A downloadable solo bookmarker RPG

Get this solo bookmarker RPG and 106 more for $10.00 USD
View bundle
Buy Now$3.50 USD or more

CONGRATULATIONS!

Due to your UNIQUE QUALITIES and REMARKABLE ABILITY to LOCATE RUPTURES IN THE SPACE-TIME CONTINUUM and/or IDENTIFY CHARACTERISTICS OF STORY DIVERGENCES and/or TAKE DECISIVE ACTION TO MAINTAIN THE BALANCE OF REALITY and/or  ████████  ███████ TO █████   ████████ , you've been chosen/granted the unparalleled honor of becoming/operating a LOREKEEPER!

This noble tradition goes back to  ████ and is the only thing stopping AGENTS OF CHAOS from CORRUPTING STORIES and therefore BENDING REALITY TOWARDS THEIR OWN  ████████  GOALS.


Grab your gear, investigate/enter your favorite books to stop Divergences, and prevent the space-time continuum from crumbling into a hot mess of extraplanar domination, metaphysical torture and existential suffering!

No big deal!

Preserve the story.
Preserve the world.

___________


LOREKEEPER is a light, solo, story-building RPG that takes inspiration from cosmic horror/metafiction [such as most of Grant Morrison's bibliography] and bureaucratic (which is the greatest horror of all) fiction  [such as CONTROL and SEVERANCE]. To play, you will need one Lorekeeper (printed in your favored format); one pencil; one book of your choosing; and three six-sided dice [a notebook/writing implements are recommended but not required]. The gameplay loop takes seconds, and consists of using a custom bookmarker to... Well... Bookmark whatever book you're reading - placing it at the end of each chapter/reading session and rolling dice to uncover/fight its hidden messages/corruption of reality and write your own adventure.

[All work hours should be thoroughly accounted for and forwarded to ████████ HR at ████████@█████.██]
_________

ZIP files contain extra content & printing formats, in both English and Brazilian Portuguese, including colored and black & white versions of:

  • Standard Game Rules & Sheet
  • Expanded Rules/Alternate Game Modes
  • Double-sided Sheet
  • Reduced, Business card-sized Sheet
  • Customizable Cover with room for drawing!
StatusReleased
CategoryPhysical game
Rating
Rated 5.0 out of 5 stars
(8 total ratings)
AuthorCatscratcher Studio
Tagsjournaling, Lovecraftian Horror, Mystery, Retro, Solo RPG

Purchase

Get this solo bookmarker RPG and 106 more for $10.00 USD
View bundle
Buy Now$3.50 USD or more

In order to download this solo bookmarker RPG you must purchase it at or above the minimum price of $3.50 USD. You will get access to the following files:

LOREKEEPER.pdf 587 kB
GUARDALENDA [PT-BR].pdf 599 kB
Lorekeeper Files.zip 3.4 MB
Guardalenda - Arquivos.zip 3.4 MB

Exclusive content

Support this solo bookmarker RPG at or above a special price point to receive something exclusive.

Community Copies

For anyone who'd like to play our game but cannot afford it right now, feel free to grab one of our Community Copies - especially if you're under financial hardship or part of the Global South!

Each new sale adds 2 Community Copies to the pool,  and for every extra $2 tip, we'll add another one!

Regardless, we'll try to always leave at least a couple of them available - but if there are none and you really want to play it, send us an e-mail or a tweet and we'll send you a copy ASAP!

Comments

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(+1)

I'm fairly new to solo RPG's and I feel like I'm understanding how the gameplay works based on the instructions and I'm really intrigued. I'm uncertain on how to weave a story from it though. I would love to see a brief playthrough of this to really grasp it. 

Yeah, absolutely! Sorry it took so long to answer but here it goes:

The main thing to keep in mind when playing these sorts of solo RPGs is that they work kinda like fuel to your creative engine: by placing the bookmarker on a page, you're getting crumbs, clues, directions - but the act of play consists in giving them meaning, filling the blanks and trying to make everything make sense and form a coherent story.

Using the example in the game's front page (the famous scottish play by Shakespeare, Macbeth), you'll see the chosen words were WITCH, QUARREL & REBEL, naming this chapter "The Cursed Uprising". We can choose to apply these words and story as a corruption of the original Macbeth story, or as a metaphysical virus, corrupting the lives of the readers instead. We're going with the second option: this particular copy of the book is carrying a spell (from the word WITCH), and everyone who reads it becomes frenzied (REBEL), being forced to fight everyone around them (QUARREL). What the corruption intends to gain from this chaos will be left for a future chapter - right now, our goal is to either stop the curse, or subdue the infected so that they cannot cause too much harm and rewrite reality.


Right now, we're playing as Rufus, a Lorekeeper who's really good at acting first and talking (and thinking) second - so we gave him +2 in Action, +1 in Modification and 0 in Identification. Rufus was sent to investigate this particular mission because the corruption quickly caused a tremendous ruckus, and stopping the chaos takes precedence. Understanding what's going on will be a bonus goal.

We just rolled our first 2d6, getting a 2 and a 5.

The 5 is already a success, so we can assign it wherever we want - but the 2 will be a failure no matter what we do (even if we assigned our +2 to it), so we choose to count our losses first and pick which word we're failing to solve. As such, we're sending the 2 to WITCH (a noun, so our +0). Rufus arrives at the root of corruption, people fighting all around him, buildings being torched to the ground - and he immediately realizes he doesn't have the arcane knowledge required to stop the ritual; so he decides to focus on what he's actually good at - butting heads and taking names.

We roll our 3rd dice, getting a 3.

Not the best result, but it works for us. The 5 succeeds on its own, and by assigning the 3 to an ACTION to make use of our +2 bonus (in this case, we're sending it to QUARREL), we're getting two Successes. We weren't able to use our +1 from our MODIFICATION stat, but that's alright, Rufus will still be able to stop the rebels and their rebellion - weaving reality-bending, corruption-binding spells, every single bewitched person is pinned to nearby walls. It's a tough job, but Rufus is very experienced in these sorts of situations, which is precisely why he was the agent sent. The muscular man moves extremely fast and his spells hit like trucks and sound like thunder, prioritizing taking out the most aggresive key targets (we assigned the natural 5 to REBEL first), and using his remaining energy to prevent destruction (with our 3+2 on QUARREL).

Rufus was able to stop the rebellion from doing too much harm, the Corruption contained before it could spread too far. Still, the ritual itself was not stopped, and more people can be turned to do the witches' bidding. Not only that, but we have no idea what's the endgame here... But Rufus still has two chapters to stop this occurence for good, and the odds seem to be in his favor - all he needs to do is keep choosing good words to confront and rolling well enough so that the current 1 Corruption never reaches 5... Surely fate will stay by his side...

I love this. I lost my first book today to the corruption. I have to be a better lorekeeper.

(+2)

We are deeply sorry to hear these troubling and corrupting news. We can only hope the lost book was neither one of your favorites, so as not to feel you with sadness and regret, nor one closely linked to the fabric of reality so that every living being need not feel the weight of its loss!

But we are truly glad to know you enjoy your activities as a lorekeeper, and wish you the best of luck on your future missions!