I'm normally careful not to cross the streams between Cultist Simulator and BOOK OF HOURS, but we've a few announcements that touch both games. So BUCKLE UP!
The Lady Afterwards: a Cultist Simulator TRPG
“You've been summoned to Alexandria, a city of coloured lights and curious histories. An old friend needs you to track down a woman. She's probably in trouble. Probably trouble herself. Plus ça change.
Mirrors glitter at the Cecil, Berbers whisper in the El Bab Cafe, and statues keep their secrets in the cold depths of the bay. Something's in motion, from the Arab Quarter to the Rue des Soeurs. Somewhere, the Serapeum stirs. The Hours have taken an interest.
Cherchez la femme, the saying goes. But what does the lady look for?”
The Lady Afterwards is a limited edition Cultist Simulator TRPG, based on Chaosium’s Basic Role-Playing system, and drawing on all the lore that underpins BOOK OF HOURS too. Think Call of Cthulhu or story-driven DnD, without us getting sued. We’ve streamlined the experience so you don’t have to be a TRPG aficionado to play, and we’ve filled it with Dread, Fascination and the invisible arts.
Track down Audrey Leigh Howard, a woman of high standing and dubious morals. Seek the Serapeum. Investigate the Society of the Noble Endeavour. Abort a plan. Avert a crisis. Protect the heart of the House Without Walls - or let the blow fall.
The Lady Afterwards is a boxed physical edition, containing everything you need for several evenings’ occult entertainment with friends (and/or cultists). Each edition includes:
- The Lady Afterwards, a Cultist Simulator TRPG scenario set in 1920s Alexandria
- A game-runner’s handbook, incorporating all story, locations, lore and mechanics
- An exultation* of clues, curiosities, clippings and collectibles
- "The Essential Hours", 23-card pocket tarot
- Eight customisable character sheets, complete with secret agendas
- Eight art deco character pins in silver, brass, copper and gold
- A scented Serapeum candle, to evoke that which cannot be seen
- Three Mansus candles, for important plot points
- A full-colour map of contemporary Alexandria
- A set of seven antique TRPG dice in a velvet dice bag
- A Steam key for Cultist Simulator, in the unspeakable instance where someone hasn’t played it yet
- A 50% discount token for the Church o’ Merch
- Access to a custom-built mood-music playlist, to further SET THE TONE
All together, it’ll look *something* like the image at the top of this section! Though please note that this is all mocked-up right now - as you can, er, probably tell! It’ll likely look a smidge different in the flesh.
The Lady Afterwards comes in a custom-built 1920s-styled recyclable box mailed directly to your door. We’re making just a hundred copies to start with, though we’ll expand the limited run if we see enough interest. We expect to release the game in October, in time for Halloween - but we’ll confirm a release date later down the line. Sign up to the mailing list to keep up to date. Now we can talk about this, we’ll have a lot more to share in future updates. :)
*Yes, this does mean I haven’t finalised the actual final number of findables in-game. BUT IT WILL BE A NICE SATISFYING NUMBER OKAY.
Against Worldbuilding, and Other Provocations
Alexis has spent over a decade making games, from Fallen London to Sunless Sea to BOOK OF HOURS, with a lot of other work in between. He’s finally releasing a book on it all, compiling 200+ pages of the best of his pieces on narrative, design, development and why ‘worldbuilding’ busts his nut.
"There are sentences in Fallen London and Cultist Simulator that make me freeze in my seat. This collection of essays is generally not Alexis in freeze mode... It's Alexis being funny, pragmatic, charitable and humane. It's like getting to sit down over a plate of enigmatically-sourced goat goujons and a cup of Thracian wine, and be told a bunch of good stories." - Introduction, Matt Hosty
Against Worldbuilding is available now in Kindle and paperback format, costing £5.65 and £7.77 respectively. Enjoy!
The Lucid Tarot
We announced we’re making a second tarot deck, after The Tarot of the Hours proved so popular. This time it’s inspired by BOOK OF HOURS, and a world-first: we’re making a stained-glass-window-inspired tarot deck, opaquely printed on transparent PVC. This means light shines through some parts of each card, but they still have an opaque back so you can’t see the image on the other side.
The deck features new, custom-made art of the Hours and the world of the Mansus that draws on existing lore but follows traditional systems like the Rider-Waite much more closely than the Hours deck did.
We’re calling it The Lucid Tarot. People seemed to get excited about it when we teased it last time, so the cards above are all never-before-seen, to whet your appetite!
The Hours have been around for centuries in every History. They’re a syncretic pantheon, like the loa of Haitian Vodou or the weirder Greco-Roman deities, and they change over time to reflect the current world. You’ll notice that the art style as well as the depiction of the Hours in The Lucid Tarot is sometimes quite different from their original depictions. For example, here’s Justice / The Meniscate from both decks:
These differences are deliberate, and we hope it’ll shed some more lore-y light on things. The new images also suit the abbey-like stained-glass aesthetic, which you’ll see more of in BOOK OF HOURS...
We can’t specify a release date yet, because it turns out making a tarot deck from scratch is a lot of work. 😅 But it’ll be sometime this year! Sign up to the mailing list for news, and/or keep your culty eyes peeled here for news.