Psychopomp and Circumstances: TTRPG work in progress
Setting
It's all fun and games until you die, which was last week, or maybe last century.
The living city changes. People grow, have families, move in, move away. You don't.
People die. Most are just a brief flicker before they go elsewhere. Some need help. Some, like you, get stuck. You have friends here.
There are things worse than ghosts in this space. There are people who break the rules, either intentionally or by accident. Each mystery solved brings you closer to your goal.
Inspirations
- Dead Like Me
- The Mystery of Grace, Charles deLint
- School Spirits
- The Haunting of Hill House, Mike Flannagan version
Truths of the World
Expand on the following questions to refine your setting.
What is your relationship to the living?
- Only exceptional people can see us in certain places.
- The veil is thin on certain days, then we can mingle with the living.
- We can make ourselves known to people who have been marked by death.
- We live as humans, but are unrecognizable to anyone who knew us.
- Something else.
Your Gathering Place
Basic:
- The place you died.
- The place you used to live.
- A public building.
- A place of ritual importance.
- A place with a reputation for tragedy.
- An abandoned building.
Supernatural:
- Attracts spirits
- It attracts a specific type of spirit animal.
- Windows and mirrors show alternative realities.
- The layout changes.
- There are doors that never open.
- A building that doesn't exist in the mortal world.
Character Truths
Why do you solve mysteries?
- To atone.
- To hold off atrophy.
- To understand how undeath works.
- To gain power.
- To protect ___.
Interacting with certain things gives you power. Pick one or two or make your own. Explain how it works.
- Animals
- Machines
- Plants
- Art
- Mirrors
- Weather
- Books
- A relic of your past life
Plot Hooks
- An event in the mortal world brings multiple new ghosts into the afterlife and disrupts boundaries.
- You become aware of a serial killer or monster stalking mortals.
- A toxic spirit needs to be pacified.
- A powerful place has been cursed by the actions of mortals, unleashing Horrors.
- A mortal has gained supernatural abilities and is knowingly or unknowingly creating problems.
The Goal/Entropy Bar
Spirits who linger too long in this realm gradually lose their personality and consciousness. Alternatively, spirits can move on or maintain themselves if certain conditions are met.
The goal/entropy score reflects the current state of your character's growth. This score starts at 5. At the end of a mystery, reflect on your character's actions and decide if they have been successful at moving forward in their goals. If the score reaches zero, the character becomes either a shade or revenant and is no longer playable. If the score reaches 10, the character has the option of moving on. Role play the consequences of either condition.
"Moving On"
Mortals die all the time. Most do not end up stuck in the spirit world, and many of those who do often disappear when certain conditions are met. The players and/or GM can work out the metaphysics and imagined special effects of the fiction. Some examples of potential plotline resolutions include:
- Revealing the truth of a revenant's crimes attracts the attention of a force of cosmic justice.
- The players expose a critical weakness that renders an enemy powerless; the enemy then succumbs to entropy.
- An enemy is goaded into violating the terms of a contract with an outsider, resulting in immediate consequences.
- An enemy is encouraged to repent misdeeds and seek redemption.
- The players empower victims to strip the power from their tormentor.
In a solo game, tell the story you want to tell. In a multiplayer game, use lines and veils to ensure that everybody has a good time.
NPCs
In the Spirit World
- Ghosts: Individuals who are stuck in the afterlife and maintain full consciousness and personality. Many NPC ghosts can't move on the basis of a single quest or subquest.
- Shades: Ghosts who have fallen into entropy usually become shades. Shades are stuck in the loop surrounding a single memory of great personal importance.
- Revenants: Severe emotional trauma can create revenants with the ability to harm others. In extreme cases, they can reach across the veil and harm mortals. They have powers related to their primary emotional state. They can be temporarily pacified through combat. Permanently healing or sending them to justice requires understanding and resolving a quest specific to the revenant. (Nightmare on Elm Street, Poltergeist)
In the Mortal Worlds
- Ordinary Mortals: Just ordinary humans living in the ordinary world.
- Extraordinary Mortals: Mortals who harm or help a large number of people are more likely to get attention from the spirit world.
- Awakened or Empowered Mortals: Humans who have gained awareness of what is happening in the afterlife or have been granted specific powers related to the afterlife. (The Shining)
- Deathless: Mortals who have become immortal or nearly immortal. (Friday the 13th, Halloween, Vampires).
Curses
- Cursed Animals: Animals possessed by a powerful spirit or curse. (The Terror, Pet Semetary)
- Cursed Places and Objects: Strong negative emotions concentrated in one location or around one object can create a curse. In the mortal realm, the curse attempts to grow by manipulating events or mortals into feeding The emotion that created it. In the afterlife, curses are visible and may be guarded by revenants created by the curse. (Hill House, The Mangler)
Outsiders
- Incomprehensibly alien entities. They rarely deal with individual humans or spirits directly, but usually act through intermediaries, minions, saints, oracles, and avatars. (Hellraiser, It)