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As we’ve established, I’m trying to write magic items for a dungeon game that all do something unique while also providing generators for GMs to make their own stuff for the game. What I’m realising as I work on this is that I can’t really have both – generators are functionally incapable of creating wholly unique results. It feels unsatisfying, but I’m starting to suspect that my best option is to write small minor abilities (this weapon knows a random Phrase, this weapon sheds light, etc.), and for major abilities to direct GMs to invent something. This then goes together with a bunch of example/sample magic weapons that I write, to show GMs what sort of things these items should do.

As I think about this, I’m wondering if the book that I release these in (or blog post, or web page, or whatever I choose to do) should focus more on the philosophy behind how magic weapons are treated in ADG rather than on simply providing the weapon stats and the generators. And with that in mind, I’ve been thinking about what magic weapons actually are in a dungeon game.

Something I’ve had in mind for a long time is that magic weapons (as opposed to magic items in general) aren’t something that’s easily crafted. Instead, they’re forged through acts of unimaginable violence. The intelligence inside a magic weapon isn’t an embodiment of the weapon itself and isn’t something that was created out of the ether – it’s a remnant of the person who was slain by this weapon when it was simply a mundane item, and the magical abilities the weapon possesses are reflections of the power that person held in life. The result of this is that magic weapons are the rarest form of magic item, and they often have antagonistic relationships with the people who wield them – especially if they’re newly-forged.

This adds a couple of layers to my generator. We need to know who the intelligence was in the past, who killed them, and how long ago that occurred. We probably also need to know why they were killed. We’ll also need to decide what type of weapon they are (right now ADG only has Small, Medium, and Large weapons but maybe for the magic weapons we can get more specific within those categories). It might also be fun to decide how complete or fragmented their memories of their past life are, and what they want to accomplish – do they seek revenge, or redemption, or peace, etc. Perhaps we should also decide whether their killer is still alive, and whether the weapon is aware of this or not. I’m also thinking about my game Go Alone, which asks you to roleplay a sentient weapon and reflect on what it means to be used as a tool for violence, and I’m wondering how much of that I can bring into this. I like the idea of determining how many previous bearers the weapon has had, and how hey feel about being used for violence. Finally, we should also decide whether the weapon is able to grow or diminish in power over time.

With that in mind, I’ve taken a run at some more tables for this generator. Here’s the one we ended up with last time, for reference:

And here are the new ones:

I feel like there’s enough here to generate a fairly complex, unique intelligence, and for the GM to know what drives it and how to roleplay it. The only thing I’m missing now is “what do the powers actually look like?”

My instinct is that minor abilities should be drawn from a random table – things like “knows a random Ritual”, “functions as an additional Scar”, etc. Small, rules-based tweaks that are essentially the a dungeon game equivalent of a +1 style bonus. Major abilities should be left up to the GM to create, with a few (maybe 10?) pre-written example weapons to consult for ideas.

So my next step is to go away and write those minor abilities and to create some example weapons. In the mean time, I’d love to hear any thoughts you have about this!

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Last time I talked about my aims for magic weapons in a dungeon game. To quickly recap:

1. All (or most) magic weapons should be intelligent.
2. All magic weapons should have at least one unique ability that “breaks” the game rules in some way.
3. The GM should have tools to easily create new magic weapons for their game.

It’s no secret that I’ve drawn on 2nd Edition AD&D a lot in writing a dungeon game. This has largely been in the way I balance the game – my experience thresholds and treasure quantities all use the numbers in 2nd Edition as their base, and some my monster stats are at least partially derived from it. None of it is an exact copy, but why reinvent the wheel?

With that in mind, I thought it was worth looking at AD&D’s magic sword generators for inspiration. Both the first and second editions of AD&D have fairly extensive tables for generating intelligent weapons. For the rest of this post I’ll be referring to the original version of the 2nd edition Dungeon Master Guide, not the Revised edition, so if you want to follow along your page numbers may not match, but generally this stuff is found in the appendices (I believe it’s Appendix 3 in the Revised edition, as in the edition I’m using).

This procedure starts on page 186 with table 113: Weapon Intelligence and Capabilities, which lets us determine the weapon’s intelligence, method of communication, and its capabilities. It looks like this:

• ± The weapon can also read languages/maps of any nonmagical type.
• ±± The weapon can read languages as well as magical writings.
• ±±± The weapon can use either communication mode at will, with language use as any speaking weapon.

Before I go any further in this process I can already see that this can be fairly easily adapted to a dungeon game. I will need to adjust the percentages to account for the fact that the game only uses d6 and d20, but otherwise I can more or less copy this.

When I’m writing for a dungeon game I often run into tension between my desire for the game to be fast and “rules light”, and my love of crunchy trad games with lots of cool bits to play around with. This is something that pops up most often when it comes to monsters. When I write for Pathfinder 2 I love making monsters and coming up with cool things that they can do, and I find a lot of satisfaction in putting together a complex stat block that has a set of abilities that work well together and make the monster feel unique. With a dungeon game I’m always tempted to go too far with monsters when really I want the majority of them to do just one cool thing, and I’m feeling that same urge when it comes to these weapons. For that reason – and because I’m still struggling to see how I’m going to “tool-ify” this process – I don’t know if I want quite so many results that grant 3 primary abilities here.

Here’s what my first run at this table looks like for a dungeon game.

Rather than rolling percentile dice, we simply generate the weapon’s Cunning and derive the rest of its attributes from that. Player Character Cunning is in the 3-18 range, and this only gives us magic weapon intelligence up to 12, which sort of works but also sort of doesn’t. Highly intelligent weapons are fun and introduce a new dynamic into play, and I’m robbing myself of that here. Let’s expand this out to 3d6 and see how it looks.

(You’ll notice I’ve also played around with the communication methods here. That’s just adjusting things to my own personal tastes, and there’s no real reasoning behind these choices other than that it felt right.)

On this second run at it I’ve introduced the concept of Major and Minor abilities. I still don’t know exactly how I’m going to generate these, but I feel like we get a good variety of weapons from this table.

Going back to AD&D, the next set of tables generate:

• Weapon alignment
• Weapon primary abilities
• Weapon extraordinary powers
• Special purpose & special purpose power
• Languages spoken by the weapon
• Weapon ego

Weapon ego (and from that, its derived personality score) makes for some interesting outcomes but it’s also a bit of a pain to work out and keep track of, and I’m not sure it achieves much that isn’t achieved by the weapon having a Cunning score that’s used as the basis for saves. That said, the constant shifting of player character personality scores (which you have to work out once a character begins wielding an intelligent weapon) makes for some interesting outcomes as the weapon’s intelligence takes advantage of moments of weakness. I’ll have to think about whether this is something I want to codify into the rules of a dungeon game or whether this is something that can be dealt with simply through GM advice.

What I’m really interested in here are the powers that AD&D grants to magic weapons. Here’s table 115: Weapon Primary Abilities

And Table 116: Weapon Extraordinary Powers:

The immediate thing that I notice about this abilities is that they’re really boring. If I wanted to replicate this I could simply say that every magic weapon knows X amount of Rituals and have GMs roll for them. That’s not a terrible idea for a minor ability, but I want my weapons to be actually interesting.

For now I don’t have an answer, and so I’m just going to think about it a little more. I like the base table, though, and I think it’s a good starting point. All that remains to be done is to figure out how to draw the rest of the owl.

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I feel like I’ve been trying to “solve” magic items in a dungeon game for years – because I have. I’ve been thinking about how they’re going to work for literal years and still haven’t quite got there.

Actually writing the weapons isn’t the hard part. I know exactly what I want them to do. They’re all intelligent, and they all have at least one cool thing that they do. They sort of function in the same way as monsters in that regard, where each of them has a way in which they break the rules of the game.

Designing them is fairly straightforward, but where things get tricky is in giving GMs the means to design their own. A core design principle I try to upload when I work on stuff for a dungeon game is that I would rather provide tools to allow you to expand the game and build your own things that work with it, rather than just slapping down a book containing a bunch of magic weapons that you may or may not ever actually utilise.

Of course, Little Miss Scope Creep is always present in my mind, saying “but you could write a book of magic weapons and write the tools to allow GMs to make their own”. And this is why we still don’t have a magic weapons book or creation system for the game, because I want to do both and can’t figure out how to.

So what’s the difficulty? The difficulty comes from figuring out what the generation tools for these things should look like and how they should work. If I’m going to write a tool to create things for the game, I want it to be the same tool that I use to create things for the game. I very firmly don’t want magic weapons that confer the equivalent of a +1 bonus, because that’s boring. They should all do something unique. But it’s very hard to write tables that generate unique effects that are also re-usable. You either end up exhausting the utility of the tables – i.e. you see all of the “unique” things, and thus no longer get unique results – or else there’s a point on the table that instructs you to now draw the rest of the fucking owl.

There are a couple of already-extant magic weapons in a dungeon game, hidden inside The Moss Mother’s Maze. The game has evolved slightly since that adventure was written and I’m taking a more structured approach to stocking dungeons with treasure, but those items still reflect my main philosophy that magic weapons should be cool and unique. Here’s what they look like.

Hadratha

Magic longsword. (Medium melee weapon).

When you roll damage you can Exert 1 point of Cunning to add an additional damage die. You can do this as many times as you like on each attack, provided you have the Cunning to pay.

Sacrificing Cunning strengthens Hadratha, with the following effects.

Hadratha Given Flesh
HD 6 AC 7
Deals damage directly to Cunning.
Can choose for her attacks to hit without making an attack roll. She can do this up to 12 times, after which point she loses this ability forever.

Cursed Spear

Large melee weapon.

While you wield it you can’t be killed by violence.

Curse: The Moss Mother always know the location of the spear. When it is removed from this chamber the GM rolls 1d20 secretly. This is the current location of the Moss Mother. Do not roll for encounters again. Each Turn she moves one room closer to the spear, taking the most direct route. Her approach can be heard throughout the maze.

These really occupy two extremes. Hadratha has intelligence and a fairly complex set of abilities. The cursed spear has a simple ability, and a curse that only really has meaning within the dungeon in which it’s discovered. The question now is, how do I construct tools that yield results that fall somewhere within this spectrum of magic weapons?

I’m not sure what the answer to that question is, and I don’t think I’m going to solve that problem today. This post is really just me coming back to touch the issue again, with a view to finally cracking this nut. I’d love to hear thoughts about how to approach this, though, should you have any.

It’s funny how creativity never moves in a straight line. For me it seems to come in phases, shifting constantly not just between individual projects but across entire mediums. One month I’m deep into writing fiction, the next all I can think about is music, and then without warning I’m back into game design. It’s like my brain refuses to follow a single path, darting between different creative expressions depending on some internal tide that I’ve never quite managed to predict.

That restlessness is present even within a single medium. In games specifically, I’ve spent the last few years immersed in traditional fantasy adventures and dungeon design. But this year I’ve suddenly found myself returning to a form I stepped away from years ago and once again becoming interested in solo journaling games.

There’s something uniquely intimate about creating a game meant for one person and their thoughts. When I wrote my first journalling games I was fascinated by the quiet conversation between player, page, and prompts. It’s like leaving notes for strangers to find, never knowing what stories they might tell in response. Working on ‘Blood In The Margins’ has been a process of both familiarity and discovery, like revisiting your childhood home to find that everything seems smaller, but the rooms somehow contain new corners you’ve never noticed before. (Incidentally my partner and I did visit my childhood home a few weeks ago. That was a very surreal experience.)

Creative evolution isn’t always about moving forward into uncharted territory. Sometimes – often, in fact – it’s about returning to old haunts with new eyes, about looking at what you’ve done in the past and bringing the experience of the new, present you to bear on it. The Wretched, like many solo games, contains prompts that are relatively lose. Blood In The Margins is a creature of specificity and focus. You can still tell the story you want to tell, but the sandbox is smaller, the toys within it crafted with more care. This is what I’ve learned from writing dungeon games; that the specific and the concrete are the tools the imagination needs to create something truly surprising of its own. We never truly abandon our past creative selves. We just fold them into who we’re becoming.

Projects & Updates

• Blood In The Margins is in its final 24 hours, and closing in on £8,000. I released a big preview of the game to backers a couple of days ago that will let you play through the opening Act. You should go and play it.
• The final PDF of Down In Yongardy is now available. All that remains now is for the physical book to be produced, which Space Penguin Ink are kindly handling for me.
• Weird Hope Engines was a rousing success. The team behind the show did an amazing job of bringing Directive 92A to life in the physical space, and it was an incredible experience getting to see people actually play it and to read what they were creating. The show runs until the 10th of May and I hope you’ll get a chance to see it. I’m working on a website to archive all of the writing people are doing when it’s over, and I’ll say more about that when it’s ready.
• Speaking of Directive 92A, I wrote nearly 2 hours of weird ambient soundscapes and glitched-out beats to go with it. It’s on Bandcamp for a fiver.
• I’ve been enjoying writing fiction again, and I have two stories published on my itch page. ‘The Knight of Rot‘ is a short, sad grimdark tale set in the world of Mörk Borg. ‘The Interview‘ is a slice of dark academic murder fiction. They’re both free to read, and you can get a limited edition physical chapbook of The Interview as an add-on with Blood In The Margins.

Things I’ve Been Enjoying

• Listening: I’ve been in an ambient and electronic mood of late, and in particular I’ve been really enoying Throwing Snow’s 2016 album ‘Axioms’. Here’s my March playlist.
• Watching: I’ve been going through a Hitchcock phase and finally convinced Steph to watch Rope (1948). It’s still incredible.
• Reading: I’m about halfway through I Want To Go Home But I’m Already There by Róisín Lanigan and I adore it. It’s funny, it’s well-written, it resonates on a very personal level, and there’s this slow creeping horror that’s starting to mount. I can’t wait to see where it goes.

As always, here’s a photo of Lucky. He’s enjoying the fact that the sun is out again, though my asthma isn’t enjoying my house being covered in his fur.#

All this month, to celebrate the 5th anniversary of The Wretched and to mark the release of my new Wretched & Alone game [Blood In The Margins](https://www.backerkit.com/c/projects/loot-the-room/i-villain/launch_party), I’m playing through a Wretched & Alone game every day here on the blog. You can find all of the posts in this series on the [Wretched & Alone tag](https://loottheroom.uk/category/blog/wretched-alone).

Today I’m playing a game I’ve heard a lot about but have never got around to actually looking at, and that was recommended by multiple people when I announced I was doing these posts. That game is Long Haul 1983 by Sean Patrick Cain. 

The book tells us that we’re about to play a game about “a dangerous journey through an empty world”. The introductory text immediately deviates from ‘base’ Wretched & Alone, telling us that we need a copy of the Player Sheet in order to play this game. It also uses Fudge/Fate dice, which I don’t own but which I found a handy online dice roller for. This is immediately interesting to me as a diversion from W&A, because one of the things I was thinking about was making use of things most people who play games would have at home – meaning a deck of cards, 2d6, and a Jenga tower. I assumed, wrongly, that most people have a Jenga tower. I’m now wondering whether I’m in the minority of gamers that don’t own Fudge dice. (This isn’t a criticism of Long Haul 1983 in any way, to be clear. I’m fascinated to see how the game uses these dice.)

As with The Wretched, we need something to record our voice. I love seeing W&A games that lean into this aspect of the system. Since this is a blog series, though, I’m going to be journaling through text rather than audio, as with the other entries in this series. The game also suggests listening to a soundtrack while you play, and there’s a link to the playlist for both Spotify and Apple music. The first 13 tracks are connected to specific cards, which is very interesting. The final 13 tracks are an ambient soundtrack to listen to as you set up and play.

The game opens with some evocative text:

It’s 1983, and the world feels hollowed out. Yesterday: Sirens cluttering the highways. CB chatter about a jetliner disappearance. Rumours of a plague. Today: Radio silence. Fires on the horizon. Desolation.

I’m in the cab of an aging semi-truck that I own and operate. I catch myself in the rearview mirror and see a black eye, a graying beard, and a faded neck tattoo. Yesterday I finished a run, ate a meal, and slept. 

I was awake for an hour this morning before I noticed everyone was gone. I think to myself, this must be paradise. But I’m so far away from where I need to be, where I might be needed. Someone who doesn’t like to be kept waiting is now waiting for me. So I hit the road.

My thoughts are cloudy, and a song keeps rattling around in my head.

This may be the last time

Maybe my last time

I don’t know

I start the engine. It’s 1983, and I need to find a phone.

(I really love this introduction to the game. Something I’ve been throwing around with Blood In The Margins is working out how to do pre-prompt character creation, to really let you make the game your own. I’ve settled on something like PbTA/BoB pick-lists and have been playing with multiple ways of presenting them to the player. Long Haul 1983 has already solved that problem. I’m definitely going to take some cues from this.)

The game now asks me to list eight environments on my Player Sheet in any order that makes sense to me. I’ve chosen this order:

• Dust
• Fog
• Heat
• Rain
• Flood
• Snow
• Ice
• Wind

The first location – Dust – is marked, and is where I will begin. The final location is my destination, and if I reach it the game ends. The destination represents a very specific person in a very distant place. I’m to define the relationship, being specific and giving them a name.

I’m trying to reach Nell, who I owe money to. They bailed me out for my gambling debts, and I’ve promised to pay them back. My deadline was yesterday, and I haven’t made it to them yet. This is not a good thing.

I’m going to drive all day to get there, until I can’t. But I’m carrying a wound – a minor one, but one that will get worse if not treated. I’m busted up, because I’ve picked up even more debt in the interim, and two days ago they came to collect. I’ve got a broken rib that’s poking into my lung, and it could perforate it at any minute.

And there’s an external threat, too. I don’t know exactly what it is yet, but I think it’s going to manifest as another truck on the road, one that’s going to chase me down again and again and again. The Threat has four spots on the Player Sheet, and when they’re all marked down, the Threat overtakes me and the game ends.

(This is an interesting twist on W&A. I’m used to these games telling a very specific story. This one is giving us a very specific framing, but leaving the details of the story up to the player in a way that’s much more open than W&A. I think that’s an interesting juxtaposition to what I’m trying to do with Blood In The Margins, which is to focus the story even more while still leaving room for the player to make it their own.)

I have three Stats: Body, Mind, and Rig. Body represents my physical health and strength. Mind represents my spirit, hope, and clarity. Rig represents the condition of my truck. I start with four dice with which to make rolls, and each time I fail a roll (failure occurring when the sum of the dice is negative) I remove a die from the game. This makes success increasingly difficult to achieve. When the last die is gone, the game ends.

Right at the start of play, I’m told to advance a stat. This means crossing out one of the three boxes it takes up on the Player Sheet, making success easier. I’m going to pick Rig. My mind and body have taken a beating, but my truck is solid.

At the end of each in-game day, I make a phone call to Nell. It’s time to make the first call.

Call 1

Hi Nell. I just finished a job, my last job before I make it to you. I had to get this done to refuel the rig. You know how it is. I don’t know what I was hauling. Some guys in balaclavas loaded me up, told me not to open the back until I got to the drop point, and then some other guys unloaded and threw the cash at me. Real dodgy shit, but I’ll take what I can get, and it all went okay as far as I can tell. I’m still here, anyway.

It’s dust as hell today. I keep having to stop to wipe the windscreen, it gets clogged up with all this grey shit. Trying to use the wipers just smears it all over the place so that I can’t see anything.

I’m going to drive until I’m falling asleep at the wheel, every day. I’ll stick to the highways and only stop when I absolutely have to. When I woke up this morning the roads were empty. I hope it stays that way.

I checked over the rig this morning before I made this call. It’s looking good. The one thing I’ve always been able to look after is this truck, you know that. If I don’t make it to you – which I will, don’t get me wrong – it won’t be her fault. There was another truck at the drop site that pulled out right after me, seemed to tail me for a while. That thing looked like it was rusted through. I’m glad I’m not driving it.

I need you to believe how serious I am. I’m going to make it to you, and I’m going to pay you what I owe you and then some. I’m done dropping the ball. I promise.

I need to hit the road. I’ll call again when I stop.

Call 2

Cards: 2 of Diamonds, King of Spades, 5 of Diamonds

Hey Nell. Despite the dust the engine started first try after I got off the phone to you. I told you she was the best rig on the road, and I meant it. 

I’ve been thinking about us. About how much you did for me. Do you remember the first time I had to come and ask you for money? I’d been so worried for months, taking out loan after loan, stealing and borrowing and just digging myself deeper into a hole. I don’t know if you know what it’s like, to feel like you’re constantly going backwards. Every time there’s a glimmer of light something spits up and smothers you again.

You were so gracious, that first time. No questions asked other than, “how much do you need?” And by the end of the week it was all gone, and I was exactly where I’d started, except this time I didn’t feel like I had you to bail me out. You were my last resort, and I’d used you up. I thought that was the lowest I could ever feel.

I stopped as night was falling, at this old petrol station. There’s still fuel and the pumps aren’t locked so I managed to fill the rig up. The shop itself is dark, all the lights off, doors locked. I can see myself in the black glass of the windows, barely a shadow, but I’m there. 

I haven’t seen anyone all day. Nothing on the road, no people, not even any animals. But…

There’s a truck pulling up. I can see it in the reflection in the glass. All the lights are off and the engine isn’t running, I think it must have coasted in. I think it’s the same rig that was there at the last drop. Has it followed me? What’s…

I think I’m going to hang up now. Gonna lock myself in the cab and see what happens. I’ll call again tomorrow.

Call 3

Cards: 7 of clubs, King of Hearts, 8 of Clubs

Failed Mind roll.

Well, the dust has gone. It’s foggy as hell. Has been all day. I’ve had the fog lights blaring and I can barely see the road. And the roads here are rough, like someone has started tearing up the surface. The rig has been bouncing around, I thought it was going to tip over at one point, and I had to slow to a crawl. So I haven’t made much progress, because I’ve had to drive slow. But some progress is better than none, right?

Every now and then I see lights behind me, hear the muted roar of an engine through the fog. That other truck is definitely following me. I’ve got half a mind to stop, to get out and flag it down and ask what the hell is going on, but something stops me. I think it’s the fact that I’m all alone out here aside from whoever is driving it. I don’t want to see who it is. I can’t explain why, just that it feels like an almost primal urge to not know. Does that make sense?

I’ve been sleeping on the old mattress above the cab. I remember when I first started driving long haul I thought this was cosy. Comfortable. All tucked up safe and warm and tight. Now it feels like a coffin, like I’m waiting to be buried alive. And all I can think about as I fall asleep is that other truck, and how I can’t see anything while I’m in this bed.

I’m going again. I don’t like being in the bed, but I like being out of the rig even less.

Call 4

Cards: 5 of Clubs, Queen of Hearts, 8 of Spades

Well, the fog has gone, burned off by some real unseasonal heat. “Unseasonal” probably doesn’t sell it. It’s hot as hell, and the rig doesn’t like it. The road has been climbing all day, and the rig has been screaming at me. The temperature has been in the red for hours, and there was steam and smoke pissing out of her for a while there. I think she’s okay, nothing is broken, but I’m going to need to take it easier if this heat doesn’t let up soon.

Luckily after the climb the road dropped back down again and I could coast for a few miles. And with the fog gone I could see from horizon to horizon, and that other rig was nowhere to be seen. I can’t tell if they’re following me – chasing me? That sound paranoid – or if we’re just headed in the same direction and I’m being paranoid. The fog didn’t help with that, it made everything feel close and claustrophobic. I’m glad it’s gone. But realistically they haven’t approached me, haven’t done anything to me, so maybe I’m overthinking. But something doesn’t feel right about it. I’m glad they’re not in my glass anymore.

As I pulled in tonight to make this call I could see fires on the horizon. I don’t know what they are – is it a city, or is it forest or brush? It’s hot enough for it to be forest fire season. I guess I’ll find out tomorrow.

And I guess you will, too. When I call. And I promise I’ll keep calling, until you answer or until I get there.

Call 5

Cards: Ace of Hearts, Jack of Spades, 4 of Hearts, 6 of Spades

Hey Nell. Another call, as I promised. I wish you’d pick up.

This garage is a bit nicer than the others. It’s new, one of those ones with loads of shops and restaurants and fancy toilets that people actually clean. And it’s all lit up, lights blazing, neon flashing, out here in the middle of nowhere. I wonder how long it will be before stuff starts to fail?

Anyway I found a first aid kit. My rib hasn’t been giving me too much trouble really, which I’m happy about, but I’ve managed to bandage it now. Hopefully that’ll hold it. I don’t really know what else you can do for a broken rib other than wait and try not to sneeze, you know? We’ll see. 

And I found some painkillers, too, which I’ve dosed myself up with even though I probably shouldn’t be driving under the influence of them. There’s nobody else on the road, though, so who cares? I can feel my mind is a little duller, a little slower to react, which I guess is why you’re not meant to operate heavy machinery on them. But weirdly I feel like I can see for miles, like everything is clearer than it was before.

And that’s a good thing, because it’s raining. It’s not too heavy but visibility is down for sure. I was going to drive through the night but I don’t think I will, now.

Did I mention the fancy service station I’m at? I can’t remember, these pills have hit my short term memory hard. I thought I knew all the stops on the way to you but I don’t recognise this one. Maybe it’s been built new since I was last down here, but I get the feeling that I’ve gone wrong somehow. I don’t know how, really, since this is a pretty straight run to get to you, but maybe I missed a turning. I’m going to go back in when I hang up and see if there’s a road atlas to be had.

There’s a big billboard here, all lit up in the night, an ad for that movie The Slumber Party Massacre. Do you remember going to see that with Amber? How the two of you couldn’t look at the screen, kept hiding behind each other’s hands? That was a fun time. I miss when things were easy like that.

Anyway. I’m going to go and find an atlas. Speak soon.

Call 6

Cards: Jack of Hearts, King of Hearts, 2 of Clubs

Failed Body roll.

Well, the rain didn’t let up. If anything it got worse. And if I thought I was turned around before, well… I’m not lost but I don’t know where exactly I am, you know? I was meant to drive through an underpass but it’s flooded, so I’ve had to find a way around and I’m in this warren of city streets filled with abandoned cars. It’s slow going. But as long as I keep heading east I’ll come out the other side and then I’ll get reoriented.

I thought I needed to worry about my rib, but actually I think it’s my lip I should have been keeping an eye on. It’s all swollen and sore this morning, and there’s this stinky yellow pus coming out of it. It’s fucking horrible, if I’m being honest. I checked the first aid stuff I swiped but there are no antibiotics or anything. If I drive past a pharmacy then I’ll stop and get some.

The good news is, between the infection and the painkillers I’m not really hungry, so it doesn’t matter too much that my food is running low. Let’s look on the bright side of potential starvation, shall we?

This is me just stalling, because there’s something I need you to know. You know how I was talking about how I maybe was too worried about that truck, about how it probably wasn’t actually following me, was just going the same way? Well whoever it is is following me, and they’re after me. Right before the underpass I heard their engines behind me and before I knew it they were ramming me, trying to slide the wagon to the side and tip me. And I don’t know what they’re pulling but they’re heavy, I could feel their weight in the impact.

I managed to get away but I bust my nose up pretty bad on the steering wheel when they first hit, and breathing through my nose is a bitch. Breathing in general is hard, if I’m being honest. My rib really didn’t like that impact, and I definitely felt something in there move. But at least I’ve got the painkillers, for now. And the truck has disappeared. Hopefully I’ll make it out of this city before they show up again.

I hope you answer the phone soon.

Call 7

Cards: 3 of Hearts, Queen of Hearts, 3 of Spades

I made it out of the city. Right there on the road out of town there was a deer, just lying in the street, one of its legs broken. It looked up at me as I was bearing down on it, before I stopped, and its eyes seemed to be begging me to end it all. How weird is that? The first animal I’ve seen since this all started and I felt like it wanted me to kill it.

I figured the other truck might be coming through here after me and might not stop like I did, so I moved it off the road. It wasn’t easy. They’re heavy enough when they’re dead, let alone when they’re alive and in pain and don’t want you to touch them. But it was placid enough, and I got it over onto the verge without too much problem.

Maybe I should have put it out of its misery. That felt wrong, though. Like a portent of bad things to come. I don’t want to fuck with fate.

After I left the deer I drove for a few miles, out into the country away from the city. I think I know where I’m going again now.

There was a car on the side of the road and as I passed it I could hear music coming out of it. I stopped, against all my better instincts, hopped out to take a look. There was a boombox just sitting on top of it, blaring out some song I don’t know. But the lyrics were weirdly fitting, talking about waiting by the phone waiting for you to call, wondering if I’ll see you again. Maybe this was a portent, a sign that I’m on the right track? Or maybe it’s a sign that all of this is in vain, that you’re not answering because you can’t answer. I don’t know what to think. Do I even believe in signs?

I’m standing here in this phone box now, the only light for miles around shining down directly on me, and I can feel the road vibrating under my feet. Something big is coming, and I’m positive I know what it is. I think it’s got eighteen wheels and wants me dead. So I’m going to go.

Speak soon.

Call 8

Cards: King of Clubs. Game over.

Nell, answer the fucking phone I’m begging you. I don’t know who this maniac is but he’s got your picture, he’s been following me to get to you. What are you involved in? If you’re there you need to get out, you need to go now, before it’s-

Call ends.

—

I really enjoyed this. It does some super interesting things with W&A, and introduces more “gamic” elements to the system in a way that’s really satisfying. I particularly like seeing the dice pool deplete and knowing that rolls are going to get harder. 

Something I thought was a nice touch was giving you a uniform number of cards to draw each day, and telling you that you can draw more if you want but that you don’t have to. In playing the older W&A games I’ve quickly realised that being asked to draw 5 or 6 cards is simply too much, and this neatly solves that problem. It’s something I’ve been working on for Blood In The Margins and I think it’s fair to say that I’ve been massively overcomplicating things when I could just say “draw three cards, or more if you want” as SPC does here.

This one was new to me, and I definitely recommend it. You can pick it up here, and don’t forget to go and follow Blood In The Margins on Backerkit!