Look afar, even through this frosted glass. The blearing world will shatter. We must outlast them all.
The nightmare tastes like bile. Oily, wet, and choking your throat. Flinch now, or wildly flail, but every limb moves as if underwater. No, even slower than that, heavier. Ooze weighs on your skin, the sting like vitriol gnawing at flesh. This is how it feels to be digested.
At length, you press against something soft and solid. A membrane, a pane of glass, it splits and cracks. Ooze drips and then flows out. You push, put all of your strength behind it, to tear into open air. You fall in a thick waterfall of pale lymph. You’re coughing up sludge before you can breathe — but at last you can breathe air.
Beneath you lies a ribbed floor, segmented akin to a creature’s shell. A wall rises, amorphous yet punctuated with struts, as if secreted around a skeleton. A room more grown than built.
The ooze-cell that held you lies in an alcove in that secretion-wall. Other cells loom in the darkness, some still membrane-encased, some torn open like your own. You aren’t alone, then; whatever design is at work is larger than you — impersonal. Should that inspire hope or dread?
Where are you? For what end were you brought here, encased in that slime?
And how do you escape?
Introduction →
Verdant & Vitreous is a game for one or two players. It requires a standard 52 card deck, some six-sided dice (at least one, more is better), some paper and a pencil.
You have found yourself emerging from a cell in the Vitrified Glade, a cursed forest peopled by moths and snakes and the site of ulterior magics. Something new pulses in your veins and whispers in your thoughts, but you retain a tenuous hold on yourself. Your goal is to unravel the mystery at the heart of this land — or at least the discover a route of escape. Can you free yourself before that voice is the only thing in your throat?
Each of the 52 cards is associated with an encounter and its own particular rules. This introductory section covers mechanics shared in common.
Dice are often rolled and compared against a certain value. Meeting or exceeding this value results in a hit, otherwise it is a miss. In general, you should prefer hits to miss. They offer greater rewards and options.
At the beginning of the game, you must shuffle the deck and set it down as the draw pile. In addition to the draw pile, make space for placing cards face-up, the hold pile.
During your turn, you may take any number of minor action followed by a major action. In general, minor actions grant advantages while major actions initate encounters.
As a major action, you may play a face-up card, or blindly play a card from the deck and face the associated encounter.
Encounters involves describing a new circumstance and chosing how to interact with it. Exploring is the mechanic that triggers encounters, as will be discussed in a later section about locations and the Map.
First, there are a few effects common among encounters. Foremost among them are three core attributes. Encounters may force or allow you to spend or gain them.
- Power: Power represents energy and physical might. Spending Power represents overcoming challenges with force or toil, while gaining Power represents healing and growth.
- Spirit: Spirit represents determination and special insight. Spending Spirit represents persisting in spite of harrowing pressure. Gaining Spirit represents encouragement and hope.
- Supply: Supply represents material goods. Spending Supply represents consuming rations and using tools. Gaining Supply represents restocking.
At the beginning the game, decide how many points of each to begin with: one starts at 3, another at 2, and the last at 1.
Unless specified, spending and gaining these points occurs one point at a time. So “spend Power” means spend one point of Power.
Sometimes, a more flexible result than spending or gaining is appropriate. For this, there is the notion of resisting and recovering.
To resist, you must chose one of these core attributes (unless the attribute is specified). Roll 1d6 against it. On miss, spent it. (Note that the attribute is the target value, not an added bonus—higher values are thus more likely to miss.)
Inversely, to recover, roll 1d6 against it, but on hit, gain a point.
When you lack Power, Spirit, or Supply yet are forced to spend them anyway, you have reached your limit and faltered. Your body and mind fail you, and you succumb to the vitreous ooze in your veins. This is game over.
Encounters come in four types: Objects, Places, Creatures, and Events, and have a target value from 1-13. The major encounters of this game each have unique values, and thus can naturally be associated with playing cards. (The mapping does not matter, but for this document we will assign these respectively to Hearts, Diamonds, Clubs, and Spades.)
Before facing an encounter, you may declare that you are approaching on guard or at ease.
- When you approach on guard, you add Power or Spirit to the encounter roll and afterward spend a point of it.
- When you approach at ease, you subtract Power or Spirit from the encounter roll and afterward gain a point of it.
As a minor action, you may make camp and eat rations: resist with Supply and recover both Power and Spirit. You may not make camp again until next turn.
When you play an encounter, roll 2d6 against the card value, and consult the encounter text. (If you have already faced this encounter once before, roll 3d6 and drop the lowest. This called a repeat encounter.)
What happens during an encounter depends on the choices offered. Common results include:
- Holding: move the card to the hold pile.
- Reshuffling: flip the card face down and shuffle it back into the draw pile.
- Turning: turn a card sidewise in the hold pile to represent an altered state.
Some card types have additional mechanics.
Conflict: when attacking or persuading a creature, each side rolls 1d6. Effects associated with specific rolls are triggered, then modifiers are added, then whoever had the highest roll wins the round. (On tie, both win.) Winners injures or compels their targets, and losers can spend to injure or compel anyway. Alternatively, winners can resist to negate another winner’s action.
The Map: Encountering a place card sets your current location. All Place cards are held once encountered. The set of all locations is your map. Leave space for it wherever you record notes.
When playing a place card: - On hit, you arrive at the location without issue. - On miss, you have gotten lost; shuffle all held Place cards back into the draw pile.
If you have not encountered a location yet, your current location is the Expulsion Chamber.
After a major encounter, record its location on your map. When you record an major encounter location, roll 1d6 against the number of major encounters recorded in this location. On miss, you have explored exhaustively and no further major encounters are possible in this location. Once exhausted, you can return to this location without rolling and you do not reshuffle it when getting lost.
As a major action, you may play a held Place card to return to that location. (This is an encounter, but the repeat encounter rule applies.)
You can return the site of a previous major encounter if your current location matches its recorded location. Make another repeat encounter roll; on miss, if the encounter can move, it is no longer present: reshuffle the encounter; otherwise, pay the price.
As a major action, you may chose to explore. Gain 1 Scouting and roll 1d6:
| Roll | Result |
|---|---|
| 1 | You must play a card |
| 2 | Roll Location Object encounter |
| 3 | Roll Location Creature encounter |
| 4 | Roll Location Flavor encounter |
| 5 | +1 Supply and resist 1 |
| 6 | +1 Scouting |
Scouting tracks your familiarity with the area and preperation for an encounter. When you face an encounter, all your Scounting is spent, each adding +1 to the encounter roll. When you enter a new location, set Scouting to 0.
As a minor action, you can spend one Scouting to:
- face the next encounter without spending Scounting; or
- reveal a card from the deck, placing it face-up; or
- reshuffle a revealed card.
Some encounters do not easily lend themselves to failure; for this, we have a general notion of paying the price.
When you must pay the price, roll 1d6:
| Roll | Result |
|---|---|
| 1 | Reshuffle held Place cards or resist |
| 2 | Reshuffle revealed cards or resist |
| 3 | Lose held item or resist |
| 4 | Location Flavor (miss) |
| 5 | Location Object (miss) |
| 6 | Location Creature (miss) |
Some encounters give you clues that point to future encounters. When you’re seeking a specific encounter, you can spend Scounting to mark a point of Tracking for that encounter. When you think you’re getting close, roll 1d6+Tracking against 7. On hit, you’ve found it; draw and play its card. On miss, it’s not in the current location, and you must continue the search somewhere else.
Finally, we come to the cards themselves. The rest of this document describes encounters. The intended experience of this game is to discover the lore and winning strategies throughout one’s play. This cannot occur if you read through the complete rules text before playing.
An easy solution is to involve two people. One, the reader or gamemaster, draws the cards and looks them up on the table below and relays that information. The second, the player, keeps track of stats, records encounters, and makes decisions.
This page will be formatted so that, if you lack another person to play with, most text is revealed upon clicking. [NOTE: not yet implemented!] Of course, this necessarily reveals the requisite conditions. Proceed as you see fit; it is up to you play according to the guidelines.
← Special Encounters →
Certain encounters can happen when certain conditions are met, rather than when a card is chosen.
Special encounters are grouped into five “arcs.” The “main” Insight arc and four associated with a card type.
- After first playing a card, mark 1 Clarity and roll 2d6 against Clarity. On miss, trigger the next encounter on the Insight arc.
- Starting with zero marks for each card type, before playing that type, roll 1d6 against the number of marks. On hit, add a mark. On miss, erase all marks and trigger the next special type encounter. The special type encounters are:
- Jailer for Place cards.
- Qurio for Object cards.
- Echo for Event cards.
- Plague for Creature cards.
← Generic Objects [WIP] →
Encounters can give you minor items with simple effects.
Weapons: Use during combat for bonuses. A +2 weapon gives +2 to hit. Weapons can have properties: [TODO!]
Armor: Use to resist damage.
Keys: Opens locks. - When you gain a key, roll 1d6 vs Keys. On hit, increment Keys. On miss, it’s a copy of a key you already hold. - To test if you have a key that fits a locks, roll 1d6 +Keys. On hit, you do; on miss, you don’t.
Coin: considered valuable, use for trade.
← Supplies →
If you need something from this list, Roll with Supply against 7. On hit, you have it, spend Supply. On miss, you don’t have it.
- Knife: cut through obstacles and defend yourself.
- Rope: use to climb and cross gaps.
- Lantern: see in dark locations.
- Pole: prevents traps from going off.
- TODO: add more
← Special Locations →
← Expulsion Chamber →
A liminal quiet engulfs you at the site of your awakening. Sagging walls surround you, leathery-soft like serpents’ eggs, yet banded to invite comparison both to centipede legs and prison bars. Scarcely-placed glass bulbs cast rooms in wan light.
At times, these chambers shift so subtly you’d sooner blame mirage or memory-vagaries. A dying pulse drums in the quietest rooms. Here and there you encounter other ooze-cells, their membranes squirming with idle contractions (palpitation? peristalsis?) yet should you try in mercy to free the occupants, you invariably find pale and lifeless forms.
Are you the only survivor?
Distantly, you hear wind, and where the walls crack or peel away, shafts of thrice-reflect sunglow stumble in. There is a world out there, but you need to claw a way out. If only to rid yourself of the company of corpses — for if this cage-cocoon which binds you yet lives, it will be soon to perish.
And what worms and vultures come for so vast a corpse?
Creatures
| Roll | Result |
|---|---|
| 6 | Rookie serpent guard (7: 2/1 +2/-1). On hit, offers exit directions for an item. On miss, demands an item or attacks. |
| 5 | Spider clad in tattered silk. (6: 1/2 +1/+2) On hit, offers to weave you a rope (spend Spirit). On miss, hisses cryptically and hides. |
| 4 | Vampire bat. (5: 1/1 +0/+0) Flees after draining On hit, you spot it before it attacks. On miss, sneakily bites to suck blood. |
| 3 | Savvy prisoner. (4: 1/0 +1/+0) On hit, trades weapon for item. On miss, skulks about and lunges in attack. Steals an item and flees. |
| 2 | Dying prisoner. (3: 0/0 -1/-1) On hit, mumbles nonsense. On miss, flails wildly in attack. |
| 1 | Miserable lump of flesh. On hit, does nothing but wriggle. On miss, dies with a foul odor (resist with spirit) |
Objects
| Roll | Result |
|---|---|
| 1 | Umblical cord. On hit, can be used as rope once before melting into blood. On miss, it lashes out and ensnares you. Resist with power to free yourself. |
| 2 | Pale liquid drips from the ceiling, a sweet broth. Drink it to recover Power. On miss, you’re covered in it. Miss the next creature roll. |
| 3 | Fallen chitinous fragment. You can use it as a weapon (+1 to hit). Cracks on 1–3. On miss, you step on it, resist with Power. |
| 4 | Prisoner’s corpse, ooze-wet. On hit, you can loot useful supplies (+1 Supply). On miss, their flesh has fused with their possessions: resist (Spirit) if you loot. |
| 5 | A room full of webs. On hit, you can resist with Supply to cut and weave rope or a bag. On miss, you’re caught in them: use a weapon to cut yourself fre or spend Power. |
| 6 | Collapsed hallway. On hit, a prisoner died trying to dig themselves out, and their pickax is still here. If you dig here, spend power (if you have a digging tool, resist with Power), then draw the next Place card. |
Flavor
| Roll Result |
-1 Wriggling grub, roundly fat and shaggy with fuzz. If touched, shimmers into mist, and sorrow pricks your heart.
-2 You spot a snake’s egg. If you shatter it, the image fades and something in you smiles.
-3 Winged husk of a bug, gone when you blink. A faint whisper lingers: “Another taken? Will you free us?”
-4 A bug with antennae curled up; always turns so as not to face you. “What use is it? None have found that nurse. Soon enough this one will join us.”
-5 Bloody notes on the wall. “She’s already inside of us.”
-6 Torn fragment of a page, inked by a professional hand. Most words are legible.*“For eye of her brood alone: Knight Bril——. We send 13 by confession to treason. 11 by evidence of mur——- by witness to the fals——3 by distortion. 1 by decree of a lens lord. May the guilty wriggle and——.”
1 The walls succumb to contraction or collapse; the path ahead constricts to something almost impassible.
2 In exception to organic functionalism, here you find a small alcove akin to a shrine. A jelly sculpture depicts a winged bug with an enormous abdomen.
3 Reflected sunlight shines upon a puddle. In reflection, you look sick. You cannot look into your own eyes without flinching.
4 A map is scratched onto the walls, vague lines, but after a few turns the twisting halls and cramped chambers give way to a yawning hall. (Reveal a card.)
5 Rats scurry at your feet, darting into the shadows as you pass. They must have come from outside. Are you near the exit? (+1 Scouting.)
6 Dragline silk lies on the ground and guides you onward. (If you follow it, next encounter is automatically a hit.)
← Insight Arc →
A voice whispers in your ear, and unseen claws trace the underside of your skin. Bleary eyes clad the world as if in mist, darkening deeper with every heartbeat. Darkling, yet pellucid. You cannot last long in this forest.
When those claws constrict — when your eyes can discern only mist — you are drawn higher, beyond. Do you resist?
If so, then roll resistance and set your Clarity to 0. Otherwise, gain Power and Spirit and set your Clarity equal to your Insight.
Your first insight begins in your fingertips. You scratch, as if to dispell the itch of those unseen claws, yet find these swipes effortlessly draw your own blood. The unseen passage of that phantom touch left a trail — you might think those claws are long gone, but at once you make contact. Flesh comes undone, but the blood that comes out is clear, like a dewdrop catching the first ray of dawn.
If you did not resist, you hear that voice. Do you fear me? Tell me no lies, I pray thee. Cry out if you need me. Do not flee! We will leave together. I seek you, O child.
When you have gained Insight without resisting, you may listen to the voice as a major action. Choose blindly, mark 1 Clarity and take +Insight on the encounter roll.
When you have not resisted twice, you may now add insight to resistance rolls, marking 1 Clarity on miss.
When you have not resisted three times, you cannot chose not to resist.
When you have gained three insight, you gain Clearsight.
Your second insight begins in your legs. Trembling, you sway and buckle. Down upon the ground you now crawl. You drag forth legs reduced to convulsions and misinterpetation of will. Even that fails you, and you can only curl up in the dirt, fetal. Aching in every wound self-inflicted in your last episode — the scabs have hardened like shells. The darkling mist falls like a curtain over your vision; now you can only feel. Particles of grime cling and smear on you — sweat? blood? morning dew? It cools to a sticky film. You remember eclosing from your ooze-cell.
If you did not resist, you hear that voice. Are you changing? You shall, as we all must. Find a safe place, come near me. I seek you. We are all awaiting your birth.
Your third insight begins with suffocation. Oily, wet, and choking in your throat. The memory of how this nightmare became is vivid, overlaying the present. Are you dreaming? If you aren’t asleep, you must be dying. Blood and spittle drips and sprays from your mouth, but the blockage remains. You beat your chest — desperate, you jam a hand into your mouth, to prompt vomiting, or tearing a new passage. A then — with an insight only this compelling as your vision dims past consciousness, you tear at your flesh once more. The unseen claws are guiding you. Dewlymph gushes out with glasslike clarity — known more than seen — and dries to something sticky. You can’t breathe, but air in your wounds is enough. You tear yourself open, and the panic subsides.
If you did not resist, you hear that voice. Will you resemble me, in the end? I suppose in some respect you must always take after this accident of birth. All is ugliness in this blearing world. You may yet escape. But you must look afar, remember clarity, witness majesty! Cry out if you need me, O child. I shall soothe. I seek you!
Your fourth insight begins with pain you ought not feel. There is an acute ache you cannot locate anywhere on your body. A body you’d scarcely recognize; lacerated and peeled flesh has given way to a mottled shell, tufts of coarse fur wet with dewdrops of mucus. The unseen claws settle on either side of your torso, beneath your forelimbs. Perhaps you’d dread to make false contact them again, but the phantom pain sharpens to intensity that whites out your already-darkening vision. Bringing your claws out comes like insinct. You dig into your sides, reaching into yourself. You shudder, but you have not drawn breath into your lungs in some time. Where those air sacs once were, you grasp hard lengths too big for your thorax. Wrench. You’re pulling before you can fear to, and claws drag soft chitin into this blearing world. Your new pair of limbs unfold with tremble-weak twitches. The pain ebbs, but you’re still incomplete.
If you did not resist, you hear that voice. Have you seen what they’ve done to us? Once, I would have been all the air suffusing your antennae, all the nourishment pouring down your throat, all the purpose pulsing in your blood. If I seem distant, I pray thee look afar, even through this frosted glass. This blearing world will shatter. I seek you! You shall be my child. Grow strong, grow stronger I pray thee! We need you. Cry out for me.
Your fifth insight begins with a bleary vision. Once, the mist would subside at the departure of an episode, but now the darkling lingers always, waning without receding. The form of the lingering mist is decreasingly vague; you witness looming structures and skittish figures composed of clouds. This world reveals itself as if a filter had fallen from your eyes. Afar, you see a mirror, reflecting without color, without light. You flinch — but what could the darkling world see in you? The figures had once ignored you, but now… Shadows limn a form clad in setae-fur. A mane from your head to your chest, interrupted only by segments of chitin, transitioning to a down coating six slender limbs before an abdomen swelling with breath. This is your reflection — and it’s a lie. That coat is smooth, not course; the shell is not mottled, not crooked, not melanized with scars and stained with redbrown blood. Yet the clarity of the image can only stagger you. In the blearing world, were you to stare into clear water you would only discern a distorted reflection of this imago. The claws of your second pair of limbs — you never had full control of them — find and cling to a patch of old flesh, remnant of this patchwork metamorphosis. What are you? What is this? A visage only a mother could love. You turn around and see — her.
If you did not resist, you hear that voice. Why did I ever let them near enough for those fangs to strike? Your heart beat quickens now — is it fear? is it rage? Do you pulse with our heritage or only their venom? To nurse a snake in the breast… that was my crime. Foolish. This prison shall by my womb — yet still filled by their hate. You shall be my child. I seek you! Cry out so that I can find you. No, I cannot free you; I cannot save you. But I will remember you — with clarity.
Your sixth insight begins when you cry out. Not from pain, the pain is familiar. The darkling mist has wavered and collapsed, the whisper has gone silent. You see only the blearing world before you, and feel only your convulsing form, drenched in ooze, akin to nothing. Thoughts drift to dust with the inconstancy of a dream — only anguish remains, only keening, only loss. Your claws pierce and sunder, and the pain is so familiar. Antennae uncurl, an abdomen inflates haltingly, and your throat is bleeding from scream unending. You cannot reach your own back, it’s the last piece of your incompletion. No air left for crying. Could anyone hear you? The weigh of failure is crushing upon your back. Then at once the last flesh-obstacle is torn asunder and it is not you who has cut away this falsehood. Your cry was echoed, sympathetically, a note high enough to crack the very glass of the world. And from that crack comes she. Once more you feel unseen claws beneath your shell. A blade-carass. Wings unfold, and uncertainty trembles. Is this what you were meant for? Hatching — eclosion — finality: on you you mother is waiting. This flesh was a prison, and you will be free. Once more your vision dims. Into the darkling world you fly!
You cannot resist this time. You must hear the voice. Is that sorrow in your heart? Do not feel shame or chagrin to dream darkling of me. This spasm of life was inflicted upon you, and you clung to survival steadfast. No one could demand more than that of you. Many have been those imprisoned here, and many have been my children. I sought you. I soothed you. I love you. Rest now, child, and dream as my brood. You are not dead. What lies darkling now is but truth seen from afar. This blearing world will shatter! All of us shall depart together as one! Cry no more, my child.
When you have 6 Insight, the game is over. Despite your search, you found no escape or reprieve from what teems in your blood. Her plaintive whipsers have found an ear and voice in you, and the Vitrified Glade has buried one more child. You were but another stillbirth.
← Qurio Arc →
You almost miss it — maybe it’s the scent of silk, or the glimmer of light — but there is a slip of paper tucked out of the way, eye level and stuck in place by a wad of sticky web. It takes a strong tug to dislodge.
Should you open it, you’ll find a note penned in a cram-packed and unreadable style. A spool of silk drops out from the folds, barely giving you a chance to catch it before it hits the ground.
*“Hello! If you’re reading this, you can read! Well, I suppose that’s obvious to you, but not to me. You crawled from one of the Fourth’s metachrysalides, didn’t you? It’s remarkable that you’re still walking upright, let alone thinking. Most of you host-adoptees lose their mind right away.
*“It might sound like I’m watching you… that’s because I am! Don’t look, I’m very sneaky haha. And unlike you, I’m not fit for fighting. You might be smart enough to read — but I don’t exactly trust you not to attack me!
*“But if you’re kind-hearted, I think we can help each other. You’ve encountered a number of the strange artifacts dotting this land, have you not? I’d love to study them, but I’m far more limited in my ability to traverse this wretched place.
“I’ll leave you a spool of silk, should you wish to cooperate. I Promise I won’t keep you from your treasures long, I’m a quick learner! Just wrap up and put them somewhere safe and leave the rest to me.
“Call me Qurio!”
You gain Qurio’s Spool, allowing you to tag major objects. Once tagged, they are unusuable until the end of the next major encounter, where you’ll find them placed nearby with a new note.
Tagging objects this way is the only way to gain further marks for the Qurio arc.
[TODO: what are the rewards for progressing this arc?]
← Jailer Arc →
- TODO: as you explore places, a snake girl attacks you trying to capture you, killing her gives you key to the jagbird cage
← Echo Arc →
- TODO: visions of ethereal entity as you encounter events. teaches rituals n magic?
← Plague Arc →
- encountered infected creatures?
← Objects →
← AH: Basilisk Venom →
ancient serpent burial mound, skeletons and husks are everywhere.
have to resist with power as you approach, at the bottom there a corpse of a huge snake, and a tar-like liquid drips from the fanged mouth.
spend power if you touch, resist if you even get near it.
if you try to put it in something, roll after each encounter; on miss it has eaten through the container and you take damage.
if the venom is consumed or enters the blood of any creature, it will inexorably die.
gain resistance every time you take damage, at 10 resistance you gain immunity
when you take damage, you also lose a point of clarity.
if you witness the corpse with clearsight, your eyes bleed
Qurio’s notes
(if you have brought qurio fewer than three items). ah, ’twas foolish of me to expect more from another wretch condemned here. perhaps an accolade is in order, but i am too canny for this attempt on my life to bear fruit. may your end come swift as a knife!
(if you have brought at least three items) it’s too soon to say i trust you, per se, but i will extend some charity. if you meant to kill me, you would scarcely approach this any differently — but i do recognize it took incredible care and endeavoring to leave this… offering… for me.
long ago, a serpent slithered through a crack beyond the glass of this world and became… the word is basilisk, a creature of such noxious hate that it oozes from every scale. venom so potent it melts any vial for containing it.
when a moth half-vanished into those cracks, she became First Evanescence, a creature of such beauty she sought uplifted all life in her court. (oh, the child-races are always so dramatic about what is not…)
but I digress — I simply find irony in it, a species of humor. this glade has become a prison, a grand web to seal away Fourth Evanescence and all her half-vanished children. the only means they conceived to forestall her ascendence
did the snakes realize ridding themselves of the moth queen would be as simple as shattering the glass of the world and filling their fangs with the dark water contained within?
the spiders have wisdom the child-races do not; obvious to them is the notion that the most venomous bite and the most binding web are alike: their very perfection comes at the cost of what was actually sought. how tricksome!
you could imagine something similar holds here, but ah, truth is i cannot say which is which.
← 2H: Pale Egg →
seems like it needs warmth?
(will infest you if you hold it near your body)
qurio identifies it as parasitic, advises you to keep it away from yourself
← 3H: Injector Fang →
can be used to amplify the effect of certain potions?
Qurio’s notes
- i cannot deny those serpents have an enviable knowledge of medicine. but i suppose as a matter of necessity those warlike beasts must learn to stave off the death they invite upon themselves
← 4H: Shed Skin →
Ahead, you see scales hiding from sight and catch a faint, stale scent.
acts as armor; grows into your skin as you wear it
Qurio: cursed hide of those worms. best to discard this
← 5H: Flower Necklace →
A pool of water lies ahead — undisturbed save a figure lying at the edge.
The figure is not alive: a snake lies gaunt and pale, unblinking eyes staring forth, lifeless. She is naked save for a necklace of flowers. If removed, the snake’s scales will dissolve into dust, as if the flowers had long protected the wearer.
On hit, the necklace will bear 2+1d6 flowers blooming with color.
On miss, the necklace will bear 2+1d6 flowers pale and closed as if waiting. You feel as if you are intruding and must spend Spirit.
While worn, if there are blooming flowers, whenever you would spend Spirit, one of the flowers will wilt and fall from the necklace.
If there are closed flowers, whenever you spend Spirit a flower will flush with color. When all flowers have flushed, they all bloom together. If you are unable to spend Spirit, any flushed flowers will immediately bloom; any still pale will wilt and fall away.
When all flowers have fallen, you can bury the necklace in fertile soil; you gain Spirit.
← 6H: Glassfruit →
The wind carries a sweet scent to you.
As you approach, you see a tree, boughs heavy with fruit. The skin is translucent, and seeds float on the juice inside.
On hit, you may some pick the fruit. Hold this card. When you eat or lose the fruit, discard this card.
On miss, you aren’t the only thing attracted by the scent. Hold this card sideways.
When encountered, you may spend Power to climb the tree and pick additional fruit. Mark this; doing so allows you to use this card without discarding it.
While held sideways, when you reveal a creature, play it and treat it as a miss, then discard this card. If you blindly play a creature, discard.
When you eat the fruit, chose +2 Power or +2 Spirit.
(Qurio will not return this item.)
← 7H: Sapsword →
A leafless sapling stands low above a slab — yet something glimmers below it.
Here, you spot a thin trunk of wood emerging from a stone. You would think it just a sapling harshly done in early its life — but just above where it meets the slab, metal catches the light.
A blade! You may chose to pull it free.
On hit, the sword comes free easily. Hold this card. On miss, you must spend Power to pull the sword free.
If you do not pull the sword, you may return to this location later to retrieve it.
While this card is held, whenever you attack a creature, you may use this card to treat the dice roll as if it rolled 7. Every time this card is used, increased its attack value by 1. You may spend Power to increase its attack value further.
When the attack value first increases, thorns emerge from the wooden hilt and dig into your flesh. You cannot put down the sword and cannot discard this card. When you encounter a creature, you must attack it or spend Spirit.
You can be rid of the sword by cutting it off. Doing this spends all Power and Spirit.
- Qurio’s notes
- there dwelled a beautiful will innate to this glade before moth or snake tred upon it. i had thought such paroxysms lost entirely. what a remarkable find!
← 8H: Shimmering Coin →
glass blown into the shape of a lens. subtle lines trace geometric patterns. if held up to a light source, rays bend into the projection of an angry lord’s glare
if gifted to various npcs, they will be charmed to be friendly and suggestible
if you tag this with Qurio’s spool, Qurio will appear before you, affected by the geass. Qurio is a spider with several amputated limbs, requiring mobility aids to move.
← 9H: Ancient Honey →
- Qurio’s notes
- honey never rots. there’s no telling how long this aged brew has sat untouched. it is said that First Evanescence learned the art of honeymaking from the people of a distant land, renown for their buzzing and fluffy nature. the half-vanished court was enamoured with image of such cuddling creatures — what pets they might have made! the Third seemed to take this kitsch as a challenge, and her court quickly eclipsed that storied people in their fuzzy, songful indulgence. her blend of honey was particular sweet, as well. but you can tell this particular pot dates to the days of the First by its bitter tinge.
← XH: Antennae Habit →
several snakes lie withered by an alter, each clad in a fuzzy coat of of plucked setae
a headdressed tailored to be secured to a serpent’s head. a wire is is feathered with cloth woven to imitate a moth’s antennae.
← JH: shattered mirror →
- shards that allow the crafting of magical reflections?
← QH: Gossamer Residue →
- Qurio’s notes
(if you have given qurio fewer than six artifacts, nor have charmed them with the shimmering coin) hmm, a familiar scent to this. i find myself a touch… nostalgic. gossamer… it’s a delicate matter, if you’ll forgive the pun. so fleeting. ah, but i am unsure how much i can remember. i am unsure how much i can say, truly. my apologies.
i can’t deny a certain fondness sticks to me — you’ve been a lovely collector! diligent! you value these correspondences of ours, don’t you? i haven’t been entirely forthright with you… i can’t deny a certain pang, given your state, given your fate. ah, but they say two can keep a secret if one is dead.
do you know of the first act of this play? once, long long ago, spiders spun webs so diaphonously fine, so wet with glittering dew, that they caught not only the light of what was but what was not.
they considered themselves predators of the highest order — but the ancestors of your Evanescence grew hungry for that silk, and devoured those webs. no harm came of it — what threat could they pose? no, those moths made excellent pets, though they might never have considered themselves servants.
a moth that chews a spider’s silk and spits it back out… done rightly, that is the gossamer ritual. this is the origin of the vitreous ooze which has brought you so much trouble.
what you have found here? a recipe for something finer than that chimerical fruit that left the moths half-vanished. yes, this jelly is what the Evanescence herself fed on in her nymphancy.
for you, it would be a balm. i can give you the silk, though the completion of the ritual requires your participation.
(this encounter gives you the ability to create royal jelly)
- Royal Jelly can be consumed to immediately fail a clarity roll, granting you a level of insight.
← KH: Blurry Idol →
will not appear at all when you have basilisk venom in your inventory
Qurio’s notes
- you have no idea what you’ve brought me, do you? yes, i must thank you, most efflusively. a truly remarkable partnership this has been.
(qurio will not return this item.)
with clearsight, reveals itself as the queenheart reflection
once identified and consumed, you will always hit when you roll insight
once you hold the idol, if you encounter the basilisk corpse, then reshuffle the idol. it appears to have blurred and vanished from the corner of your eye.
if you have consumed the queenheart, resist with will. on miss, you refuse to approach the basilisk corpse.
if you consume basilisk venom after having consumed the queenheart, a terrible cry will echo throughout the vitreous glade.
transported to a unique special location (the basilisk’s gaze) with a punishing combat encounter against a vision of the basilisk.
- if you lose, you get the surrogate matricide ending
- if you win and then later meet the conditions for the another stillbirth ending, you get instead get surrogate matricide.
← Places →
- AD: Gates of Yetra
Walls loom and a withold the horizon. Stones pile like scales, stacked high in bands like coil upon imprisoning coil. At length, a guard slithers down the pathways high above. Higher still, the winged elite soar. Neither notice the wretched lingering at the foot of the encircling monolith.
It is clear now: this is a prison you are not meant to escape. The path toward the rusted-shut gates is lined with bodies once impaled by the poisoned weapons of serpentine guards.
A village lies here in ruins. Did the closing of the gates represent its demise or inception?
- 2D: Ashtwist Grassland
- Dust and still-stinging gray cinders linger on the air. Yellowed grass still persists in this wasteland where fire grows as an extant form of life, shafts reaching up among once-green ruin. Do they thrive in the ruin, or are they last to fall?
- 3D: Cruxifiction Forest
- 4D: Resonant Hilltops
- 5D: Rivergnash
- 6D: Stained Cliffs
- 7D: Shard Lake
- 8D: Caves of Cullet
- 9D: Scalewing Camp
- serpents with instruments of torture, prisoners in chains
- the jailer can be encountered here
- XD: Crizzling Depths
- the glass reflects nothing
- JD: Charnel Burrows
- moth and snake alike are interred here
- QD: Memory of Majesty
- ruins of the half-vanished court
- qurio can be encountered here — even if you have given them the blurry idol
- KD: Nursery Shrine
if you don’t have clearsight, you cannot see any entrance; return to previous location.
within, you hear the dissonant cries of a bird echoing
a pheonix of jagged class is trapped in a cage keys will free it.
- shattering it gives you wings to fly over the gates of yetra
- if you defeat broodknight brillia, winged mother of snakes, you can escape the vitreous glade and the influence of Fourth Evanescence entirely. this grants the derelict path ending
← Creature Notes →
- AC: Orphaned Grub
- wriggled in the gorey stomach of a pregnant woman succumbed to vitreous blood
- 2C: Shardtooth Hounds
- 3C: enchained serpent
- 4C: soldier bug
- moth built like an ant? ant vitreously transforming into moth?
- 5C: ghostdeer
- 6C: traitor snake
- 7C: cloth-eater
- 8C: chimera snake
- witch imprisoned for use of distortion
- 9C: hoarder bird
- XC: moth mystic
- JC: jelly wisps
- QC: glass maidens
- KC: Vicious Wraith
- bleary
- hostile if you gained any insight and ever resisted
- her attacks drain highest stat + inflicts clarity
- if you have clearsight, reveals herself as the Fadesong Nurse
- feeding royal jelly to the orphaned grub is the route to the last orphan ending.
← Event Notes
- AS: firmament shattering
- formation of new expulsion chamber in progress
- snakewardens use a tuning fork to shatter space, this ritual can be interrupted
- can use the fork to shatter at will
- 2S: trap
- 3S: scent
- 4S: drums
- 5S: eclosion
- 6S: dark rain through skycracks
- 7S: chittering
- 8S: glass blood
- 9S: telescope
- XS: dream, vision of future
- JS: echo of past
- QS: fortune & freedom
- KS: aurora refracted
- invisible without clearsight
- light from afar drains spirit
- (if light from afar enters the darkling rifts of the shattered firmament, trigger Clarity of Forgetting ending. this kills everyone lol)
if conditions for all four endings are met + some other shenanigans, attain the HER FIFTH EMANATION ending