ANNOUNCING: THE LADY AFTERWARDS + AGAINST WORLDBUILDING

It’s Cultist Simulator’s anniversary weekend, so we have some big things to announce. We’re running a mega Daily Deal on Steam (50-66% off everything!) with the honey-voiced Systemchalk broadcasting the game on our Steam page for the uninitiated. Go watch him try not to die!

We’re also running a half-price sale on the Nintendo Switch port, and have a new game, a new book and updates on our stained-glass tarot deck to share. Read on…

THE LADY AFTERWARDS: A CULTIST SIMULATOR TRPG

You’ve been summoned to Alexandria, a city of coloured lights and curious histories. An old friend needs you to track down a woman. She’s probably in trouble. Probably trouble herself. Plus ça change. 

Mirrors glitter at the Cecil, Berbers whisper in the El Bab Cafe, and statues keep their secrets in the cold depths of the bay. Something’s in motion, from the Arab Quarter to the Rue des Soeurs. Somewhere, the Serapeum stirs. The Hours have taken an interest.

Cherchez la femme, the saying goes. But what does the lady look for?

The Lady Afterwards is a limited edition Cultist Simulator TRPG, based on Chaosium’s Basic Role-Playing system – think Call of Cthulhu or story-driven DnD, without us getting sued. We’ve streamlined the experience so you don’t have to be a TRPG aficionado to play, and we’ve filled it with Dread, Fascination and the invisible arts.

Track down Audrey Leigh Howard, a woman of high standing and dubious morals. Seek the Serapeum. Investigate the Society of the Noble Endeavour. Abort a plan. Avert a crisis. Protect the heart of the House Without Walls – or let the blow fall.

The Lady Afterwards is a boxed physical edition, containing everything you need for several evenings’ occult entertainment with friends (and/or cultists). Each edition includes:

  • The Lady Afterwards, a Cultist Simulator TRPG scenario set in 1920s Alexandria
  • A game-runner’s handbook, incorporating all story, locations, lore and mechanics
  • An exultation* of clues, curiosities, clippings and collectibles
  • “The Essential Hours”, 23-card pocket tarot
  • Eight customisable character sheets, complete with secret agendas
  • Eight art deco character pins in silver, brass, copper and gold
  • A scented Serapeum candle, to evoke that which cannot be seen
  • Three Mansus candles, for important plot points
  • A full-colour map of contemporary Alexandria
  • A set of seven antique TRPG dice in a velvet dice bag
  • A Steam key for Cultist Simulator, in the unspeakable instance where someone hasn’t played it yet
  • A 50% discount token for the Church o’ Merch
  • Access to a custom-built mood-music playlist, to further SET THE TONE!

All together, it’ll look *something* like the image at the top of this section. Though please note that this is all mocked-up right now – as you can, er, probably tell. It’ll likely look a smidge different in the flesh.

The Lady Afterwards comes in a custom-built 1920s-styled recyclable box mailed directly to your door. We’re making just a hundred copies to start with, though we’ll expand the limited run if we see enough interest. We expect to release the game in October, in time for Halloween – we’ll confirm a release date later down the line. Sign up to the mailing list to keep up to date. Now we can talk about this, we’ll have a lot more to share in future updates.

*Yes, this does mean I haven’t finalised the actual final number of findables in-game. BUT IT WILL BE A NICE SATISFYING NUMBER OKAY.


AGAINST WORLDBUILDING, AND OTHER PROVOCATIONS: ALEXIS’S BRAIN IN A JAR BOOK

Alexis has spent over a decade making games, from Fallen London to Sunless Sea to Cultist Simulator, with a lot of other work in between. He’s finally releasing a book on it all, compiling 200+ pages of the best of his pieces on narrative, design, development and why ‘worldbuilding’ busts his nut.

“There are sentences in Fallen London and Cultist Simulator that make me freeze in my seat. This collection of essays is generally not Alexis in freeze mode… It’s Alexis being funny, pragmatic, charitable and humane. It’s like getting to sit down over a plate of enigmatically-sourced goat goujons and a cup of Thracian wine, and be told a bunch of good stories.”

– Introduction, Matt Hosty

Against Worldbuilding is available now in Kindle and paperback format, costing £5.65 and £7.77 respectively. Enjoy!


THE LUCID TAROT: STAINED-GLASS SOOTHSAYING

We announced we’re making a second tarot deck, after The Tarot of the Hours proved so popular. This time it’s a world-first: we’re making a stained-glass-window-inspired deck, opaquely printed on transparent PVC. This means light (candlelight; moonlight; King Crucible) shines through some parts of each card, but they have an opaque back so you can’t see the image on the other side.

The deck features new, custom-made art of the Hours and Cultist Simulator cards that draws on existing lore but follows traditional systems like the Rider-Waite much more closely than the Hours deck did.

We’re calling it The Lucid Tarot. People seemed to get excited about it when we teased it last time, so the cards above are all never-before-seen, to whet your appetite!

The Hours have been around for centuries in every History. They’re a syncretic pantheon, like the loa of Haitian Vodou or the weirder Greco-Roman deities, and they change over time to reflect the current world. You’ll notice that the art style as well as the depiction of the Hours in The Lucid Tarot is sometimes quite different from their original depictions. For example, here’s Justice / The Meniscate from both decks:

These differences are deliberate, and we hope it’ll shed some more lore-y light on things. The new images also suit the abbey-like stained-glass aesthetic, which you’ll see more of in BOOK OF HOURS

We can’t specify a release date yet, because it turns out making a tarot deck from scratch is a lot of work. 😅 But it’ll be sometime this year! Keep your culty eyes peeled here for news.


Right! That wraps up our squirming bundle of news. Happy birthday to Cultist Sim, and have a lovely weekend! ♥

 

17 comments on ANNOUNCING: THE LADY AFTERWARDS + AGAINST WORLDBUILDING
  1. Alright, wow, I’m impressed! Both the box set and the tarot deck look amazing – and I don’t even care about the tarot game. Will definitely keep a close eye on both these products. Excellent work!

  2. No you can’t make just 100 and a limited edition!! These look amazing! Make more! I wanna give this some money! Please think about it

  3. That is incredible news! I was so disappointed when the Fallen London rpg never came about.
    One thing, though: do you intend to make the game available in pdf? Because all my gaming has moved online over the last couple of years, so a physical set (as nice as it looks) wouldn’t be usable.
    And one further thing: who wrote/designed the RPG? Did you do it yourselves, or did you bring on another writer?

    1. haha, don’t worry! it’s being entirely made by us – alexis on lore and mechanics, me on writing and design. that’s why there aren’t any names in there!

      we do hope to make PDF versions, to make it more affordable / available. but we’re not sure of the details this early in production, so we didn’t want to promise something we didn’t know we could do. but we’ll probably have more to say on PDF versions in the near future!

    1. It’s about 2/3 done, but what goes in the last 1/3 is what you might call current events, and I don’t know how long exactly that will take to shake out. This year, though, I think.

  4. Ahhhh only 100 copies? Really hope I can get one, this is the most excited I’ve been all year, or at least close

  5. GET HYPE! I’ve already preordered the book and I can’t wait to see the TTRPG and new tarot!
    O:<<<<<

  6. Do you guys know that the book is unavailable in Poland? Don’t know about the rest of the EU. Shame, I’d really love to get it :<

      1. Just to let you know: managed to solved it, it was just Amazon UK kept displaying the “unavailable/out of stock message” (for the Kindle version as well, mind you) without redirecting me to any of their other sites. My smarter half advised me to check amazon.de and everything went smoothly, I’m waiting for the parcel atm.
        Hooray for brexit I guess?

  7. I love your games! So when I saw the book, I ordered it immediately. I am a narrative designer (in French) in an indie studio and I am also writing a victorian-fantasy novel. I think it will be great to read about your vision and experience. I am very excited to receive the book!

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