Reach the Left Hand of Order first
You are an adventurer sent out by the kingdom. You must cross a wasteland scoured by black winds, pass through the Market of Bones where the dead are bought and sold, and find the relic said to have been severed from the right hand of a god — the Left Hand of Order.
A demon lord is after the same relic. Get there first, and carry it home.
This is not a story of simple good and evil. It is about order and freedom, faith and curses, bargains and their price. In this world a name, a memory, even a future can be priced and sold.
Read, then choose
Read a paragraph. Every paragraph comes with its own illustration.
Pick one of the choices at the end. "Take the old pilgrim road." "Climb down into the dry riverbed." The story forks from there.
Items you gain, curses you take on and bargains you strike are recorded in your adventure log, and come back to matter later.
You have four stats: Skill, Stamina, Fate and Bone Coin. Bone Coin is the currency here — and when you can't pay, you pay with a name or a memory instead.
Chapter 1, paragraph 1 — the four stats sit across the top
The Bone Gate Plaza — seven roads, and you pick one
What you carry opens the road
Not every choice is available every time. Which items you hold, who travels with you, what bargains you struck — a choice you don't meet the conditions for is shown to you, sealed. You can see the road is there; you just can't take it.
So the same place reads differently depending on what you picked up, who you helped and what you sold in an earlier chapter.
The Library of the Dead — the right token gets you in another way
Some moments come down to luck. Pass a Fate roll and you move on; fail it and you lose Stamina and land somewhere else entirely.
Can you pick the cage lock? Success and failure lead to different paragraphs
Two dice decide it
In a fight, your Skill plus two six-sided dice is compared against the enemy's. Win the round and you take their Stamina; lose it and they take yours. Classic gamebook rules, kept intact.
Fights can often be avoided. Run, pay your way out, or take another road — each leaves you carrying something different.
Facing a wasteland hound — every enemy has its own artwork
Losing isn't necessarily the end. Defeat has its own continuation — you may be taken, sold, and pick the story back up somewhere else entirely.
The defeat screen — and the road of the captured begins here
An illustration for every paragraph
Each paragraph gets one pen-and-ink style monochrome illustration. So does every enemy you meet, and each outcome of a fight, win or lose. The wasteland, the market and the swamp come into focus as you read.
Where it stands
- Part One, Chapter 1 — "The Black Wind Wasteland" — text, branches and illustrations done
- Chapter 2 — "The Market of Bones" — done
- Chapter 3 — "The Death Marsh and Garoumelk" — done
- Chapter 4 — "The Fallen Monastery and the Judgment Nail" — being written
- Chapter 5 — "The Wound of God" — just started
The plan is to finish it as a browser game first, then look at mobile apps.
Features, visuals and text may change before release.