Casting Shadows

This is the 13th day of #RPGaDay2026. I have been finding lots of interesting and thoughtful posts out there to recommend and share, as well as insightful and quirky short ones. It’s always fascinating to see how people respond to what they see suggested in the prompts. This year, with weekly filters such as this week’s ‘Associates,’ and the daily filters like today’s ‘Far to Go,’ each daily prompt or daily question can be put into different contexts, dealt with on their own, or used to inspire something else. Today’s prompt is strain, and at this point in a monthly challenge it is normal and understandable to start feeling some. Thirty-one daily prompts, even if you are handling them weekly, in other-sized clumps, or all at once, can require a fair bit of consideration – especially if the event in question is one about positivity. Negativity is easier to share. Positivity is worth it, though.

Let’s get into today’s response using WILD. Slowly but surely we are getting a sense of a group of people taken on to the dreamshare tech company ClarIT as summer interns. We have been concentrating mainly on their social skills and general impressions to assess how they might get along with other highly motivated people tasked with the same responsibilities and asked to work together as a team in the risky environment of someone’s troubled dreams. What do I mean by that last part? People of course think of the dangers shown in Inception, which the author mentions in the book, but there is an older film which is part of the conversation, too. A setting based on dreams has wonder and peril in equal but shifting measure. When characters learn to dream with intention… the capacity to heal is also the capacity to harm.

Let’s take a look at ambition. Someone in a crowd like this could very easily wear their self-interest on their sleeves, whether it be for simple fame, or other more fungible rewards. Now here, we are clearly starting toward character before drawing any cards, so this means an open search through the deck for cards that grab our attention as a match for what we want. In the back of our mind the point allotments for Attributes and Abilities are also falling into place, right?

Attributes could go in many ways, but a young person might have invested time in their physique to round out an academic-focused resume. As a result an emphasis on Strength makes sense, perhaps with Passion or Focus vying for second place depending on what we decide next – or what we find in cards we turn up in the deck for Persona and Shadow. In an office environment it makes sense to lean into Diplomat, and to get ahead will require Scholar and Rogue. Should we put Rogue right out in the lead, or will that work against an ‘honestly ambitious’ person who wants success. Is that what we want or are we injecting an outright criminal into the crew? We can let the card choices tell us this. As before, I will draw two and if those don’t connect with the idea, I will search the deck to find a match. Are you with me? Ok… Draw!

For Persona the deck dealt me the Controlled Scholar which suggests a Concentration on study and improvement – an avoidance of distraction. For the Shadow it dealt me this deck’s version of the Chariot, the car. It’s an expression of victory and attaining goals. This tells me, that ambition in this character arises from a love of success and solving problems, not from a manipulative and grasping nature. No political future for this person, then… unless the world gets the change it is deserves.

So, we now have a socially adept member of the team who wants to excel and is not into backstabbing and deceit to achieve that. The question remains, though… are they the sort to state that there is no “i” in team?

Tomorrow is Friday, August 14th and our prompt is Regard. The weekly filter is of course Associates, while our daily filter will change to ‘Loving and Giving.’

Until tomorrow!