Home •
Search
Judges •
Readers •
Prizes
Winners & Finalists
2015 •
16 •
17 •
18 •
2019
Downloads & Prints
Dum Mors nos separet, amemus! • 2016 rpg
Ivan Lanìa • no link
Florence, 1348: at the feet of Saint Mary’s Cathedral goods are sold, intrigues are planned and a star-crossed love is burning bright. But when the Black Plague smites the city, what will be of the two lovers?
We grab a tarot deck and pick up the Major Arcana; You draw one and create a figure of power; I’ll take his/her role. I do the same for You, and You will play an outcast. Then, We play out the five scenes composing our tale, each represented by a Tarot and a Question:
1. The Stars: Why did We fall in love?
2. Temperance: How did I uselessly try to reject You?
3. The World: How did You made Me experience your lifestyle?
4. Wheel of Fortune: What external force endangered Us?
5. Death: the Plague has broken out! We frame this final scene, build a deck using the Lovers, Judgement and Devil cards and draw one to create our epilogue.
- Lovers: we made it out, and things will be fine.
- Judgement: the sinner between us has paid a toll, but we may come through this.
- Devil: our love was never meant to be, and thus it is no more...
Author Comments (if any)
Language note: The game title is a sentence in classical Latin meaning (hoping I got it right) “Till Death do us part, let’s love!”.
Personal thanks: To my friends Tobia Finzi and Daniele Di Rubbo, for pushing me to do this. To my e-pal Anna Koprantzelas; she helped me focus a topic for the game.
Inspirational narrative:
- “The Hunchback of Notre-Dame”, animated movie by Disney Pictures.
- “Decameron”, anthological novel by Giovanni Boccaccio (1313-1375). This game is pretty much about setting the Disney movie plot in the Florence Boccaccio lived in and depicted in his masterpiece.
Inspirational RPGs: This project is pretty match a mix-and-match of elements from two of my favourite games:
- “S/lay w/Me” by Ron Edwards, for the two-players structure and the “You and I” prose-style.
- “Hell 4 Leather” by Joe Prince, for the use of tarots as an inspirational tool to create characters and situations.
