The Purgatory Pilgrims (2023 - 20XX)
A board game set in the Modern Cthulhu universe, blending role-playing with card game mechanics in the style of Slay the Spire, where each card has two sides: on one side, the item you’ve just found or perhaps the shared action ‘chat’; on the other, an attack with damage points and effects of varying lethality. Will you remain well-behaved to the very core, or will you succumb to madness?
The end of the world has been heralded by the messengers of the Great Old Ones, plunging Paris into chaos. You find yourself reliving the same day, 15 March, over and over, with just seven lives to figure out how to survive or join the ranks of the emissaries: Cataclysm, Mnisikakia, Cucurbitaceae and Abyss. Each day begins with a symbolic tarot card serving as a clue, and you must investigate the emissaries’ motives whilst navigating a devastated Paris. Your aim is to understand the madness driving these entities and decide whether to fight them or join them before time runs out.
Summary
You hear a strange litany coming from the back of the club, liturgical and yet surprisingly modern. As if the Te Deum had met Call Me Maybe and spawned a hideous melody. Immersed in the rosy gloom of the basement, you can make out a dance floor in the distance. Humans are writhing there like the king’s jesters, dancing for a creature seated in the centre of the colourful chequerboard. Its silhouette appears humanoid at first glance, repulsive at second, and deep down in your spine you sense just how much this ‘thing’ is far more than a mere mortal. As you arrive, Cataclysm turns its gaze towards you. You feel its eight eyes scrutinising you, giving you the impression that a rough tongue is carefully scrubbing the depths of your soul. It remains, however, slumped in its makeshift throne, hardly surprised by your approach. The next moment, you die.
You wake up with a thick tongue at the bottom of your bed. It’s the fifth time you’ve woken up on the same day with the same hangover. The sixth 15 March you’ve experienced. Just two more to go and it’ll be the end. Your end. The end of the world, too.
You clutch your head and tug at your hair in frustration. Cataclysm has thwarted you. The fortune-teller at Châtelet no longer speaks to you, unlike the King of Cats, who never stops yowling. Cucurbitaceae is only out to fight and eat you, and as for you, you’re nothing but a jaded office worker. Mnisikakia did indeed offer you a pact with his Great Old One, but can he really be trusted? He and his sleeping beauties send a chill down your spine.
You struggle to get out of this bed, whose springs are no less rusty than you are, and look out of the window. The sky is greyish, just as you’d expect in Paris. In the distance, beyond the rooftops, the Eiffel Tower stands like a crushed TV aerial. The rain has since put out most of the fires, but what has been gutted remains so. Stones and guts lie side by side in this garden of horrors. You grab your jacket and head out.
Cries echo through the streets. Cries of joy, rage, fear and madness. It has been six days since the heralds of the Great Ancients announced the end of time. They have given humanity a week to find its way through this Purgatory, to make a choice. To rebel and fight? To despair and let oneself die? To try to flee, to carry on as if nothing were wrong? Declare your love to your beloved, or sacrifice yourself?
Unless, of course, you’re hoping to strike a deal with the apostles and join the other side...
If we were to go back six days, to the first of 15 March, what would you do?
Game Design Examples
Each day will be divided into ‘Morning’, ‘Day’ and ‘Evening’. Players will therefore be able to visit (or remain at) a location of their choice from among seven given options three times a day:
The Trocadéro and its twisted Eiffel Tower,
Châtelet-les-Halles station,
Père-Lachaise Cemetery
The crêperie in Saint-André-des-Arts
The barges at the BNF
The ‘crack hill’ at the Cité des Sciences
The long-since-shattered Pyramid in the Tuileries.
Depending on the time of day, different venues may be accessible. Thus, the François-Mitterrand Library could prove to be a prime destination for finding information during the day, whilst at night there’s nothing quite like venturing to the ‘Club’, floating on the water not far away.
Although players can – and sometimes must – work together, the game is not strictly cooperative. Much like in Monster Prom, players will be able to compete for the favour of the Great Old Ones’ emissary, who they believe will grant them absolution. The cryptic nature of the emissaries’ recruitment criteria (or, conversely, the conditions for defeating them), combined with the constant choice of which side of the double-sided cards to use, offers considerable replay value, particularly for those who wish to try their hand at winning over or defeating each of the emissaries.
To give an example without giving too much away: Mnisikakia (Greek for ‘Resentment’), one of the three heralds, is probably the most unusual. Unlike his companions, who feed on human distress, he has a particular taste for phantasmagoria and hope. Rather than taking servants, he likes to offer a dreamlike escape. Describe to him the moment you long for, and he will do his utmost to recreate that scene for you. You will leave your life and your soul behind, consumed by the illusion and within the very depths of Mnisikakia, but in this world condemned by the Ancients, is this not one of the most beautiful ends available to you?
Its main quest, “Melancholia of Mnisikakia – Rest for the Brave”, is therefore probably the easiest ending to reach if you simply want to minimise the damage caused by a bad run. However, to reach the “True Ending”, you’ll need to take an interest in each of these “Sleeping Beauties” you encounter in various locations across Paris. By delving into their dreams, perhaps you’ll find the key to freeing yourself from your own nightmare?
A talking cat who fancies himself the King of these lands, a fruit and vegetable seller with horns, the fortune-teller at Châtelet who (literally) reads your cards, an SNCF ticket inspector who springs from the shadows to check your tickets… All these NPCs will only appear at specific locations and times. Sometimes to help you, sometimes to dash your hopes.
To make life easier for players, however, in addition to the seven ‘lives’ that let you replay this final day and thus have another go, a ‘roguelite’ mode allows players to keep a card of their choice between each run, as well as their karma score. But I’d rather not tell you any more.