The Bible: Spoilers
If you want to be surprised by what the game will ultimately be about, you should skip this post entirely.
This is the document I received from the four benefactors. It’s going to be the foundation on which I build the RPG that comes out of this. My next post will be about how I interpret this and clean it up.
Here’s what we’ve come up with for the game concept. We’ve tried to
leave the description as open as possible, so that you have a lot of
room to riff. But feel free to come back to us if you need additional
input, feedback or clarification.
Name : Black Hearts
There was a series of planet-wide cataclysmic events. Millions, if
not billions of people died. Whole cities were leveled in minutes.
This happened just a few days ago.
Horrific creatures have been sighted in the ruins. No one knows what
they are. They have been called demons, aliens, mutations, magical
beings and mass hallucinations. Whatever they are, they are not nice.
They have black hearts that must be destroyed in order to send them
Back.
You were not a very nice person when you were alive. You remember
dying. And you remember what came after, and how your soul screamed
into the nothing for an eternity. You woke up from that and the world
was on fire. You don’t know how you got a second chance, but you know
why : to Ensure The Survival Of The Human Race, and to Send The
Horrors Back. If you do that, you won’t have to be Sent Back.
When you came back from hell (there’s no other way to describe that
place), a piece of it came with you. It gives you an edge when you’re
fighting the Horrors.
You might raise the question ‘Do the player characters have Black
Hearts?’ without answering it. This could be a great avenue of
exploration for the GM and players.
The game should focus on setting and mechanics, rather than a guiding
plot. It would be great if the mechanics were such that the events
could be happening in any time period (modern, historical, future,
etc).
That may be a lot to cram into 10,000 words. Let us know what you think.
