By Nakade
This is a solo game about a road trip in a devastated country where your fundamental beliefs will be challenged.
You are an agent of the Concord Redevelopment Corporation, tasked with delivering an important package through the desolate wilderness known only as the Unincorporated Western Territories. Once, life sprung out through the wild reeds and townships littered the land. Now, years of war, resource deprivation, and the relentless baking heat of the sun have reduced it to so many inches on a map, to be endlessly litigated and fought over, for no benefit.
Your mission is simple - deliver the package from Ordenburg to Port Libre on the western coast. What is it? Doesn't matter. You'll be paid enough in Coalition scrip to live on for another few months, and that's all that counts. You have three days, good luck.
You begin with 0 Doubt, 0 Fatigue, 0 Strength, 5 Fuel, and 5 Scrip. Select a background from the list below to determine your starting beliefs.
You were a loyal scion of the Falcon-and-Hauberk once, paying your dues to the capital in the East despite never gracing its polished streets. Now the revolution has taken what they told you to uphold at any cost - the king, your family, and your home. They celebrated his death in the streets and stole everything from you. The CRC is all that remains, and you still have to eat.
You killed the Falcon. Raised the banner of socio-economic progress over the palace rafters, executed Frederick the Fat and interred him in a nameless grave. And what for? Yet more pain, more suffering, endless factitious squabbles and would-be dictators in purge after purge. And, finally, the black bile of the militarists ripping it all apart. The CRC is all that remains, and you still have to eat.
You were part of the counter-revolution, when the old generals and the guardians of the kingdom tore down the red signs in bloody revenge. Perhaps you even held a scrap of power or privilege in the old kingdom. Yet the cruel boot, once lifted, does not find many willing victims, and even the might of armies and foreign mercenaries couldn't maintain their fragile grip. The CRC is all that remians, and you still have to eat.
You kept your head down and tended to your own business. When the tax collector came, you meekly gave your take. When the red banner came, you murmured your assent. When the black revanchists came, you cheered for the new "republic". Now they have all gone, along with your lifelong possessions. The CRC is all that remains, and you still have to eat.
After all the noble slogans and passionate cries, the nation has been left in tatters. You were part of the rebuilding, the fragile peace after decades of war, and with it the introduction of foreign assistance - the CRC. Now you serve them, the nameless powers that govern in the cities with bread and circuses, speaking of "redevelopment" and "liberalisation". The CRC is all that remains, and you still have to eat.
You have 4 days (96 hours, 24 watches) to gain 20 Progress. To do this, you have a number of Moves available to you. Each Move has a time cost and an effect on your journey. Some Moves also have an associated cost in fuel or scrip. Time in the Territories is split into watches - each watch lasting four hours. Some Moves are marked with a * - these Moves can only be performed when you are in a settlement (a location marked with a * similarly).
Time Cost: 1 Watch
When you floor the engine in pursuit of your destination, remove 1 Fuel, roll 2d6 and subtract Fatigue. You cannot perform this move with no Fuel.
Time Cost: Free
When you attempt to secure fuel for the trip, roll 2d6. Add 1 if your background aligns with the settlement's background, subtract 1 otherwise. You can only do this once per settlement, success or fail, but you can choose to not pay and walk away - Or switch to more violent methods.
Time Cost: Free
When you loot, intimidate, or steal to get resources you need, roll 2d6 and add your Strength, subtracting the Strength of the settlement. Subtract 1 if your background aligns with the settlement's background, add 1 otherwise. Increase your Doubt by 1 - Whatever the result, you'll have to leave town immediately, and you're hardly the good guy here.
Time Cost: 2 Watches
When you find rest at a settlement, pay 1 Scrip and roll 2d6. Add 1 if your background aligns with the settlement's background, subtract 1 otherwise.
Time Cost: 1 Watch
When you uncover the secrets of the Territories, roll 2d6 and gain 1 Fatigue. You cannot perform this Move at settlements.
Time Cost: 1 Watch
When you attempt to recover your wits, roll 2d6.
Time Cost: Free
When you wrestle with your long held beliefs, roll 2d6 and add your Doubt.
Time Cost: Free
When you stop to reflect on your journey thus far, write down what you've experienced and remove 1 Doubt. This can only be done once every 6 Watches i.e. once every 24 hours.
Each Progress you gain moves you down the road, starting from 0. When you reach 20, you are at your destination.
You can see posters for the CRC and the Coalition government everywhere, taped hastily over cracked walls. The people barely look at you as your foreign car trundles past. The roads, at least, have been hastily paved, foreign cement mingling with the old gravel.
They call it an "internal administrative checkpoint", but you know what it means implicitly - beyond here, the Coalition's authority goes as far as the range of the nearest fortification. The officer waves you pass as you display your Special Dispensation License - you don't even need a bribe. Beyond the prefabricated checkpoint, you can see barbed wire snake around bombed and ruined houses, a ring of death around the Western edge of order.
Once, this was a popular vacationing spot. Now all that remains are a few families, scrabbling in the dirt to pick out what they can. Two famished men fight over an abnormally large gourd. The town was once named Venderly, then Wernerton, and then Venderly again - the welcome sign reflects that.
In the midst of the sweltering sand and grit there's a small patch of grass, and a road sign. Both sides have been scratched out and replaced with "GO TO HELL IMPERIAL SCUM". Crashed next to the sign is a long-destroyed armoured troop carrier.
The desert seems to stretch on endlessly here, faint shrubs and tumbleweed grappling with blackened, splintered earth. You can hear the distant songs of birds.
There is a great deal of wrecked machinery and ruined fortifications here. A sign proudly welcomes you to Kanly, although it has been crudely ripped from its post and now lies, scarred and pitted, on the ground. The nearby hill- now more of a mud dune- is riddled with artillery scars. If you stop here, gain 1 Doubt. Can anything ever come back, from desolation such as this?
The desert seems to stretch on endlessly here. In the distance, the Gomber pass looms. Nearby, you can see a raised mound of recently disturbed dirt.
A highway was one of the promises of the new Revolutionary government, to link the cities and the country together in a "communal network". A stretch of unfinished highway can be seen outside the window, flimsy signs blockading the entrance to nowhere. The construction was half-complete when war returned.
You're getting close to the Gomber Pass now. The mountains stretch into the sky, towering before you. A statue of Frederick the Fat lies where it fell, partially pulverised.
This was a national park under the royal aegis, once. Now it's an overgrown patch of thicket, to be cut down for firewood or timber.
Here the revanchist regime lives on, funded by allies abroad and now calling itself a Free Republic. Stripped of the royal regalia the falcon simply becomes another gun barrel. Your special dispensation has no worth here.
You can hear the chatter of machine guns behind you. The mountains loom ahead. They've been here for a thousand years, and will stay for a thousand more.
The indigenous peoples of the mountain range were too much of a nuisance for any power to clear fully, and now that the powers have faded they persist and survive unperturbed.
Years of disrepair make the mountains more ominous than they already seem. Parts of the guardrails have broken off, and the remainder certainly won't do much to help in the event of an accident.
The mountains are finally behind you now. Perhaps it is a hallucination, a mere trick of the mind, but you think you can almost smell the sea breeze.
The fields seems to stretch on endlessly here, but you know you're approaching the holdout regions, where the Revolution's ideals still hold sway.
You are surrounded by simple huts and large, communal farms designed to beat the treacherous weather. A repaired town hall chimes the hours as members of the civilian militia step towards your vehicle, politely. You can see that, here at least, some amount of life has returned after the war, a peace that will not last as the Coalition moves West.
An abandoned show-city constructed by the Royal Ministry for Development as a "showcase of the future", built from scratch using convict labour in the middle of nowhere. Frederick used it to bargain for the right to hold a Continental Exposition, and abandoned it after his bid failed. Royalists gain +1 Doubt even if you don't stop here.
A small trading town restored under the watchful eye of the CRC and ceded to foreign powers as payment for their "investment". Order is kept here, gleaming roads and manned gates. There is a deadness here, a still silence that has been mistaken for peace.
You can see the sea now, glimmering on the horizon. There is Port Libre, the greatest coastal Coalitionist holding. The end of your journey looms.
Your journey ends here. There is a certain hustle, a certain restoration of life and trade. The package is sent off to the CRC offices, and you are given your meagre payment. That is all.