Into The Unwritten

Into The Unwritten

When the moon turns red, the black gate opens and the Pale Rider comes down for whatever is left.

A solo campaign of cards and dice, made like a board game. Coming to Kickstarter in early 2027.

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Into the land

The game

Four wake by the fire

Into The Unwritten is a solo campaign played with cards and dice. Four wayfarers wake by a fire on a cliff, and none of them remembers who they are or why they are there.

Each moon they go down into the land. They walk a road of cards, face a beast on its own board and carry home what they can. Moon by moon the sanctum is restored, the four grow stronger, and the land opens one place at a time. Then the moon turns red and a new cycle begins.

  • The sanctum

    A ring of stones on a cliff. The fire, the shop, the shrine, and the pillars where the names of the dead are cut.

  • The road

    Every place has its own deck of road cards, and every card has its page in the storybook.

  • The beasts

    Every beast has its own board, its own deck of actions and its own ways to the heart. You learn them one fight at a time.

The opening

Twenty-nine pale moons, then the red one, and again.
What happens in between is left unwritten.

  1. Every age, the fire wakes someone. This time, it wakes four.

  2. They wake in a ring of stone, with ash in their mouths and no names to speak.

  3. None of them knows this place, or the faces around the fire.

  4. Only their hands seem to remember
    the weight of a blade.

  5. One of them rises and walks to the edge.

  6. Below the cliff the land lies waiting, and far off, a black fortress towers over it all, watching.

A moon

The loop of a moon

Every moon has the same five steps, and the cards and dice make each one different. The last moon is the red one.

The sanctum on the first night: a ring of broken stones on a cliff, four bedrolls around the fire and a rack of weapons by the wall.
The land map: mountains and mist, a wood of dead trees, standing stones, a white salt flat, an abbey on a hill, a red tower, and far off a black fortress.
The game's road: the Lily Mere's adventure board with its cards in three rows, the four wayfarers on their round bases on a turned card, the dice tray and the party beside it.
The game's showdown: the Kneeling Knight's board with its action cards and its ring of parts on the left; in the middle the mere as a board of hexes, the Kneeling Knight on its round base inside a red guard ring cut into its parts, the four on round bases beside it and the hexes its blow will reach lit; the dice tray and the party on the right.
The sanctum board after a hunt: the moon marker on the third moon, essence counted on the Kneeling Knight's rings, three of the four home and one at the fire, the companies on their standing tracks, the sanctum deck and a gear card in their wells, and beside the board the Knight's three shop cards and the closed Sanctum Book.
A first look at the sanctum board. It may still change.

Made like a board game

Every rule works on a table

Into The Unwritten is a digital game first, but it is built the way a board game is built. Everything in it is something a box could hold.

Boards printed in black and gold. Tarot cards for the road and the beast, small cards for gear and techniques, round tokens, dice, a storybook with numbered pages and a binder with a sheet for each of the four. The screen deals, shuffles and keeps count. It never does anything you could not do with your own hands.

The Lily Mere's adventure board: black leather pressed with lilies and reeds, the place's name in gold, slots for twelve road cards in three rows, the deck and the prowl cards beside them.

The Lily Mere

The road

Turn the next card on the board, then throw the road die in the tray.

The Kneeling Knight's board: a drowned chapel's window pressed into black leather, the beast's name in gold, places for its decks and its parts.
The beast's boardThe Kneeling Knight's parts, its heart, and its three decks: actions, twists and strikes.
Actions and twistsAt the start of every round the beast's action is turned and read, and you have that round to get out of the way. Twists change its blows, and strike cards answer yours. Turn them over.
Road and prowl cardsAdventure cards in four signs, and prowl cards for the beast that is hunting you while you walk.
Leeches
Reflection
Clear Sight
Challenged
TokensRound 25 mm tokens for what the fight leaves on you.
GearSmall cards for weapons, armour, spells and prayers, bought at the sanctum with the essence a beast leaves when it falls. Each beast's shop brings the next step of power.
The GraveWhen one of the four falls, a card comes from the Grave. A mercy, a scar, an injury. Or death.
NameSigrun
AwakenedUnwantedWoken by the fire in this age.
Came to the fireWoke at the fire on the first night.
Might+0
Grace+0Scars−1
Wits+0
Will+1Gear+1
Dice2
Move3
Embersgained in a fight
The vial
DosesFrom moon1101925Wounds2468Dread1234
WoundsA cross for each wound. The dotted boxes come with the levels.
DreadFilled, the name fadesSteady boxes fill first, then two to a die: both struck, it turns black.
Armour
Head2
Body2
Arms2
Legs2
Level
to IV
WeaponSword
Weapon
Riposte
Track
Blade Swipesecondmaster
Skills
Read the Beastlevel V
Path
Injuries
Scars
Twelve Stitches
Afflictions
Cold Sweat

Injuries and scars come home from the Grave, afflictions from the dread deck. The Bonesetter can set an injury that says so; the rest are for good.

Into The Unwritten

The weapon

SwordKindA box for every fight it is used in
CarriedOne of twoSecondMaster
First
Riposte
One of two
Blade Swipe
or
The Answering Cut, left in the box
Second
Cross Blades
Master
The Unbroken Line

Skills

Level II
Read the Beast
Level V
At level V

The path

Owed a first card: dealt at the next return a card comes back to the deck.

Nine pockets

NameSigrun
I
Pale Sword
II
The Vial
III
Leech Oil
IV
Vigil Robe
V
VI
Vigil Robe
Vigil Robe
Vigil Robe
Armour
Head2
Body2
Arms2
Legs2
SigrunLevel III, 10 marks, 5 more for IV

The tally

A fight won adds as many marks as the beast's rank, rounded up; a fight lost and lived through adds one. After the hunts of moons 3, 6, 9, 12, 15, 18, 20, 22, 24, 26 and 28 the fire's tale gives one to every wayfarer, out hunting or home. Two levels behind the party's best, every mark counts twice.

  1. I
    Woke at the fireTwo dice, the wound track and the dread track, every stat at nothing.
  2. II
    BloodedMore wound boxes. Choose a skill: one of three cards.Read the Beast
  3. III
    Steady handsA steady box at the head of the dread track. Raise a stat.+1 Grace
  4. IV
    SeasonedMore wound boxes. Body or mind: hardened, steadied or sharpened.
  5. V
    The third dieA third die every round, and its two dread boxes. Choose a skill.
  6. VI
    Old in the workA steady box at the head of the dread track. Body or mind.
  7. VII
    The lintelThe name is cut into the lintel: whatever happens, it is never lost. Once a fight, when it would fade, it holds and 2 dread go instead. Raise a stat.

At the fire

Four go out on each hunt; the rest keep the fire.

NameGoes out
HalvardWoke at the fire on the first night.
WrenWoke at the fire on the first night.
SigrunWoke at the fire on the first night.
MarenWoke at the fire on the first night.

Going out4of four

Notes on Sigrun
Cut a wing from the Kneeling Knight at the second moon. Keeps out of the deep water now.

The storage chest

Everything nobody carries, shared by everyone.

Armour
Ragged Cowl1
Rag Wraps1
Rag Leggings1
Wader's Coat1
Weapons
Iron Sword1
Ash Spear1
Mace1
Long Knife1
Pilgrim's Spear1
Light Magic1
The binderEach of the four has a sheet, written in as the campaign goes. It holds the name you give them, their wounds and dread, the gear in their nine pockets, the tally of their marks and the weapon they grow into. Turn a page by its edge, or pick a tab.

If the Kickstarter does well, a physical edition in a box is the dream for a later Kickstarter.

The first place

The Lily Mere

Below the sanctum lies a black lake choked with lilies, and a chapel the water took. The Kneeling Knight waits where it is deepest.

It has knelt there since long before the four woke, in tarnished plate, with iron wings, a halo of gilded thorns and a sword planted in the water.

  1. The Kneeling Knight kneels in the black water of the Lily Mere in prayer, head bowed over the planted sword, the halo of gilded thorns behind it and the drowned chapel far off.

    Kneeling

    The fight begins with the Kneeling Knight in prayer, the blade already in reach.

  2. The Kneeling Knight stands at its full height in the black water, the thorn wings spread wide and the long sword raised in both hands, water pouring off its plate.

    Standing

    Get halfway through one of the ways to its heart and the Kneeling Knight stands. The wings open.

  3. The Kneeling Knight sinks to its last kneel, leaning on the sword, the breastplate broken open and a cold white light shining out where the heart is.

    The heart open

    Break a way through and the heart lies open. Then the Kneeling Knight gives its last command: kneel.

The Lily Mere's arena seen from above: black pools, beds of white lilies, pale stones and a fallen statue at the far edge.

The showdown

A board of hexes over the black water

Wade through the black water and the leeches find you. The stone pillars stand between you and the blade, until they break. Each round the Kneeling Knight turns an action, and the hexes it reaches light up before it strikes.

Pick one to see it on the board.

A long blade standing point down in the water among the lilies, mist rising round it.
At the water's edge a flat stone is worn smooth in the shape of a long blade. Beside it, in a careful hand, one word: HERE.
Some pages begin a quest
Not every quest begins with a sword

The land

Beyond the Mere, only rumours

At the first moon only the Lily Mere is open. The rest of the land waits under the mist, and each moon opens a little more of it.

The land map under mist. The sanctum's ring of stones on its cliff at the lower left, the Lily Mere below it, and beyond them a dead wood, a heath of standing stones, a white salt flat, an abbey on a hill, a red tower and the black fortress.

Drag the map. Tap a place.

The sanctum

The Sanctum Evolves With You

On the first night there are four bedrolls, a rack of old weapons and the fire. Over the campaign masons and carvers come, and the ring of stones is restored in stages to what it once was.

The sanctum on the first night: broken walls overgrown with ivy, four bedrolls round the fire.
The sanctum swept: the bedrolls gone, a chest by the wall.
The sanctum with the shrine: a cairn of stacked stones with candles beside the fire.
The sanctum restored, first stage: the walls mended, the pillars raised.
The sanctum restored, second stage: the walls rebuilt in pale stone, the pillars carved.
The sanctum restored, third stage: round columns and the first arches going up on scaffolds.
The sanctum in its former glory: a ring of white arches round a carved floor and the fire.

Four bedrolls, the weapon rack and the fire. Only the four.

The Ashen CompanyProud and quick to quarrel. The first to rival the four.
The Grey LanternsPilgrims and map makers, who trade in what they know.
The Red HandsHard people who take what they need.

Others come to the fire and go out as companies of their own. Not all of them will stand with you at the end.

Kickstarter

Early 2027Follow it now

Coming to Kickstarter

Into The Unwritten comes to Kickstarter in early 2027, as a digital game made like a board game. Follow the page to hear the day it opens, or leave your email below.

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The storybook closed: black leather with the gold Into The Unwritten wordmark and a red ribbon.

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