THE FIRST WINTER — a capsule game
link: the-first-winter tags: glaugust, capsule-game
An improv game: two to five people, one evening, two dice.
The Island. The Pirate War is over. Won, technically. Everyone lost more than they knew. The magic is going: eternal Summer ending, eternal youth with it, the Island's first Winter coming in. The Boy is flying the others home on the captured ship. You are the last bunch: seven days.
Forever young: Summer runs on what was never said. Speak, and the Island remembers being young.
Make someone. Name them; roll d6 thrice: Good at: 1 the sling · 2 not being seen · 3 the secret paths · 4 rigging, learned from the enemy · 5 lying, loudly · 6 patching the wounded. Afraid of: 1 the quiet where the fighting was · 2 the cove, even empty · 3 growing up · 4 that nobody waits at home · 5 things that tick · 6 being forgotten here. Never told anyone: 1 what you did in the last battle · 2 whose fault the war really was · 3 that you can't remember home · 4 what the captain offered you · 5 where the last treasure is buried · 6 that you liked the war.
Playing. Seven days, one scene each, in order round the table. The day's kid names a chore of leaving: striking the forts, packing the boats. Every chore turns hard before it's done — the Island is like that now — and the GM says how. Roll 2d6: +1 if good at it; +1 if a kid lends a memory, same cost. 10+ it works. 7–9 it works, and the GM picks: it takes longer than you have, it costs something, or somebody sees — helpers too. 6 or less it fails and Winter gains a mark. Anyone may speak in any scene, not just their own.
Winter. Seven marks, visible. Every dusk Winter takes a mark — unless someone tells the fire a memory of the Island: a battle, a summer, a name. Told memories stay here; those who tell most fly home remembering least. Failed-chore marks stick; nothing melts by itself. At two marks the lagoon's edge freezes; at four, one of you wakes with gray in their hair. At seven the Island is Winter's.
Think of a wonderful thought. Telling the thing you never told anyone — out loud, to their faces — counts, and melts one mark of Winter — now, or when one next lands. Once each. And the Boy only takes home the ones who spoke.
The seventh day. The ship comes if secrets spoken outnumber Winter's marks. Everyone who spoke flies home, saying what they leave behind. The quiet ones choose: stay and become part of the cold, or walk to the cove, where a longboat waits. You know whose. If nobody spoke, the ship circles, and finds only Winter — and at the cove, someone in a long coat, not waving.
Play it, break it, tell me what your table said.
— Feowulf