Severina Blue

This week, I’m looking at some of the most WTF RPG publications I haven’t already covered, starting with The Future King (1985), which might be the WTF-iest.

The booklet is by Tom Moldvay of B/X D&D fame, and spins out, thematically, from his gonzo Avalon Hill RPG Lords of Creation. Mechanically, though, Moldvay opted for a stripped-down system that focuses on character interaction and uses a pair of D6; the full rules run about a page and are surprisingly light for the period.

The scenario is unhinged, however. Players take the role of six heroes summoned out of time — Nostradamus, the Viking Harald Hardraada, the Welsh freedom fighter Owen Glendower, Doc Holiday, Cyrano de Bergerac and Bruce Lee — who are tasked with finding a number of magical items — the skeleton of Sir Bedivere, Excalibur (naturally) and the magic bell that will wake the sleeping king and his knights. Nostradamus has a bunch of prophecies that can possibly help player through the plot, but honestly, the adventure is a series of scenes that, while jumping through time and space, are pretty linear in practice. Random encounters (with Sinbad, the Red Dragon, Comte St. Germain and a futuristic soldier of fortune, among others) spice things up. As much as Moldvay pretends the scenario is about character interaction and puzzling out riddles, success is mostly determined by successfully kicking the butts of a series of guardians, which include a cyborg and Sir Mordred. It’s all over the place, a fever dream all the way through.

You're one of us You're a part of the night You're one of us Say goodbye to the light

It started with someone listing "places with uncanny energy," like gas stations on a road trip, empty movie theaters, etc.

Then someone reblogged it and said those are called "liminal spaces," defining liminal as in-between, neither one thing nor another.

Tomorrow (July 4th, 2026) is the 10 year anniversary of the-crepes-of-wrath's comment, which:

Predates the 2020 spike in interest by four years

Predates the original backrooms post, and the the creation of r/liminalspaces by three years

Predates the earliest mention that KnowYourMeme attributes to Twitter by two years

I'm pretty sure this is the moment the term "liminal spaces" was attached to this sort of imagery, and it's TEN YEARS OLD TOMORROW!

rest stops on highways

trails by the highway just out of earshot of traffic

schools during breaks

those little beaches right next to ferry docks

your friends living room once everybody but you is asleep

the lighting section of home depot

A lot of these places are called liminal spaces - which means they are throughways from one space to the next. Places like rest stops, stairwells, trains, parking lots, waiting rooms, airports feel weird when you’re in them because their existence is not about themselves, but the things before and after them. They have no definitive place outside of their relationship to the spaces you are coming from and going to. Reality feels altered here because we’re not really supposed to be in them for a long time for think about them as their own entities, and when we do they seem odd and out of place.

The other spaces feel weird because our brains are hard-wired for context - we like things to belong to a certain place and time and when we experience those things outside of the context our brains have developed for them, our brains are like NOPE SHIT THIS ISN’T RIGHT GET OUT ABORT ABORT. Schools not in session, empty museums, being awake when other people are asleep - all these things and spaces feel weird because our brain is like “I already have a context for this space and this is not it so it must be dangerous.” Our rational understanding can sometimes override that immediate “danger” impulse but we’re still left with a feeling of wariness and unease. 

“Native people used to live in this National Park” No. They still do.

“Native people used to tell these stories-” No. They still do.

“Native people used to use this plant as a natural remedy-” No. They still do.

'Bore to death'

On the hot summer evenings like this one in L.A , Celeste often recalled the times when she was hunting Vikings, during a beautiful autumn near Paris. She missed that thrill, the smell of fear, and how they bravely fought for their lives. And Napoleonic times, oh, that was a feast! Of course, modern times had their pros, but the search for victims through Tinder has long lost its charm for her. Although, it was convenient.

For today's meeting, she wore a white dress, which usually made them feel more confident and bold, losing vigilance. A simple trick. Celeste was in good mood and intrigued, at first. She even promised herself that if the conversation will be interesting enough, she would refrain from consuming, at least for this one evening. It was like that until she heard "You have the most beautiful eyes I have ever seen". Nothing irritated her more that this banal sentence that he has had to listen to for hundreds of years. Really, I mean, really?! During all these centuries it was really impossible to come up with something more interesting, more original way to start a conversation? She was bored.