Everything I see from Dark Confluence looks sick, and you should use this as an excuse to talk more about it
I don't think I've actually talked a ton about what Dark Confluence is going to be like as a completed game, so I'll take this as an excuse to do so lmao.
So, I like the souls-borne "series" a ton. But my favorite part of all the games is the world that you're let loose in and get to explore. Piecing together the story through bits and pieces, hidden clues, secrets, implication and interpretation. The goal of Dark Confluence is to do that together at the table.
To that end, Dark Confluence is all about the setting and unfolding story you all put together. It is as much a game as it is a chopped up setting book that never tells you exactly what's going on - because that's the fun! Making it all up! Crafting your own unique crumbling, melancholy universe and then rooting around in it to see what you can make sense of.
Character mechanics draw a lot from my other game Extracausal, so its a lot of tag/trait based stuff, but there's also DNA from games like Wanderhome in there, with how the Realms ("levels") and Lords of the Tower ("bosses") work. I want the game to give the table a bunch of tools for getting into weird and complicated situations, and then stringing it all together into something uniquely cohesive.
Most of the mechanics are mostly done and written at this point, all that's left is just all the other writing lmao. There's 36 character backgrounds (each with their own set of 3 unique items), 12 Realms, 12 Lords, 18 Magical Spells, 18 Artifacts, 18 Major NPCs, 36 Creatures and Wretches (and more!), all of which have embedded within them little "lore sparks" for the table to play around with. Nothing is "canon", but there's a lot of moving parts - building blocks - for the table to play around with.
You're all gonna be wandering around your unique version of the Infinite Tower (the dark confluence of the multiverse), confronting the Lords of the Tower as you shape the universe to come. Along the way, you'll meet weird and interesting NPCs, horrible and dangerous Wretches, and uncover and create your own deep lore and secrets.
As a reward for everyone reading through all this text, here's a new Artifact
Ossifrage Great Bow; tags - ravenous, violent
A great bow shaped from many fragments of bones. It glistens in the light, bleeding like an open wound.
Effect: The wielder never runs out of arrows, as the bow fires massive, barbed, missiles grown and harvested from the skeleton of the wielder themself.
Burden: The wielder’s sternum must be kept pried open, beating heart exposed.
Augments
The bow can launch a flurry of smaller arrows that darken the sky
The bow can steal the bones of another whom it has injured
The projectiles fired from the bow leave a burning stream of blood in their wake
Fragmentation
Effect: Unleash your manifold soul, allowing the hungry, grasping hands of Fate within you to reach out and unravel whatever they touch.
Requirement: Consume an entire age’s worth of Fragments, becoming infinite, fractal, and glorious.
Ember Moves
Like tangled strands of a knot, all Fragments are secretly connected. All Fragments must take a Curse.
The howl of the dying cosmos echoes louder, consuming the dreams of those within the Realm, replacing them with something else.
One of your many soul-pieces sloughs off, becoming a Fragment all its own, one with the Fate of bringing about your final Dissolution.
They say that souls are the building blocks of the cosmos, and the gods merely stonemasons. From where then, do souls come from?
It's gonna be done eventually. I might be on the lookout for playtesters once I have the text done. So, keep an eye out for that maybe?
