The Merciless Snare of Sorcery

What follows is a microgame that I wrote for Dancing Stickman's LAARG project on Bluesky (which is why the text refers to posting your playthrough on Bluesky). I don't work in the microgame space, um, ever, but I enjoyed writing this, and I hope you'll enjoy it too.

In which magic is lost and might be regained, if your reach does not exceed your grasp.

In The Merciless Snare of Sorcery, you play a witch who has lost control of a spell. In the course of the game you determine the purpose of the spell, discover what you’re willing to do to regain control, and suffer the consequences.

Fate has given you magic at a time of the world’s great need. It is within your power to throw down the injustice of the world and make it anew, to breathe new life into a dying land, to humiliate your rivals, or to become wealthy beyond your wildest imagination. Choose what you will, but with sorcery, you can’t know the cost until it is too late to turn back.

Number of Players: 1-2
Playing time: 10-15 minutes

Materials

You’ll need five dice of the same type. The type of die you use is determined by the scope of the working your character attempts, so you might use d4s, d6s, d8s, d10s, d12s, or d20s.

Setup

I want to change something about:

Myself: d4
My community: d6
My region, or nearby cosmic regions: d8
My country, or more distant cosmic regions: d10
My continent, or all cosmic regions that touch the world: d12
The world, or the cosmic regions beyond my ken: d20

Describe in detail what it is that you’re changing and why it matters to you. Narrate this in a Bluesky thread.

Prompts

Your goals might be selfish, curious, or altruistic. Selfish goals aren’t always harmful to others, altruistic goals may be well-intentioned without being wise, and curiosity is no safer for you than for cats.

Selfish goals:

• I want to be incomparably beautiful.

• I want my neighbors to trust and respect me.

• I want to reach into the borders of Faerie (a nearby cosmic region) and attract the attention of a fey.

• I want to be the greatest archmage in the United States of America.

• I want to construct a portal between here and the land of the dead (a cosmic region that touches the world) that only allows in those I name.

• I wish for absolute dominion.

Curious goals:

• I want to know who my great-great-great-grandmother was.

• I want to know which of my friends is lying to me.

• I want to know when the chittering demons of Naiz-Kmir attempt to cross the boundaries between the realms.

• I want to know the secrets of all prior archmages of Istanbul and Constantinople.

• I want to know the word that banishes death, and all Earth-born people who have uttered it. (Speaking the word that banishes death is quite another matter, and is probably a selfish spell affecting a cosmic region that touches the world.)

• I wish to perceive the will of the Gods.

Altruistic goals:

• I want my touch to cure cancer.

• I want my neighborhood to be safe from plague, pestilence, and famine.

• I want to unravel the hurricane that threatens my whole state.

• I want to free the Mirror-bright Realm from the tyrannical Strangling Angel.

• I want all Earth-born creatures to remember what it felt like to be loved.

• I wish to break the power of greed over all sentient beings.

Once you’ve declared your intent, roll five dice of the type you select. If your dice all roll the same value, you work your will in the world and evade at least some of the consequences of your hubris.

If the dice don’t all roll the same value, you begin to lose control of your spell. To regain control of it and achieve your aim, you must sacrifice things that are precious to you. Begin with the first pair of questions and choose one to answer, then cross it off. For each pair of questions that you cross off, you can reroll as many dice as you want, or you can adjust one die up or down by 1. Proceed through the questions in order, posting your answers in Bluesky.

1.   What is your greatest weakness? Write it on a sheet of tin and bury it deep. | Which of your hated rivals or dangerous antagonists will benefit from your spell?

2.   What do you fear? Speak its name to the stars. They listen, and they will revisit it upon you in your dreams. | What potent grimoire do you cast into the basin and burn to ash?

3.   What helps you to sleep at night? Your connection to it is sundered. | What doom do you foresee when you look into the flame?

4.   What bargain did you make to gain your power? You have soured that bargain, and the other party is an ally no longer. | What did these ritual candles cost you, now that they are gone?

5.   What do you struggle to forget that has now come flooding back? | What nearby cosmic region now intrudes upon your sanctum?

6.   Who is erased from your memory, and is the loss more sorrowful or more threatening? | What is the shadow-thing that knocks the reliquaries from their resting-places?

7.   Who was that apprentice, whose name you sacrificed? | Why do you hesitate, when you are so close to success at last?

8.   Will you sacrifice your regrets as well, or will they be all that you have left that is truly yours? | Which of your previous spells is undone and sacrificed to the flame?

9.   How do you spend your last breath? | What face does the shadow-thing wear so that it can get close to you?

10.   If you know your life is forfeit, how do you continue? | Where does the shadow-thing strike to punish your sorcerous hubris?

11.   Whom do you wish you had said a final prayer or farewell to, as your sight dims? | Is there an apprentice or lover left to save you and to suffer in your place?

12.   What do you feel, as sorcery consumes you? | What do you see, beyond the veil of sorcerous consumption?

Beyond the twelfth question, the magic has consumed the last vestiges of you, and the merciless snare of sorcery claims you.

Duo Mode

The duo mode of The Merciless Snare of Sorcery invites the second player to be part of your cabal or coven, aiding you in your magic. Gameplay works as above, except that first player picks a question from #1, the second player picks a question from #2, and so on. Answers are written down and handed to the other player, who can alter a number of words in the answer equal to the question’s number.