The Ceremony is at Hand is a collection of ten solo role-playing games with non-traditional mechanics. Each game constructs a narrative framework around an everyday activity, like receiving a package, carrying groceries, or going to sleep.
Listen: A millennium ago, humankind built giant mechanical soldiers to make war on their behalf. Metal, wood or stone, the histories don’t tell us. But they towered over the earth and brushed the clouds from their shoulders. What terrible destruction did these machines wreak? That is another story. All that’s left are lagoons where once were footsteps, and the bodies of the giants whose shadows once blotted out the sky. They lie where they fell after the last war was fought and wait for nature to take back what is hers.
As you lay in bed, waiting for sleep to come, imagine that you are a mechanical giant at rest for centuries in a field or swamp or deep, dark forest. You are covered thickly in moss, or lightly, or not at all, depending on how many blankets you wear.
Front and back cover art by Hax Shannon.
Installation of Letters that will Never Arrive for Rules to Play By 2019.
You are carrying the world. As you carry the groceries, ask yourself the following questions:
● How is the responsibility more than you expected?
● Do they really deserve the effort you are putting in?
● What have they ever done for you?
● What would setting the world down free you to do?
When you set down the groceries, decide the fate of the world. Will you destroy it in cleansing fire, let it drift off alone, or continue to carry it – at least for a bit longer?
The Ceremony is at Hand is available at its itch page.