the Hour ended, and the Headmaster
killed the sun (March 9, 1997).
[[8 o’clock icon]] [[9 o’clock icon]] T h e
Eighth and Ninth Hours ended abruptly with the “Kuji
Calendrical Reform,” apparently correcting for accu-
mulated discrepancies.
[[10 o’clock icon]] The Tenth Hour of Town:
modern day:
ŭŭ The first week of spring, 2004 or

ŭŭ The first week of spring, 2009. (See below.)
558 Timeline
Timeline 1: ???-???
Playing through your Childhoods, ŭŭ Leonardo travels to the Bleak Academy.
with the Sun Dying Early
2004
1997 ŭŭ The default character age is 10.
ŭŭ The default character age is 3. ŭŭ Natalia comes to Town, in direct or indirect
ŭŭ The sun dies, and is reborn. consequence of a wish.
ŭŭ Leonardo de Montreal is in an evil orphanage.
ŭŭ Jasper Irinka is falling.
2004-2005
Timeline
ŭŭ Rinley’s mother Shiori is snatched by a giant bird.
ŭŭ Entropy I dies; Principal Entropy II becomes the ŭŭ The default character age is 10-11.
new King of Evil. ŭŭ The Dream-Witch begins haunting Chuubo.
1999 2006
ŭŭ The default character age is 5. ŭŭ The default character age is 12.
ŭŭ Chuubo builds the Wish-Granting Engine Mk. I. ŭŭ Chuubo completes the Wish-Granting Engine Mk.
ŭŭ Seizhi doesn’t exist yet, but will be retconned as II.
having existed. ŭŭ He shows it to Seizhi, who discovers his
ŭŭ Natalia isn’t in Town yet; her player has own unreality.
various options.
ŭŭ Miramie is an amnesiac ghost girl.
2004
ŭŭ The “present.”
The game begins.
1999-2002
ŭŭ The default character age is 5-8.
ŭŭ Miramie recovers.
ŭŭ Jasper Irinka lands.
2003-2004
ŭŭ Leonardo escapes the evil orphanage for good.
ŭŭ Rinley meets Prince Eduard Fujimoto and begins
coming out of her shell.
ŭŭ Natalia’s heart freezes.
Timeline 559
Timeline 2: 1997
Playing through your Childhoods, ŭŭ The default character age is 8.
with the Sun Dying in Play ŭŭ The sun dies, and is reborn.
ŭŭ Entropy I dies; Principal Entropy II becomes the
new King of Evil.
1992 ŭŭ Jasper Irinka falls out of the sky.
ŭŭ The default character age is 3.
ŭŭ Rinley’s mother Shiori is snatched away by a
giant bird. 1998-1999
ŭŭ Leonardo escapes the evil orphanage for good.
6
1994 ŭŭ Rinley meets Prince Eduard Fujimoto and begins
ŭŭ The default character age is 5. coming out of her shell.
ŭŭ Chuubo builds the Wish-Granting Engine Mk. I. Natalia’s heart, conversely, freezes.
ŭŭ Seizhi doesn’t exist yet, but will be retconned as
having existed.
ŭŭ Leonardo de Montreal is in an evil ???-???
orphanage. ŭŭ Leonardo travels to the Bleak Academy.
ŭŭ Natalia isn’t in Town yet; her player has
various options.
ŭŭ Jasper Irinka occasionally visits Town. 1999
ŭŭ Entropy II is attending School, but he’s ŭŭ The default character age is 10.
pretty different. ŭŭ Natalia comes to Town, in direct or indirect
ŭŭ Miramie is an amnesiac ghost girl. consequence of a wish.
The game begins. 1999-2000

ŭŭ The Dream-Witch begins haunting Chuubo.
????-????
ŭŭ Miramie recovers.
2001
ŭŭ The default character age is 12.
1996 ŭŭ Chuubo completes the Wish-Granting Engine Mk.
ŭŭ The default character age is 7. II.
ŭŭ Leonardo de Montreal meets Jade Irinka. Sensing ŭŭ He shows it to Seizhi, who discovers his
her fate, he begins own unreality.
ŭŭ a futile quest to save her. ŭŭ 2004
ŭŭ The “present.”
560 Timeline
Timeline 3:
Starting in the Modern Day
12 years ago
ŭŭ Rinley’s mother Shiori is snatched away by a
giant bird.
7 years ago114
Timeline
ŭŭ the sun dies and is reborn.
ŭŭ Entropy I dies; Entropy II becomes the new King
of Evil.
3 years ago
ŭŭ Leonardo travels to the Bleak Academy.
12-18 months ago115

ŭŭ Chuubo completes the Wish-Granting Engine Mk.
II.
ŭŭ He shows it to Seizhi, who discovers his
own unreality.
6-12 months ago

ŭŭ Miramie emerges from the Archive.
3-6 months ago

ŭŭ Miramie begins haunting Chuubo.
ŭŭ Seizhi begins dreaming of the death of the sun.
ŭŭ Jasper Irinka lands.
1-6 months ago

ŭŭ Natalia arrives in Town.
1-3 months ago

ŭŭ Leonardo is drawn to Fortitude to investigate.
ŭŭ Rinley saves Prince Eduard Fujimoto and begins
to come out of her shell.
114 The player of the Child of the Sun can move this around if
desired.
115 The player of the Wishing Boy (or Girl) can move this around if
desired.
Timeline 561

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Lifepaths

Come with me to a little town surround-

Come and be... ŭŭ The Child of the Sun, Jasper Irinka, if

ŭŭ The Prodigy, Natalia Koutolika, if you want...

ŭŭ The HG, or “Hollyhock God,” if you want...

By the Docks of Big Lake also talks about the

ŭŭ Quest 1: You’ve always wanted to... Figure 1- Example Wishing Map

Most importantly of all...

ŭŭ Copy, download and print, or open your book to

ŭŭ Gather 5+ tokens to serve as MP, different from

►► ...pointing and gaping speech-

lessly at Nightmares’ Angel.

►► ...bowing gratefully, hand over

fist, to the Child of the Sun.

the Angel of Fortitude.

to comfort the Dream-Witch.

priate for any other PCs.

skills campaign information

in-genre action names

shrine maiden/priest — the vasili

honoring your element

miscellaneous notes and powers wounds health levels

PERMISSION IS GRANTED TO PHOTOCOPY THIS PAGE FOR PERSONAL USE

Unless you want to replace that with some variation,

ŭŭ ...helping fulfill the post-ultimate wishes of

skills campaign information

in-genre action names

shrine maiden/priest — the vasili

honoring your element

miscellaneous notes and powers wounds health levels

PERMISSION IS GRANTED TO PHOTOCOPY THIS PAGE FOR PERSONAL USE

...sorry, Dulcinea! This book is going to assume

1 This is not recommended outside of one-shot games or if you’ve

ŭŭ ...the troubles of the Wishing Boy?

You dreamed once of your death. It wore the face of

skills campaign information

in-genre action names

shrine maiden/priest — the vasili

honoring your element

miscellaneous notes and powers wounds health levels

PERMISSION IS GRANTED TO PHOTOCOPY THIS PAGE FOR PERSONAL USE

might be doing at any given time. ►► ...meeting the other PCs.

3 They can talk! They’re also pretty heroic.

skills campaign information

in-genre action names

shrine maiden/priest — the vasili

honoring your element

miscellaneous notes and powers wounds health levels

PERMISSION IS GRANTED TO PHOTOCOPY THIS PAGE FOR PERSONAL USE

(e.g., breakfast for 10 from an egg).

ŭŭ You’ve learned some weird tricks:

4 by which I actually mean “collection of Perks on your character

ŭŭ Copy, download and print, or open your book to

►► ...bowing gratefully to the Child of the Sun.

►► ...shivering at the weirdness of

the Angel of Fortitude.

to comfort the Dream-Witch.

appropriate for any other PCs.

skills campaign information

in-genre action names