Tales of Kthonic Waters - Demo

This is the DEMO edition of Tales of Kthonic Waters By Justonky.
Back us on Kickstarter for the FULL Game (available in Softcover and PDF)

SOLVE THE MYSTERY OF THE DEEP CITY

Embark on a New Weird adventure that stretches the limits of Lovecraftian lore, Anti-Imperialist Satire, and the conventions of Sci-Fi Fantasy. 

WHY BACK?
+ Over 95+ (and increasing) pages of crunchy, narrative solo RPG in full colour, packed with art, and great writing.
+ Explore a Lovecraftian inspired anti-imperialist satire, with new weird world-building
+ Project is almost entirely complete, it's just waiting for you to manifest it into reality.
+ Certified Meatbag. 100% human made, no Gen AI nonsense

CRUNCHY, BUT NARRATIVE FOCUSED
Crunchy, meaningful mechanics form the backbone of this narrative journaling adventure. 

As a gamer, I often find myself frustrated by the lack of crunchiness in many of my solo RPGs, yet too much crunchiness turns it into a numbers game, which defeats the purpose of a narrative game. 

Tales of Kthonic Waters is my attempt to address those shortcomings in the genre, with something that I myself would want to play.

THE MECHANICS
Enjoy an original system designed from the ground up for this project. Using only a deck of playing cards and a bunch of six-sided dice, create meaningful narrative moments that redirects and bounce in unusual directions, with PLOT TWIST that could impact the results. This is achieved by packing as much narrative twists and turns into a single resolution of the prompt.

1) Players roll dice to advance through a series of prompts.
2) Then they draw 2 cards to determine the NARRATIVE VECTOR (an intrusion of a different narrative element into the prompt), and also the relevant Skill (grind, rizz, intuit, think) to use when it comes to determining the number of dice to roll.
3) Before rolling dice, players can also spend Resources or Secrets to help improve their chances.
4) If players ever roll doubles, they trigger a plot twist, adding yet another NARRATIVE VECTOR into the prompt, but if this new vector shares a Suit with either of the previously 2 drawn cards, it triggers a CUT
5) If a CUT is triggered, the player must cut the highest rolled die result from their pool, potentially reducing the success of their results.

All of this makes for great story moments, especially if you plan on journaling the game (and maybe turn it into a short story).

DELUGE OF WORDS
I also find myself concerned with how vague the prompts for many solo narrative RPGs often are....and I understand why that is so, if we have too much details; it interferes with the players' ability to exercise their imagination if too much of the world has been set in stone. 

When writing the prompts for Tales of Kthonic Waters, I try to inject as much world building elements as possible, whilst leaving things vague enough that it helps the player to naturally "assume" an interpretation of the world. This is helped along by the result of card draws, dice rolls, and prior events. The human brain is always keen to create a cohesive narrative, and can be trusted to be the magic that makes this IMPLICIT WORLD-BUILDING process work out. 

The words should paint a picture. And those pictures should arise naturally from the subconsciousness.

A PICTURE TELLS A THOUSAND WORDS
Actual visual elements and images are equally valid as prompts, not just words. When we look at an "in-universe" image, it tells us important things about the world, but is also highly subjective. Our minds will fill in the blanks, our interpretation will have consequences. 

DEEP LORE & PLAYER INTERPRETATION OF EVENTS
There is world-building, and there is definitely a story— but your interpretation and intuition is co-creator of this realm. Each play-through is its own story, with its own iteration of the universe. 

CERTIFIED MEATBAG
100% human made, no Gen AI nonsense. It's all just me. I am a graphic designer, print maker, artist, and writer. And I pour all of my skills, experience, and passion into this project. 

This is the DEMO edition of Tales of Kthonic Waters By Justonky.
Back us on Kickstarter for the FULL Game (available in Softcover and PDF)

Tales of Kthonic Waters is ©JUSTONKY