Instruments: Tarot Deck, 1d6, 2 Birthday Candles
Game Description
You are cursed with the terrible power of necromancy, able to raise undead armies and bend life and death to your will. The only thing you cannot do is reattach a soul to a corpse. Your town has treated you with scorn, you are on the outskirts and an outsider, alone except for one person. And that person is dead. You have one way to revive them, but the ritual will be your own undoing.
Game Content Warnings
These are content warnings that are from the game prompts and are present in all playthroughs.Playthrough Content Warnings
These are content warnings specific to this playthrough only.
Word Count: 2,872 Played: Nov 17, 2021
Entry 1
It’s been one week since Noella died. I can’t eat, I can’t sleep, I can’t think. The only clear thought I’ve managed to have was what I’m going to do. I’m going to bring her back. It sounds wrong to write it down, especially since I’ve tried to hide this part of myself. I want to live a normal life, but I can’t. The Hallowed Following is after me, regular people avoid me, I can feel my body decaying. I don’t think that I can go on like this without them.
No mortal has managed to do this through necromancy. Even Hallowed couldn’t bring them back in their entirety, and she could do almost anything. I’m going to do everything in my power to finish this ritual and revive her.
I’ll be keeping this log so that anyone in the future can continue on in my steps when… should I fail.
My Candle: Lit
Partner's Candle: Unlit
Kings: 0/4
Entry 2
2 of Cups | You worry that their muscles would have atrophied. Can you avoid it? | |
7 of cups | You source parts instead of letting things rot away. Or is that too far? |
They have been dead for two weeks now. Their muscles are starting to rot, and I can smell everything festering. There isn’t much that I can do if I want to conserve my energy for the end ritual. I’ve taken to…
Many people die out here on the outskirts of Oncrest, where the abandoned buildings fall into the ocean. I’ve been scrounging around for people who have.. Recently passed. People.. People I know won’t be missed. At least I hope.
I’ve been using their parts. Taking them and transferring the energy through myself and into their body. It seems to keep it somewhat fresh. I know that they can’t last forever and I know that the spare parts of the others will accumulate. I’ve been tossing them over the edge into the ocean. Hopefully they won’t be found.
My Candle: Lit
Partner's Candle: Unlit
Kings: 0/4
Entry 3
9 of Pentacles | You think you grabbed their spirit, but it slips away, how far is this a set back? | |
Jack of Swords | you are able to extend your own life. What are you willing to sacrifice? Replace your candle with a new one, if you aren't willing to do that now, you can wait until another time. |
I think I almost had it. I could feel them, their warm embrace around my fingertips and their soft hand encompassing mine. But then it was gone. I couldn’t feel it anymore. I know that they want to come back. They miss me as much as I miss them. I’ll have to try a new method. I’ll have to try again. This will take longer and longer.
The herbs that the witch sold me were bad. I know I shouldn't have trusted one of them. I'll have to find a new place to get them.
I went back through the book I had stolen when I left The Following. It contained a ritual for me to extend my own life. The only caveat was that I needed to sacrifice a part of myself, something sacred. Something that meant everything to me. The toll of this ritual is showing on my body and I fear that I won’t have enough time to complete it. I will do anything to bring them back.
I thought back to when Noella and I first met. How we alone were together on the outskirts of this city. I knew that we were meant to be. I took this memory from myself and put it into my aching body and bones. The years melted off of me and I felt myself to be younger.
And… it’s gone. The only way I have to remember that moment is to re-read it over and over again and still it slips from my mind like water in a siv. I’m sorry Noella, but you can remind me over and over when we are finally together again.
(A/N it when here when I realized that the cheap birthday candles I bought were only lasting 5 min each instead of 30, so I switched over to a timer with 20min)
My Candle: Lit
Partner's Candle: Unlit
Kings: 0/4
Entry 4
6 of Pentacles | what of their belongings is helping lead the ritual? | |
Judgement | you created a plague and people have begun to fall apart like you. Can you stop it? | |
The Magician | As above so below. What do you think they were trying to tell you? | |
5 of Pentacles | they were more social than you. You wonder if having more people around would coax them out. | |
9 of Swords | you need to surrender completely to the thing you fear the most, what is it and how does giving in feel? |
I have deciphered some of the long rituals that were in the book I stole. The phrase “As above so below” keeps reappearing, time and time again. I… I believe it is because I am just one that I cannot do this ritual as it is.
I know there are many gods in the pantheon, so it’s to assume that I cannot do this by myself? But Life itself is just one? But I am not a god….
The ritual also said I have to surrender to what it is I fear the most… I can’t.. I can’t go back to The Following. They are… Perhaps if you are reading this you are a part of their cult, but I will never go back. Our goals do not align and they are on a fool’s quest.
But still, I.. swallowed my pride and asked for help. It made me feel sick having to have people inside my home without Noella.
I called upon some of the other wretches of the outskirts and brought them into my home. I felt as though they were taking away something from their memory. But, Noella would have liked to have people here.They were always more social than I was, but they would scorn me for what I did to them.
I had them all wear a piece of their jewelry as we stood around the body… well the body was under the table, as I had it hidden from them. If they knew what we were doing then not one of them would have helped. I passed it off as some sort of a prayer circle for her departed spirit. I think that they believed me.
I am fortunate that this ritual can be done in stages, but I fear that I have cursed the others.
In the days gone by I’ve noticed they too are falling apart as I am. Where each of Noella’s jewelry had touched their skin, welts and rot have begun to fester. They have begun to give me glares and avoid my presence. I wonder if they know… they surely must.
This is selfish of me, but once the rot has consumed them, their parts will be free for me to use. I’m sorry Noella, there’s no other way.
My Candle: Lit
Partner's Candle: Unlit
Kings: 0/4
Entry 5
2 of Pentacles | You have sworn sometimes they were here with you. Is it all in your head? | |
8 of Swords | How do you make sure that you are undisturbed? | |
6 of Wands | You experience flu-like symptoms, you don’t know if it’s a side effect or not. How do you test this theory? |
I have boarded up the windows of the house to make it seem like all the other abandoned buildings in the area. I’ve also taken to placing a chair under the door to make sure that, even if someone were to pick the lock, I would hear them as they try to enter.
I feel paranoid. I want to be alone. I want to be with them. I…
I can feel myself getting sick. If I didn’t know better I would say that this is the flu. I am no doctor and, ironic as it may seem, I do not know much about the human body, other than how it rots. I am nothing more than a glorified mortician at this point.
I can feel my head swimming and my lungs seizing and I doubt my temperature is a sign of the rot. I’ve scoured the tome again and found nothing of these symptoms and found nothing. I.. I think I might just be sick, like a normal person. It’s good to remember that I am, despite everything, still mortal.
Perhaps it is the illness but I saw them. Or I think I saw Noella. When I was resting, I imagined them sitting on the chair next to me. I called out their name but they didn’t respond, and when I tried to move I found that I couldn’t.
I do not know if this is the fever or their spirit calling to me.
My Candle: Lit
Partner's Candle: Unlit
Kings: 0/4
Entry 6
6 of Swords | You need tools and goods and don’t have a legit way to source them. What do you do? | |
The Fool | A younger sickly looking necromancer shows up and offers you assistance, What do you do? | |
Queen of Wands | Something ominous has begun to grow on you. What is it and how do you feel? | |
The Empress | Plants around you have begun to die and are spreading to nearby farms. How do they respond to this? | |
The Star | You saw something benign, what did you see and why does it help in the breakthrough? | |
3 of Swords | How much of your flesh are you willing to sacrifice |
All around me things have begun to die. At first it was merely the grass in the area, then it has spread like a rotting plague onto the farm lands. I didn’t realize how far my reach could spread, but I have seen it in the greens.
The farmers wouldn’t have known it was me if it wasn’t for that boy.
A young, even sicker looking necromancer turned up on my door asking for a place to stay. He was gaunt and looked closer to death than I did. He begged me for shelter and claimed he would do anything to help me.
The Following has ears and eyes everywhere and no one born with this curse is ever truly free from their grasps. I knew that he was a spy sent to find me and I told him if I ever saw him again then I would kill him myself.
He left, furious, and said that I would regret this decision. The only thing I ever regretted was letting Noella die and this young bastard was merely a thorn in my side.
He told the farmers the rot was me and soon they were on my door. I was lucky that I had boarded everything up and secured my door, for they pounded for three days straight until they left.
In that time I had nothing to do but attend to the parts of the ritual involving my body.
It called for blood, so I gave a pint.
It called for flesh, so I gave from my forearm.
And it called for sight, so I removed the rotten left eye from my skull.
The nerves had all died and I felt nothing as I plucked it free.
I do not know how much more I can give before my body is a corpse like theirs. A sore has begun to spread on my side and I can feel it pulsing under my skin.
I began to think that, like this new growth, maybe her body needs something new to be attached to. I crept out in the dead of night, searching for something near death and brought them into my home. So far I have only used dead things to help with the body, but now, having brought a rat inside, I have attached it to them, siphoning the life from it onto them.
The witches have all shuttered their doors from me, denying me the herbs I need to continue my ritual, and so in the dead of night, I broke into their gardens, and one by one uprooted and rotted the entire thing.
My Candle: Lit
Partner's Candle: Unlit
Kings: 0/4
Entry 7
Wheel of Fortune | What have you been sacrificing and how does it help? |
Life seems to be the key. I should have known this. I am a fool to think that exchanging death for death would have worked. I’ve taken to trapping the rats, and hunting other things at night to supply them to Noella’s body.
I wonder how many rats can equal a human? Will my body hold out long enough for Noella to be back? Their corpse is as fresh as the day it died and their skin has returned to a healthy glow instead of the sickly hue of death.
My Candle: Lit
Partner's Candle: Unlit
Kings: 0/4
Entry 8
Queen of Cups | You cannot make their face look right. How do you feel about this failure? | |
The Hanged Man | Someone else has made a sacrifice to help you. Does it help? What was it? | |
10 of Pentacles | A letter from your partner’s family arrived and it has redoubled your efforts. What does it say? | |
The Hierophant | You believe that you’ve found steps that can be skipped. What are they and how does this make it easier? |
I have forgone the ritual chalk. It is useless and serves no purpose. I believe the original practitioner was one who was paranoid of interference of the divine, but I have no worries myself. If they wanted to stop me they would have done so long ago. This has cut down immeasurably on the amount of time I spent each day going over the sigils. I now have more time to concentrate on what is important.
A letter arrived from Noella’s family. It was their sister who sent it. She is one of the few in the family who knows of my talents and my storied past, but she doesn’t yet know Noella is dead. She wrote she would be visiting later in the year. I have to revive her before then. I have to get it right. I would have to get their face..
Noella’s face is wrong. It doesn’t look like them anymore, it looks like a rotten waterlogged doll. They aren’t how I remembered. They aren’t themselves. I.. It doesn’t matter. This body or not, if her soul can find purchase then it will be her. It must be her.
I took the letter, and all the other ones that Noella had received from her sister and placed them under their corpse. The rot and gore seeped into the pages, ruining them but I know in my heart of hearts that their presence will help guide Noella’s spirit back.
I came across another one of the outcasts in this part of town. It was a younger person, barely 20. They knew what I was the instant they saw me and approached me. I tried to get them to leave me alone until they told me that their own mother had the same curse. They offered up their blood to me.
I didn’t know if this was a trick, but I am in no position to refuse. I took them to an alleyway and drained a vial from them before they disappeared into the winding alleys of the city.
I have to use this quickly lest it be used against me.
My Candle: Lit
Partner's Candle: Unlit
Kings: 0/4
Entry 9
4 of Cups | Fluids have begun to pool where they are lying, can you fix it? | |
Jack of Cups | When you moved your partner to a better location they lost a part of themselves, you grew it back wrong. What does it look like? |
All the blood has started to sink. I have taken to rolling them over onto their stomach. I hope that this will move the blood back into its proper place. I need to keep moving their body. This will take up more time during the day. I haven’t much time to sleep anymore.
Their foot was crushed when I rolled them the second time. It’s mangled and purple and full of mismatched bones. There is no way to recover it. I… I had to regrow it using the body of a wretch that I found by the cliff. It’s.. it's wrong, it’s so wrong. There wasn’t enough material.. It’s too small. Will they be able to walk? Are the bones in the right spot? I cannot risk cutting it open to check. It will have to do for now.
My Candle: Lit
Partner's Candle: Unlit
Kings: 0/4
Entry 10
7 of Wands | You feel sluggish | |
5 of Pentacles | You accept this is beyond your ability | |
Ace of Cups | Their skin has begun to slough of | |
Strength | A large predator animal shows up and dies | |
8 of Wands | a cut starts to fester |
I am dying I am dyring I am dying
I saw it. The omen, I saw the eagle die. I am dead. I cna’t do this. Im sorry ----------
My Candle has blown out