Mars

Forty years ago, London was stolen by bats.

Fallen London is an online text adventure; a Victorian gaslight fantasy with horror in its bones and romance laced throughout its meat. Also it's funny.

You might have seen our gender selection text doing the rounds on here:

It's more than 4.5 million words long, and as such defies summary. However, it's broken down into morsels small enough that you won't choke.

It's playable for free on anything that can open a web browser. There are no ads and no installs. It's not possible to infinitely scroll it; you get some actions, spend them, and then are released to go and think about what you've done.

It has been developed over 16 years without the use of AI. (Anything with incorrect fingers is like that on purpose.)

While I'm still not sure if either version quite stuck the landing, the ending that we watched does crown all the betrayal and heartbreak and love that came right before it:

(spoilers!!!)

Suns and moons pass. Streak in the ring finger. Smudge on the pinky. A full-handed block at the cost of three nails of paint. A hit on his master, and he hoots in delight until the master points out the unguarded toe whose polish is now streaked across the master's robe.

Days pass in frustration and exhaustion. By day 40, he has every digit of his acutely in his mind's eye. He senses the master's attack, ducks, dodges, all fingers all toes all himself, aware, and he strikes with his wooden sword.

It connects with the master. The master pauses. The trainee raises his left hand into view--5 digits of flawless sunflower yellow. His left foot. His right foot. And finally his right hand, raised in triumph.

The master smiles. "You have passed. I have just one more technique to teach you."

reblogging this with a video example, because the description doesn't do it justice.

Did you know you can get started with any of our core line games for FREE?!

Thats right £0, in this economy ?!?

We aim to design Quickstarts with a few things in mind:

Simple overview of the rules including character creation or premade characters.

An adventure! Its no good having the rules for a game with no guidance on how to get a group to the table and actually PLAYING.

BIG VIBES - truthfully we want to sell you on the full thing, we do that by showing you what the game has to offer in STYLE.

Ready to try one out?

Paint The Town Red: a sad gay vampire rpg of found family, boozy nights out and stinking hangovers.

Inevitable: A doomed arthurian western of cowboy knights trying (and failing) to save the world.

Orbital Blues: a lo-fi space western ttrpg of depressed outlaws trying to make ends meet in a hypercaptalist dustbowl americana far-future.

Best Left Buried: a gritty horror dungeoncrawl where characters suffer the consequences of their actions.