Casting Shadows

This is the fourth day of #RPGaDAY2025 and the prompt today is message. So far, we have put forward a basic idea of a reclusive patron to help organize a group of characters into some form of resistance to a particular villainous behavior, and a linchpin location for them to do that from. With the prompt “message,” it’s time to start giving thought to the moment which constitutes the big bang of our game world; the moment where we go from pre-play conversation to the conversation that is play.

Day 4: Message

As this is to be the spark for a campaign, what compels me about this prompt is that it can be made into a prop or other reminder – both in-game and without – for the general call to action or inciting incident which launches the campaign. It can be something to which the players refer during the months and possibly years of play to follow to reignite the motivations of the characters and remind themselves of what the central focus of play started from. In some games, this might be something like an inheritance, a murder, a kidnapping, or a betrayal. For this game, however, to increase the scope of play which might arise from the events of the first session, I am leaning toward more of a manifesto. In other words, the forces against which the characters are being called by the Patron to align have issued a message, not just to Roald Ulysses Neslinger, not just to the characters, and not just to their own followers, but to the world.

“No more shall we fear death. We stand at the first threshold of its greedy prison and we have found the keys. As we unlock the secrets behind death’s doors, we shall first free the body of the permanence of physical death. Free from death, no factory, no farm, no army need ever cease in their labors to raise this nation over all others, thereby freeing us from the specter of war as well. Soon we shall free the mind from death’s cold grip as well, and immortal we will reap the benefits of this green and pleasant land until we see the lie in the End of Days and realize the rapture is a ripe fruit to be plucked by the daring and deserving.

By England! Now, and Forever!”

Now, in a world of gaslight, disease, nationalism, and social upheaval such a message might be lost in the shouting and posturing of elites and the suffering of the common person. In this imagined world, however, there might be those that listen. However, this might also be a world where some of the cries which are heeded wail of exhumed graves, stolen cadavers, and missing loved ones. It might also be a world where whispers of abducted doctors, chemists, and engineers creep quietly across the salons and private clubs of the wealthy to hint at other strange things in government and business that otherwise do not make sense.

Someone is acting on the claims in this manifesto.

Someone is acting on a grand scale and no one is untouched by it – least of all the characters.

See you tomorrow for Day 5: Ancient!