A strange ritual, pt 3: Designing a collaborative “murderboard” mini-game

Written By Jason Robinson

This post is part 3 of 5 in the series A strange ritual: summoning immersion at the table.

In designing this game, I wanted to bring a very particular Cultist Simulator experience to the gaming table: that moment when you finally make some tenuous connection among the scraps of esoteric knowledge you’ve been gathering and think just perhaps you as an Aspirant have taken a deeper step into a knowledge of a hidden world.

With this goal in mind, I injected a CS-inspired in-character collaborative “murderboard” mini-game into my introduction to The Lady Afterwards.

Design Goals

  • Provide players with foundational understandings about the Secret Histories lore

  • Avoid doing this by telling them a bunch of stuff — set them up to make these connections themselves

  • Reinforce the narrative tone (including some of the lovely prose, verbatim) of the existing games

  • Create an opportunity for players to explore their characters before proper gameplay begins

Secret Histories 101

At some point while brainstorming for the game, I had scribbled a (very rough) list of knowledge I wanted to (somehow) impart to players as a GM during onboarding. These are all elements I deemed helpful to players trying to investigate TLA’s mysteries while ALSO piecing together the world lore.

(To be clear, I don’t believe this is necessary for players to enjoy the game. It just addresses the way in which I knew I wanted to run TLA with this (savvy!) group of players: with a strong “Consulting Detective” style focus on players using their human brains to make connections and solve mysteries.)

Transcript:

  • It is possible to ascend to Long

  • Lantern Long = Fulgent

  • Forge Long = Candescent

  • Hierarchy:

    • Hours

    • Names

    • Long

    • Know

    • Humans

  • Humans & Know are mortal

I later formalized this into a complete list which I used to guide my design work.

Mostly these truths are intended to clue players in to the KINDS OF THINGS THEY MIGHT EXPECT TO FIND in this world, without yet telling them WHERE TO LOOK or WHAT THEY MIGHT MEAN.

I didn’t figure the players would make all of these connections — but I knew that whichever they did make themselves would feel meaningful and would guide their interests during play.

(Spoilers for Secret Histories and The Lady Afterwards respectively, un-accordion at your own risk.)

    • MMORTAL BEINGS exist. THE HOURS seem to be highest among them, but there is a hierarchy below them. Some are known; others can be discovered.

    • ASCENSION from mortality to immortality is possible. Ascension can cause physical transformation.

    • CULTS exist: groups of followers seeking mysteries and trying to ascend or otherwise gain power. Sometimes this happens by summoning powerful beings.

    • ASPECTS exist, including FORGE and LANTERN. Others can be discovered. These are in some way key to understanding the Invisible Arts.

    • THE MANSUS houses (most of) the Hours. There are other occult places to be discovered, and other pathways from the WAKE to the Mansus.

    • FORGE and LANTERN are two of the Aspects; they have a distinct connection to Alexandria and the Lighthouse. Forge Cultists have a particular presence in Alexandria.

    • DREAMS can be a conduit between the seen and unseen worlds. Things can be done to influence the effectiveness of dreams for this purpose.

    • FULGENTS are a thing. They have something to do with dreams.

    • There is a POWERFUL BEING connected with Alexandria. (Perhaps it’s possible to summon her?) Part of her name is… ???

    • ALUKITES exist, and seem bad. They may look like humans.

    • THE CRIME OF THE SKY exists, and seems bad.

    • There are liminal places in the Wake. One of them, the INVISIBLE SERAPEUM, is located in Alexandria.

    • Moishe’s studies at YESHIVA TIGRIS are connected with Preservation and the four traditions of the Bei Ilai.

    • MORGEN (Mme. Matutine) exists, and seems powerful, and has something to do with flutes, and the sea.

“Occult Scraps”

Red-string corkboards require occult scraps to string together!

From these notes, I created a clear list of “occult scraps” I wanted to create, along with the specific player I wanted to assign them to, based on their character’s personality and occult interests. (As part of character creation, I asked each player to select one of the nine Wisdoms as the inkling that led them to occult study.

Importantly, there is almost nothing useful to be gained by studying the props given to any single player. However, when shared in collaboration, they are connected by an intentional web of repeated words, symbols, and patterns that can help the players to draw connections.

The notes won’t make a lot of sense to you, but they helped me start forming an idea about the specific props I wanted to create. (I will detail the individual scraps at the end of this post.)

  1. Alukite warning: Alukites are a (bad) thing. (Dancer / Horomachistry)

  2. List of Hours: Hours exist, there’s a list. Some have ascended from men. (Dancer / Horomachistry)

  3. Moldywarp pattern: Moldywarp - Bosk - Burn it/Bury it. (Dancer / Horomachistry)

  4. Black & White: Something about Colorlessness. (Dancer / Horomachistry)

  5. Notes on Dreams: Fulgents exist / thoughts and Fulgents can travel. (Aspirant / Nyctodromy)

  6. Steps of Ascension: Ascension is possible. Hours are highest. (Aspirant / Nyctodromy)

  7. Watchman’s Tree: There are 9 sacred places. One is in Alexandria. One is in Georgia. (Aspirant / Nyctodromy)

  8. Rough map of Mansus: Areas & Doors. (Aspirant / Nyctodromy)

  9. ESKHA fragment: ESKHA is part of a word or name. (BYT / Bosk)

  10. Four Traditions: Bei Ilai, found in Georgia. (BYT / Preservation)

  11. Something about Morgen: Morgen is an Alukite from beyond the sea (BYT / Birdsong)

  12. List of Wisdoms: Wisdoms + Map. (BYT / Arts Unregarded)

  13. Beacon Card: Lighthouse = Forge + Lantern; curséd. Crime of the Sky. (Exile / Ithastry)

  14. Blood Analysis: Forge ascension = Copper blood. (Exile / Ithastry)

  15. Lady of Veils: Is patron of Alexandria, can be summoned. Is maybe ESKHA. (Exile / Ithastry)

  16. Aspects: Incomplete list. (Exile / Ithastry)

All Aboard!

The Lady Afterwards Game Runner’s Guide kicks things off with instructions for an utterly brilliant montage sequence to get players in the mood. Music plays, and players take turns reading paragraphs from an in-character handwritten letter that kicks the adventure off. Interspersed among them are a series of evocative sights and sounds for the GM to describe, detailing the players’ journey from London eastward across the continent and south to Alexandria:

When players finish reading paragraph one, they're in Paris.

• Full of socialists, communists, bookshops, gaunt artists, bicycles, coffee

• First-class passengers find ribbon-tied boxes of Carette macar

While serving hors d’œvres, I cast my living room as the VIP lounge at the Taurus Express platform, Charing Cross Station — augmented by lighting and sound.

A custom Keynote deck augmented the “Taurus Express Snippets” with an Indy-Jones-style vintage travel map, along with era-appropriate postcards showing each city as it passed.

(Feel free to write to me if you’re running TLA for a personal game and would like to use this deck.)

The veil grows thin

I then invited my players to “the dining car” (my dining room table) for dinner.

As the train leaves Haifa after dinner, something strange happens: the moon rises, the other passengers in the dining car all wander away, time slows — the players find themselves alone together in a private moment. The lighting changes dramatically and “What Now?” from the excellently creepy Cultist Simulator soundtrack begins playing.



After clearing dishes, I removed the tablecloth to reveal an oversized piece of black foam board! — and produced a basket of conspiratorial investigative tools: red yarn, post-it notes, map pins.

I handed each player their envelope of props, framed as the “occult scraps” their character had gathered leading up to the receipt of Loretta’s letter… the Mansus-glimpses that led them to belief something must exist beneath the skin of the world.

PRO TIP: I’ve run this game twice using these props. The first time, I was being too coy and the players were confused about what was expected of them.

The second time, I put on my “Design facilitator” hat and explicitly told them:

  • You have each discovered clues that will help you make sense of the world you’re about to enter

  • The clues in your envelope are useless, but if shared, you can make connections that will reveal greater truths

  • Describe each piece and read it aloud, then place it on the table for others to examine

At the beginning of each session thereafter, I asked the group to revisit the props and draw new connections based on what they had learned. This served as a great review of previous events and always led to new insights which then fed into the session’s story.

That last photo demands a callout — I also “embellished” Loretta’s original letter to the players, placing pin-pricks below certain letters to form a new message. (See: holding Loretta’s letter up to the light in order to read the hidden message.)

Each player received a different copy with a unique message. I never drew attention to the pin-pricks — it was SO MUCH FUN when one of my players noticed them mid-campaign and all scrambled to find their original letters and piece together the messages from Loretta to their characters.

The Experience

I can not express how gratifying it was — to me, and I think the players would say the same — to watch the players move themselves from utter confusion when first examining the props to a coherent-if-incomplete-and-not-entirely-accurate understanding of the Secret Histories cosmology (such as it is).

The truths they pieced together were significantly more meaningful (and drove the plot in more meaningful ways) than if I had just told them: “The gods of this world, kind of, are the Hours.” Even basic game mechanics, like the Regard of the Hours, created precious moments of discovery. The game also played differently than I think it would have if I had thrown the players in with zero context; I think the players had a bit more confidence to explore, but there was still plenty of inscrutable mystery in the air throughout.

The Props

I would do ANYTHING to get a breakdown of these props!!! I really would love to do this for my upcoming campaign.
— u/varsityhermione

Okay, varsityhermione, this is for you and the other kind Redditors who have expressed interest. Please feel free to directly use or riff off of anything here! I’d love to hear about it if you do.

Click an image to view additional comments about its intended purpose for my players.


Jason Robinson
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A strange ritual, pt 2: Dynamic lighting & sound