Ganakagok: A Mythopoietic Roleplaying Game

Game and card design by Bill White Ganakagok Tarot art design and game layout by Dave Petroski

edited by Michael Millercover art by Jeremy Mohler

CONSENSUS GAMESbillwhite@ganakagok.com

www.ganakagok.com

ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

Numerous people contributed to the creation and development of Ganakagok, and I can do their contributions only inadequate justice here. But some of them are given credit above, and I would like to acknowledge also the enormous debt I owe to Don Corcoran, Drew Morris, Alexander Newman, Nathan Paoletta, and Mel White for their support, enthusiasm, and advocacy of the game. I appreciate as well all of those folks who ran games of Ganakagok under one or another of its different versions, editions, and ashcans, like Jeff Collyer, Travis Farber, and John Hay. I am grateful to everyone! Also, I’d like to thank Mike Holmes, the chairman of Iron Game Chef 2004, for his judging of the contest in which the first version of Ganakagok was an entrant; he was the first to see any potential in this game.

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In Starlight ColdForever have the People lived In starlight cold;But now we gather, and soon ascend,And go together to world's end.

GANAKAGOK is the name of the great island of ice upon which a tribe of primitive, fur-clad hunters called the Nitu eke out a tenuous existence beneath a black sky ablaze with stars.

The Nitu live on a vast snowdrift-covered ice-pack that surrounds a gigantic central iceberg whose upper reaches have at some point in the past, far beyond living memory, been shaped into enormous towers and cascading stairs, intricate labyrinths and soaring spires. The Nitu say that it is the work of the Forgotten Ones, vanished beings of immense power and mysterious purpose whose relics are sometimes yet found out on the ice. But the glacial plains are haunted by dangers, such as monstrous creatures called the cannibal-ghouls, and they are fearsome and terrible.

The People marvel at the legacy of the Forgotten Ones. The People honor their Ancestors, whose spirits watch over their living descendants and protect them when they can. And the People revere the Stars, whom they regard as stern judges of the moral rectitude of the Nitu and incorruptible guarantors of the harmony of the cosmic order. The first line of an oft-told origin myth of the People conveys something of this reverence. “Forever have the People lived in starlight cold,” chant the shamans of the People.

But now the Stars begin to fade. And in the counsels of the wise, the visions of the far-sighted, and the mutterings of the mad comes a new refrain. Dawn is coming. Night is ending. Soon the Sun will rise.

And all wonder: What will it mean for the People?

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IntroductionForever have the People lived in starlight cold . . .

AS A GAME, Ganakagok plays like a quasi-Inuit Silmarillion as seen from the inside looking out. The experience is more than mythic, it's mythopoietic: game-play produces legends, myths, fables—the real just-so stories of an imaginary people. It is, frankly, a kind of role-playing poetry.

Her Tears Fall As Rain Dave played a curious child.Frank was a cursed youth.Fred started off as a harsh truth-teller.Matt was a brave javelineer.Lisa was a misunderstood artisan.Don was a burning prophet.Shawn played the crazy grandmother.And I was the Game Master.

We played out a complete game-turn, with one player-turn per character, that took us from the dark of Night to Morning in three hours. By the time character creation ended, we had established that the curious child was the son of the chieftain who had been slain by the burning prophet, whose guilt had been revealed by the harsh truth-teller. A fog lay over the island of ice, shrouding the Stars, and the people were riven with division, with some supporting a boastful warrior as the new chieftain and others insisting on the rights of the curious child.

The game began with the burning prophet pulling himself from the flames into which he’d been cast as punishment for his crime of murdering the chief, collapsing in the snow, steam rising around him.

Dave’s turn: The curious child, wracked with guilt over the death of his father, tried to make sense of someone else being punished for the crime, but found the whole thing too much to bear. The cursed youth tried to comfort him, using his Forgotten Ones mana to call down a flock of snow geese upon the village in a kind of obscure parable, but since he himself is an orphan who’d come to believe that he was destined to destroy any family he had, he did more harm than good to the poor child’s understanding. The harsh truth-teller drove away the cursed youth with his bone walking stick. The misunderstood artisan crafted a weird ice-sculpture incorporating the body of the chieftain in an attempt to put the whole thing into perspective for the boy. And the crazy grandmother sang the Song of the Sun.

Frank’s turn: The people, for whom food had been growing scarce, looked to the cursed youth as their savior because of the bounty he’d called down upon the village. They wanted him to stand up to the boastful warrior and take the role of leader. But because of his belief that he was destined to destroy his family, he refused and sent himself into exile, revealing that he bore a Star that he’d found in a melted tower upon the flanks of Ganakagok and that he was going to bring it back there. The harsh truth-teller, who’d had visions of the Last Star, followed, as did the misunderstood artisan.

Fred’s turn: The self-exiled youth refused to allow those who followed him to join them, and they followed a little way behind. The ice broke beneath the harsh truth-teller, and he was trapped under a clear patch of ice, banging against it, looking to the self-exiled youth to save him. The youth hesitated.

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The misunderstood artisan tried to move him to action. In my favorite move of this scene, Dave revealed that the curious child had been following the whole time, and now rushed forward, crying “Why aren’t you saving him?!” But the curse was strong, and the harsh truth-teller died, the light of the Last Star the last thing he saw. Then his eyes opened, gleaming black and wet, and he swam away. In a turn of events that Fred clearly relished, he’d become a cannibal-ghoul!

Matt’s turn: Soon, the cannibal-ghoul began to haunt the village, shredding nets, despoiling kills, and even carrying off villagers who strayed too far from the safety of their ice-houses (including the widow of the harsh truth-teller). The brave javelineer set off in his kayak to track down the monster, seeking the guidance of the spirits to lead him to the monster. I let this be a player-vs-player contest, and Matt won. The consequence card was “Darkness” and so, defeated, the cannibal-ghoul sank into the dark depths of the sea.

At this point, Night became Twilight. The fog lifted, the sky lightened from night-black to twilight grey, and the stars faded. We learned that the Last Star borne by the self-exiled youth was in fact the Sun, now shining like a star on the slopes of the ice-mountain of Ganakagok.

Lisa’s turn: The misunderstood artisan confronted the self-exiled youth. “Trade fates with me!” he said. “Let me bear the Star.” But the curse was not in the Star, it was in the youth himself. And so he refused. The consequence card was “Reflected Image” and so the players decided that the self-exiled youth was the avatar of the Sun, and the misunderstood artisan was the avatar of the Moon! The curious child was now a wise witness to their apotheosis. Their ascent continued.

At this point, Twilight became Dawn. The Sun melted the mountain of ice and hung in the pale blue sky, the Moon reflecting its new light faintly.

Don’s turn: Back in the village, the burning prophet threw his support behind the boastful warrior and began to teach the people the way of the Sun. The people became united, but would have to give up their old ways and leave Ganakagok.

Shawn’s turn: The crazy grandmother set herself adrift on an ice floe, singing the Song of the Sun until death took her.

At this point, Dawn became Morning. Ganakagok was transformed, but the People lost the memory of who they once were. The curious child grew into the father of the new people, aided by the burning prophet. The cannibal-ghoul sank into the depths to become the cancer at the heart of the world that would teach the people how to master and pollute the earth. The brave javelineer would wander the globe, a flying Dutchman in a kayak. The Sun and the Moon would continue their eternal chase, with the Sun slaying his family, the Stars, each morning when he rose. And the crazy grandmother would become the Last Ancestor, looking down upon a people that had forgotten her. She would weep, and her tears would fall as rain, not snow. And the People would tell stories of the Lady Who Weeps, but they would have forgotten why she cries.

In three hours of play, we collectively and collaboratively created a compelling and coherent myth. It was fabulous.

How the Game WorksThe in-game fiction is an exploration of the characters’ reactions to the certainty of change in their

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world. The characters’ reactions are made consequential by the fact that they potentially contribute Good Medicine and Bad Medicine to the world, the people, and individual characters. Good and Bad Medicine are the metaplot currency that determine the outcome of the game-fiction. At the end of the game, having more Good Medicine than Bad Medicine means that the world, the people, or the character have a happy ending; otherwise, the object in question has an unhappy or tragic ending. At the end of the game, the rights to narrate the Final Fates of the world and the people are determined by die roll; each player gets to narrate his or her own character’s fate.

A game of Ganakagok follows a pretty consistent pattern. One player, the Game Master (GM), leads the others in using cards from the Ganakagok deck (see the next chapter for details) as prompts to devise the initial situation facing the world of Ganakagok and the Nitu people. Details from the initial situation are used to begin creating two important play aids, the Ganakagok Map and the Nitu Map. The Ganakagok Map is a record of in-game locations and geographical lore; it is also used to keep track of the Good and Bad Medicine accruing to the world as well as the GM’s Final Fate narration rights for the world. The Nitu Map is a record of characters in the game as well as details about the cultural lore of the Nitu. It tracks Good and Bad Medicine accruing to the People and the GM’s Final Fate narration rights for the Nitu.

The players then create their characters by reading cards from the Ganakagok deck to determine their characters’ Truth-Vision, Change-Hope, and Change-Fear; in other words, how the character knows that change is coming, and what the character hopes and fears will come to pass as a result of that change or resistance to it. Other game-mechanical and fictional details about the character are also specified, including the Gifts and Burdens that are the primary mechanism through which players affect in-game action. During this process, both the Ganakagok Map and the Nitu Map are augmented by the contributions of players. Meanwhile, the GM determines the Stars in the Night Sky, a resource depleted in play to create additional Gifts and Burdens, but whose depletion moves the game closer to its end.

Once the initial situation is determined and characters are created, the players arrange themselves around the table in order of character age from youngest to oldest and play begins, with each player taking a turn in sequence.

During a player turn, a Situation Card is thrown to inform the situation faced by the player’s character. Some combination of roleplaying and straight narration leads to the crux of the turn, at which point dice are rolled to determine the in-game consequences of the character’s choice during that turn as well as who wins narration rights to resolve the in-game action. Players use their Gifts and Burdens to influence the dice once they are rolled but before the Consequence Card is interpreted by the winner of narration. The final distribution of values on the dice produces some number of Good Medicine, Bad Medicine, Gifts, and Burdens.

As play continues, the Stars in the Night Sky are being depleted by the accumulation of Gifts and Burdens. In the fiction of the game, this results in Night becoming Twilight and Twilight becoming Dawn. When there are no more Stars in the Night Sky, Dawn becomes Morning and the game ends with the narration of the Final Fates of the World, the People, and the individual characters.

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The Ganakagok TarotHere is the man with three staves, and here the Wheel,And here is the one-eyed merchant, and this card,Which is blank, is something that he carries on his back,Which I am forbidden to see. I do not findThe Hanged Man. Fear death by water.— T. S. Eliot, “The Waste Land” (1922)

THE PLAY OF THE GAME revolves around players interpreting cards from a specially devised deck called the “Ganakagok Tarot.” Each card has motifs that are used in play, read by one player or another to establish or develop the current situation or to justify a particular outcome when characters take action. For example, the Ancient of Tears is Anuk, “Polar Bear: to overcome or master.” So when this card is drawn or played, it could mean that a polar bear is nearby, that a man whose totem is a polar bear is significant, that someone has been overcome in the current situation, that an old man in the village has died (been overcome), that someone has mastered some difficulty, and so forth.

The deck is structured essentially the same way as a normal deck of playing cards: four suits of 13 cards each, including nine cards numbered from two to 10 and four high “face” cards. In the Ganakagok deck, however, the suits are Tears, Flames, Storms, and Stars (which match spades, hearts, clubs, and diamonds), and the face cards are the Child, Woman, Man, and Ancient (corresponding to the jack, queen, king, and ace).

The name of the card describes its suit and strength. In addition to its descriptive motifs, each card also has a Medicine value and a root value. These are used in play for various game-mechanical purposes. Note that the Medicine value of a numbered card is equal to its strength while the Medicine value of a face card is 12 for the Child, 14 for the Man or the Woman, and 16 for the Ancient. The root value of a card is equal to the square root of its Medicine value rounded down. In other words, Twos and Threes have a root value of 1, Fours through Eights have a root value of 2, Nines through Men have a root value of 3, and the Ancient has a root value of 4.

Nitu Symbolism When the relevance of the surface meaning of a card is obscure, an additional range of meanings can be extracted by attaching significance to the suit and face value. Note that an "Ancient" card can be taken either at face value or as signifying the number one.

One unity; wholenessTwo duality; opposition Three change, growth; novelty Four order, stability; harmony Five action; the work of men Six luck; the influence of spirits Seven evil; ill omens; bad judgment Eight power; the ability to do great things Nine secrets; a hidden purpose Ten completion; achievement Child something or someone to be preserved or protected, especially because of its vulnerability;

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something newly formed, still in progress, undecided, indeterminate in form.Woman a friend or loved one as well as a spirit or desire; a stereotypical feminine principle or

property: nurturing, creating, giving life. Man the self; a stereotypically masculine principle or property: competing, striving, handing down

judgment. Ancient something worthy of reverence (or something that's outlived its useful life).

A card's suit is symbolic. Tears stand for earth, grief, flesh, the body, worldly possessions, fear, and the Ancestors. Flames stand for fire, rage, blood, poetry, passion, evil, and the Sun. Storms stand for water, calm, sight, the mind, knowledge, loss, and the Forgotten Ones. Stars stand for air, joy, insight, the soul, piety and of course the Stars. Other related meanings may emerge in play.

Suit Playing Card Suit Ganakagok Spirit Attribute Burden GiftTears Spades Ancestors Body Scars GoodsFlames Hearts The Sun Face Hate LoveStorms Clubs The Forgotten Ones Mind Fears LoreStars Diamonds The Stars Soul Sins Mana

Practice throwing cards and reading their meanings by imagining a question or context and seeing what the cards signal to you. For example: a skillful hunter is out on the ice trying to find his way home after a terrible blizzard. Deal a card. What is it? What could it mean?

Suppose you get the Seven of Flames, which is “Melting Ice: to possess temporarily.” Does it suggest to you the opening of a path that had hitherto been blocked? Or bad judgment leading to an evil result, perhaps the ground opening up beneath him? Or perhaps the lonely hunter huddled over a flickering flame while the cold winds howl outside his tent? Any of those meanings are legitimate readings of the cards.

Ganakagok Tarot Summary If you don't have a Ganakagok tarot deck, you can use a normal deck of playing cards to play by using this table of motifs.

♠A Ancient of Tears. Polar Bear: to overcome or master (medicine 16, root 4)♠K Man of Tears. Father: to lead, compel, or demand (medicine 14, root 3)♠Q Woman of Tears. Bad Weather: to resist or oppose (medicine 14, root 3)♠J Child of Tears. Scout: to watch without being seen (medicine 12, root 3)♠10 Ten of Tears. Stolen Treasure: to suffer ill-use or injury; to be wronged (medicine 10, root 3)♠9 Nine of Tears. Darkness: to lose hope, to despair (medicine 9, root 3)♠8 Eight of Tears. Two Walruses Battle: to engage in loud or violent effort (medicine 8, root 2)♠7 Seven of Tears. Sea Birds in Flight: to quarrel (medicine 7, root 2)♠6 Six of Tears. Journey: to travel; to experience growth or change (medicine 6, root 2)♠5 Five of Tears. Chill in the Bones: to feel shame; to know weakness (medicine 5, root 2)♠4 Four of Tears. Owl in Flight: to seek solitude (medicine 4, root 2)♠3 Three of Tears. Sea Bird Alight: to harbor resentment (medicine 3, root 1)♠2 Two of Tears. School of Fish: to court or become friends (medicine 2, root 1)♥A Ancient of Flames. True Love: to love selflessly (medicine 16, root 4)♥K Man of Flames. Blood Brother: to swear a great oath or solemn vow (medicine 14, root 3)

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♥Q Woman of Flames. Wife: to receive loving advice (medicine 14, root 3)♥J Child of Flames. Messenger: to bring news (medicine 12, root 3)♥10 Ten of Flames. Village: to grow [up]; to have one's proper and due place (medicine 10, root 3)♥9 Nine of Flames. Feasting: to become satisfied; to be recognized and rewarded (medicine 9, root 3)♥8 Eight of Flames. Chasm: to spill or abandon (medicine 8, root 2)♥7 Seven of Flames. Melting Ice: to possess temporarily (medicine 7, root 2)♥6 Six of Flames. Path: to recall fondly; to look back without regret (medicine 6, root 2)♥5 Five of Flames. Small Gift: to receive less than one hoped or deserved (medicine 5, root 2)♥4 Four of Flames. Frozen in Ice: to fail to act when action is necessary (medicine 4, root 2)♥3 Three of Flames. Walrus at Rest: to be contented amid plenty (medicine 3, root 1)♥2 Two of Flames. Cannibal-Ghoul: to desire, wish, or will; to hunger or lack (medicine 2, root 1)♦A Ancient of Stars. Whale: to celebrate; to feel joy and express it without reserve (medicine 16, root 4)♦K Man of Stars. The Sky: to know or perceive; to understand as a wholeness (medicine 14, root 3)♦Q Woman of Stars. Mother: to be or to do good; to nurture or nourish (medicine 14, root 3)♦J Child of Stars. Reflected Image: to meditate or think introspectively (medicine 12, root 3)♦10 Ten of Stars. Hearth: to come home; to be safe and content (medicine 10, root 3)♦9 Nine of Stars. Starlight: to strive for knowledge or understanding (medicine 9, root 3)♦8 Eight of Stars. Basking Seal: to share (medicine 8, root 2)♦7 Seven of Stars. Ice Floes: to trade, barter, or negotiate (medicine 7, root 2)♦6 Six of Stars. Orca: to watch [for]; to be hidden but capable of sudden action (medicine 6, root

2)♦5 Five of Stars. Fog: to lose, owe, or be obligated [to] (medicine 5, root 2)♦4 Four of Stars. Fish in the Net: to be given or granted (medicine 4, root 2)♦3 Three of Stars. Torchlight: to make or create; to guide or warn (medicine 3, root 1)♦2 Two of Stars. Ivory Carving: to tell or reveal (medicine 2, root 1)♣A Ancient of Storms. Child [Descendant]: to begin; to be born (medicine 16, root 4)♣K Man of Storms. Husband: to attend to one's obligations (medicine 14, root 3)♣Q Woman of Storms. Stranger: to arrive at a new place or be unrecognized (medicine 14, root 3)♣J Child of Storms. Shaman: to be initiated; to pass into adulthood (medicine 12, root 3)♣10 Ten of Storms. Gossip: to be oppressed by the weight of others' expectations (medicine 10, root 3)♣9 Nine of Storms. Hunting Camp: to set things in order, as in defense (medicine 9, root 3)♣8 Eight of Storms. Chase: to move with great haste; to fly (medicine 8, root 2)♣7 Seven of Storms. Council: to engage in debate or discussion (medicine 7, root 2)♣6 Six of Storms. Cliff: to begin a great work or significant task (medicine 6, root 2)♣5 Five of Storms. Leaping Salmon: to pursue strenuously a foolish aim (medicine 5, root 2)♣4 Four of Storms. Calm Weather: to come to peaceful and contented agreement (medicine 4, root 2)♣3 Three of Storms. Hole in the Ice: to have one's efforts produce results (medicine 3, root 1)♣2 Two of Storms. Depths of the Sea: to be troubled by the unknowable (medicine 2, root 1)

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Preparing for Play In the beginning, in the days before time,The light was alive with the essence of power;And from that power were born beings who lived on the edge of eternityAnd they spread their wings and soared through the ancient air.—Blondie, “Forgive and Forget” (1999)

THE FIRST STEP, once you (the GM) have gathered players around a table, is to give them a brief description of the world of Ganakagok—like the one above in the section called “In Starlight Cold”—that provides the context for the situation you will create together and in which their characters will take action. Let me stress that you shouldn’t read aloud verbatim what I’ve written; instead, come up with a two-minute spiel that’s your personal vision of Ganakagok. The point of this is to give the in-game situation a sense of immediacy, to establish that it is what gets said at the table that is true, not what it is written in the book. You don’t have to worry about getting the details wrong.

The essence of the context you present should be along the lines that the world that they have known is changing, to vanish forever in time. Of all the People, the players’ characters are the ones who know that change is coming, and that it is their fate to confront that change. Your initial framing of the setting will have a subtle but powerful influence on the play of the game, as players respond to what you offer in the creation of their characters. If you emphasize the conflict or tension between the Sun and the Stars, some players will pick up on that and build it into their characters. If you highlight the mysterious upper reaches of the ice mountain, hidden from the knowledge of the People, some players will orient their characters to go that way in play, or to already have been there.

You can also at this point explicitly require or forbid particular motifs in the fiction. One Ganakagok GM, for example, forbids the introduction of wooden ships from across the sea or other colonialistic intrusions, since he feels that they detract from the myth-producing flavor of the game. But I know of at least one game where colonizers from across the sea have been central to the plot.

That being said, you should want to involve the players in reading the situation of the world and the people from the Ganakagok cards. Let players brainstorm with you. For one thing, it’s useful practice in the art of interpreting the cards, which skill is the bread-and-butter of good Ganakagok play. Second, it promotes player buy-in and involvement with the setting. Since the game relies on player-driven character action to run smoothly, enabling the players to involve themselves in the situation can only help make the game work.

Some players will even have ideas they want to add before a single card is thrown! For example, a player may contribute the notion that the Nitu are polar bear-riders—and then want to play one of the bears! This sort of thing should be encouraged, since it results in really great games.

What follows is a step-by-step process for fleshing out the game-world and creating characters to inhabit that world. World creation and character generation happen “at the table” as a part of play, collaboratively and with an eye toward establishing an interesting situation that will be fun and interesting to play out.

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Develop the Initial Situation

Deal out two cards and use them to establish the Situation of the World.Record the higher value as the amount of Bad Medicine for the World; record the lower value as the amount of Good Medicine for the World. Read the cards as suggesting what is going on in Ganakagok. Note that it is not necessary to come up with two separate meanings (e.g., a “Good” reading and a “Bad” one) for the cards; simply regard the cards as “working together” to say something about the current situation.

Ten of Flames (Village: to grow [up]; to have one's proper and due place) and Woman of Storms (Stranger: to arrive at a new place or be unrecognized). 10 Good Medicine, 14 Bad Medicine. Reading: The isle of Ganakagok floats in the Sea of Tears, whose tides have now brought the island into new waters with strange currents.

Draw the village on the Ganakagok Map, and add whatever details are suggested by the Situation of the World. These details may be used in play to affect the dice. Depending on the inclinations of the players, you may wish to solicit their input, brainstorm together, and collaboratively read the cards to come up with an interpretation for the current situation in Ganakagok.

Here are a few other examples.

Six of Storms (Cliff: to begin a great work or significant task) and Four of Flames (Frozen in Ice: to fail to act when action is necessary). 4 Good Medicine, 6 Bad Medicine. Reading: A great ice-quake has shaken Ganakagok, and to the east a glacier has tumbled, creating a sheer cliff separating the village from the rest of the island. Within the cliff face, some strange artifact of the Forgotten Ones can be seen.

Four of Storms (Calm Weather: to come to peaceful and contented mutual agreement) and Child of Flames (Messenger: to bring news). 4 Good Medicine, 12 Bad Medicine. Reading: After a long period of intense ice-storms, the stars shine down once more. A great comet hangs in the sky, a portent whose meaning no one knows.

Deal out two more cards and use them to establish the Situation of the People.Record the higher value as the amount of Bad Medicine for the People; record the lower value as the amount of Good Medicine for the People. Read the cards as suggesting what is going on with the People. Again, regard the cards as speaking with one voice, rather than as being a “good card” and a “bad card.”

Five of Tears (Chill in the Bones: to feel shame or know weakness) and Five of Stars (Fog: to lose, owe, or be obligated [to]). 5 Good Medicine, 5 Bad Medicine. Reading: In new waters, warming air raises mists from the ice. The hunters of the People are afraid to venture out into the fog.

Draw the villagers as a collective on the Nitu Map (e.g., as a single dot labeled “The People” or “The Village,” and add whatever details are suggested by the situation of the People to either the Ganakagok or the Nitu Map as needed. These details may be used in play to affect the dice (see below). Note that this is your last chance to add in-game details without using the game-mechanical currency of Stars in the Night Sky, so take advantage of the opportunity! But be careful; do not overspecify the situation in

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such a way that it leaves no opportunity for players to have their characters take on meaningful roles within the situation.

As with the first set of cards, you may wish to solicit the input of the other players.

Here are a few other examples. Notice how they are connected to the corresponding examples above.

Ancient of Stars (Whale: to celebrate; to feel joy and express it without reservation) and Seven of Flames (Melting Ice: to possess temporarily). 7 Good Medicine, 16 Bad Medicine. The hunters of the village have returned after much difficulty from the sea with a bounty of whale meat and blubber. They will feast to celebrate their safe return, unaware that their current prosperity is only a temporary respite from their troubles.

Five of Flames (Small Gift: to receive less than one hoped or deserved) and Three of Tears (Sea Bird Alight: to harbor resentment). 3 Good Medicine, 5 Bad Medicine. The shaman who told the elders of the village what the appearance of the comet signified has been scorned and mocked; now rumors swirl among the People.

Create Characters

Deal three cards to each player.Players read these cards to give them their “back story” with an eye toward the Situation of the World and of the People. In the case of the following examples, imagine that the situation applies in which Ganakagok has floated into new waters, raising a fog into which the People are frightened to venture.

Read the three cards to determine what's going on with your character. The first card becomes your Truth-Vision; the second, your Change-Hope; the third, your Change-Fear.

The value of your Change-Hope card determines the amount of Good Medicine your character receives. The value of your Change-Fear card determines the amount of Bad Medicine your character receives.

Truth-Vision. Read the truth-vision card to tell you why or how the character came to believe that a major change is coming to the world or the people. It is the characters' truth-visions that make them exceptional in the world of Ganakagok; it is they who, because they are convinced that the portents and signs of change must be heeded, drive the action of the game. Encourage the players to tie their truth-visions to the situation determined by the play of previous cards, and to look forward to their change-hopes and change-fears in developing the truth-vision.

Alfie gets the Two of Stars (Ivory Carving: to tell or reveal) as his truth-vision. He looks closer at the card and sees that it is connected to the notion of duality and opposition, which to him seems to frame the relationship between the Stars and the Sun as an antagonistic one. Looking ahead, he notes that his change-hope card is associated with the Sun, so he decides that the Sun herself appeared to him in a dream and told him of her impending rise (and thus “to tell or reveal”), and how it would be opposed by a champion of the Stars, and how he must steel himself to defeat that champion so that the Dawn may finally come. This is a good reading! It pushes the character to action immediately, and it pushes other players to align their characters with or against Alfie’s.

Beth gets the Five of Storms (Leaping Salmon: to pursue strenuously a foolish aim) as her truth-vision.

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She sees this as meaning that her character ventured out far to the east in his kayak and saw the glimmerings of dawn before being thrown back by a storm. This reading is actually rather weak, since it does little to drive the character’s initial actions. However, it potentially establishes the storm as a plot device that can interfere with the rising of the sun (maybe the champion of the Stars is the avatar of the storm!) or the action of the People.

Gabriel gets the Eight of Tears (Two Walruses Battle: to engage in loud or violent conflict) as his truth-vision. He interprets it as meaning that he got into a loud and public argument with his brother about going out into the fog, the likes of which has never been seen before. What others say about the coming of the Sun must be true! This is also fairly weak, although it does motivate the character to respond to the active pleas, appeals, and plans of other characters.

Change-Hope. Read the change-hope card to tell you what the character wants to be caused or enabled by the change that's coming. The best change-hopes are both personal and aspirational, connecting the character to the in-game situation and demanding action to achieve. You will find that it helps, as GM, to muse upon the change-hopes and change-fears offered by the players and either suggest to players ways of tightening them up or reflect upon how you will frame situations in play so as to “point at” those change-hopes and change-fears.

Alfie has drawn the Nine of Flames (Feasting: to become satisfied; to be recognized and rewarded). Alfie's character hopes that he will become a hero of the people and receive their admiration and adulation. This reading is nice; it can be used as a hook to drive the character throughout the game. Beth has drawn the Child of Stars (Reflected Image: to meditate or think introspectively). She initially saw that as having to do with hoping to find a worthy heir or successor (she's begun to think of her guy as a shaman, a mystic protector of the People). But when Alfie mentioned the opposition of the Sun by the champion of the Stars, she decided to make a connection. So her character's change-hope is to find the champion of the Stars and teach him what he needs to know to fulfill his destiny. "So we're on opposite sides?” says Alfie. Beth just shrugs, and smiles. This reading should make you as the GM very happy, since it establishes inter-character conflict of the sort that can be used to push players to work at cross-purposes. Additionally, it sets up a situation fraught with dramatic potential.

Gabriel has drawn the Ancient of Flames (True Love: to love selflessly). To find his brother, lost in the fog as a result of their fight, even if he must sacrifice himself to do so. This reading produces a change-hope that may become moot because it is resolved early during play: the character finds the brother, and the action moves on from there. This is okay, but note that the effect may be to drain the character’s actions of consequentiality, since the character’s actions gain game-mechanical significance when the character is pursuing a change-hope or confronting a change-fear.

Change-Fear. Read the change-fear card to tell you what the character is afraid will come to pass as a result of the change. The best change-fears are both personal and aversive: the character must take action to prevent the thing from coming to pass. Alfie's card is the Ancient of Storms (Child [Descendant]: to begin, to be born). He is afraid that the champion of the Stars will be too strong, and that he will face defeat at his hands, like a child before his father. This character’s confrontation with the Champion of the Stars will be central to his story. As GM, you should begin thinking about how to add game-mechanical heft to the strength of the Champion of the Stars: e.g., creating “powerful Champion of the Stars” as a character, adding legends

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of his strength as a “folkway” on the Nitu Map, establishing an “Arena of the Champion” on the Ganakagok map.

Beth's card is the Man of Flames (Blood Brother: to swear a great oath or solemn vow). He is afraid that teaching the champion of the Stars will prove too costly and exhausting, or will embroil him in a troublesome obligation. The Champion of the Stars is shaping up to be an important character through which you will drive the action of the game. You now know that while the Champion of the Stars is immensely strong and powerful, he’s also demanding and intemperate. Gabriel's card is the Woman of Tears (Bad Weather: to resist or oppose). He is afraid that he will never find his brother, lost amid the fog. This is not a great change-fear. But it can be finessed: even if the brother is found, he may be so far changed by the experience that, metaphorically at least, Gabriel’s character never really “finds” his brother as he once was. What you should be worried about is how Gabriel’s character’s story is disconnected from the other two players. The obvious fix—and the one that you can absolutely count on players to come up with if you pose them with the problem of how to tie the stories together—is that Gabriel’s character’s brother is destined to become the Champion of the Stars.

Determine the character's name and identity.

The name should be primitive and icy, vaguely Inuit in sound and form. Some examples are below. The identity is a two-part description of the character consisting of an adjective phrase and a noun phrase. Usually, each part will be a single word, an adjective or a noun respectively, but in some circumstances a phrase could consist of a compound word or longer phrase. For example, a player may decide that his character is a “proud amazon-huntress” or an “intrepid hunter of whales.” In each case, the more complex noun phrase (i.e., “amazon-huntress,” “hunter of whales”) is acceptable. Again, some examples are below.

Alfie names his character Banok and calls him a proud warrior. Beth names her character Kirakak and calls him a cunning sea-shaman. Gabriel names his character Aonaq and calls him a foolish seal-hunter.

Possible Names: Aurik, Balaboq, Karutok, Dinaq, Eenoraq, Furunok, Goriuq, Halaabak, Igoruq, Janaq, Kamuqur, Loduruq, Moqoruk, Nanaku, Otoku, Pakumuq, Quoruku, Sednak, Toriuqun, Unuqur, Vamuqu, Chabalak, Yurtoq, Ssaborak.

Possible Adjective Phrases: arrogant, bold, crafty, defiant, enthusiastic, foolhardy, generous, happy, inspirational, jejune, kayak-hogging, lazy, masterful, nefarious, officious, philosophical, querulous, rage-filled, sly, timid, unlikeable, vicious, warmongering, xenophobic, yare (i.e., agile), zany.

Possible Noun Phrases: artisan, boat-maker, child, desperado, explorer, fighter, guardian, hermit, infant-blesser, jumper-of-ice-floes, kayak-builder, leader, mystagogue, ne'er-do-well, optimist, poltroon, quest-follower, rascal, throat-singer, umiak-navigator, vandal of ice sculptures, wanderer, xerophage, yea-sayer, zealot.

As players finalize these descriptive elements of their characters, you should record them on a piece of paper so that you can refer to them during play as an aid to coming up with in-game events and the situations the characters will face.

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Divide 10 points among Attributes of Body, Face, Mind, and Soul (minimum 1, maximum 4).

Body is the relevant attribute for physical actions involving strength, endurance, and athletic prowess. Face is the relevant attribute when social actions requiring persuasion, the garnering of sympathy, or cooperation are attempted. Mind is the relevant attribute when intellectual efforts are essayed requiring that the character be smart, clever, or cunning. Soul is the relevant attribute in instances where what is required is piety, luck, or the favor of the spirits.

Alfie gives Banok 3 Body, 3 Face, 2 Mind, and 2 Soul.Beth gives Kirakak 1 Body, 3 Face, 3 Mind, and 3 Soul.Gabriel gives Aonaq 2 Body, 3 Face, 1 Mind, and 4 Soul.

As a group, you may choose to permit scores of 5 for attributes (setting an attribute higher than 5 is nugatory; without, that is to say, any pertinent game-effect). But you should be aware that it may produce what feels like an imbalance in the game, if one player is consistently able to bring that attribute to bear in play. A similar problem in the opposite direction exists for scores of 1, but it is less severe since players can help each other overcome their weaknesses. Players should understand that these scores never change.

Divide 10 points among Mana of the Ancestors, Forgotten Ones, Sun, and Stars.

The character’s Mana reflects his or her affinity with the spirits of each type. In play, Ancestors mana makes actions in the village more consequential while Forgotten Ones mana makes actions out on the ice more consequential. The character must have at least one point of Mana in each of Ancestors and Forgotten Ones mana.

Sun and Stars mana only come into play when the character is pursuing his or her change-hope or confronting his or her change-fear, respectively. The character must have at least one point of Mana in either Sun or Stars mana.

There is no maximum or upper limit, and mana can be increased during play when gift dice are distributed (see below).

Alfie gives Banok Mana of Ancestors 3, Forgotten Ones 2, Sun 5, Stars 0.Beth gives Kirakak Mana of Ancestors 4, Forgotten Ones 2, Sun 0, and Stars 4.Gabriel gives Aonaq Mana of Ancestors 4, Forgotten Ones 4, Sun 1, and Stars 1.

Give your character three personal Gifts.

Personal “Gifts” may be physical possessions, items of equipment, useful distinguishing features, notable traits, or items of idiosyncratic and private knowledge (versus communal lore). Each Gift begins with a strength of 1; in play, this strength may increase or decrease.

Banok the proud warrior is very strong. Kirakak the cunning sea-shaman knows the dream-whispered Riddle of the Stars. Aonaq the foolish seal-hunter has a well-made kayak.

The range of permissible personal Gifts is quite broad. One character may have a voice like thunder while another has a loyal sled-dog and still another the secret initiation lore of the Orca lodge. Note that there are other sorts of Gifts, such as Loves (which are drawn as links on the Nitu map) and Lore (which are recorded as facts on the Ganakagok map).

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Give your character three personal Burdens.

Burdens may be debilitating injuries, painful or horrifying scars, sinful acts of impiety, or superstitious and irrational fears. You may divide 3 points among the burdens, taking three 1-point burdens, one 3-point burden, or one 2-point and one 1-point burden. Be aware that this is different from Gifts, of which you must take three 1-point items.

Scars can be actual injuries or other physical disabilities, or tattoos, brands, or other marking of the character that may cause some negative response on the part of others—a “mark of Cain,” as it were. If you expect some people to respond positively to the mark, you will at some point (either now or later during play) specify it as one of your Gifts. Fears are unreasonable and idiosyncratic beliefs, attitudes, prejudices, and superstitions, adherence to which may cause the character to act in ways that seem irrational, overly finicky, inconvenient, or even dangerous. Sins are improper acts, words, or thoughts committed by the character in violation of the precepts of a certain class of spirit; sins are always with respect to either the Stars, the Sun, the Ancestors, or the Forgotten Ones

Alfie gives Banok a 1-pt injury, “Lost an eye in a fight with a Snow Bear Clan warrior.” Gabriel gives Aonaq a 1-pt fear, afraid of losing his way.” Beth gives Kirakak a 2-pt sin against the Ancestors, “Spurned his grandfather on his deathbed.”

Flesh Out the World and the Village

Determine the Stars in the Night SkyThe official way of determining the number of Stars in the Night Sky is to take the sum of the Medicine values (i.e., the face values) of the players’ truth-vision cards. Alternatives to this method are presented later in these rules.

The players had a Two of Stars, a Five of Storms, and an Eight of Tears as their truth-vision cards; the sum of the Medicine values of those cards is 2 + 5 + 8 = 15 Stars in the Night Sky.

The number of Stars in the Night Sky controls the pace of the game; more Stars means it takes longer to get to Morning (and the end of the game) while fewer Stars means the opposite. Therefore, having a number that’s too high or too low may be a problem. You should expect to be able to get through three or four player-turns per hour once you know how to run the game, with an average reduction of Stars in the Night Sky of about four per player-turn. Therefore, you may calculate an “alternate minimum constellation” equal to 12 times the number of hours you expect to want, expect, or need the game to last.

The game is running in a four-hour convention slot, and character creation has already taken an hour up to this point; fleshing out the world and the village will probably take another half-hour. That leaves two and a half hours left to play the game. Twelve times two and a half equals 30. This is higher than the 15 Stars obtained from using the values on the truth-vision cards, so the GM opts to set the Stars in the Night Sky at 30.

But note that, in play, the rate at which Stars in the Night Sky are depleted is something that can be “gamed” for strategic or tactical purposes: players can forego acquiring Gifts (and you can refrain from imposing Burdens) to make the game last longer, or concentrate on burning Stars to end the game more quickly. A player may feel cheated if he or she does not get a turn in the spotlight as “active character” before the game ends, but that is a possibility if you play the game a particular way. On the other hand,

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sometimes people just get out-played, and they have to live with that. As the GM, you will have to be the judge of what sorts of stratagems break the tacit social contract in force at the table.

Record the Stars in the Night Sky on the Ganakagok Map. Also note the sidereal points; that is, the moments of transition from Night to Twilight, from Twilight to Dawn, and from Dawn to Morning. The first sidereal point (Night to Twilight) is equal to three-quarters the Stars in the Night Sky, rounded down. The second sidereal point (Twilight to Dawn) is equal to one-quarter the Stars in the Night Sky, rounded down. The third sidereal point (Dawn to Morning) is equal to zero. See “Getting to the End of the Game,” below, for more information.

There are 30 Stars in the Night Sky. Twilight is reached when there are 22 Stars or fewer. Dawn comes at 7 Stars or fewer. And Morning comes as always when there are no Stars remaining.

Spend Stars to add additional geographical or cultural lore, characters, or links between characters as you think necessary in order to flesh out the starting situation.Do this as players are adding their contributions to the world and the village (see below). This will be more or less necessary depending on the number of players (more players means less need for you to frontload situational elements) and player proactivity—in other words, the extent to which you expect players to drive the in-game action rather than react to the situation with which you present them. In general, more experienced players will be more proactive than less experienced players. Remember to spend Stars to introduce these elements!

In line with the ideas discussed above about how to respond to the players’ back-stories, the GM spends 1 Star in the Night Sky to establish the character of Halanuk as Aonaq’s brother, an “obstinate warrior,” and another to add “favored by the Stars” as a cultural fact regarding him. There are now 28 Stars in the Night Sky.

Facilitate Player Contributions to the World and the VillageInvite the players to flesh out the Ganakagok Map and the Nitu Map.

Add your character to the Nitu Map.

Minimally, add the character’s name and identity. It usually helps to add a symbol for the character’s sex, and sometimes it’s worth it to note the name of the character’s player as well. The most practical arrangement of characters on the Nitu map is probably a circle. This makes it easy to map out the patterns of relationships among the characters.

Add additional characters or folkways to the Nitu Map.

Each player adds a single other character to the Nitu Map. These “characters” may be villagers, spirits, or “outsiders” (strangers, ogres, and so forth). Identify these characters with a name and an identity. Optionally, add a belief or other cultural folkway to the Nitu Map instead of a character.

Alfie adds Oolaruq, the spirit-orca who tests the valor of the Nitu. Beth adds Quiruquk, Banok's rebellious son. Gabriel opts to specify a belief of the People, that a son must prove himself worthy to his father (or father-figure) before he can truly be called a man.

Note that you don’t draw lines to represent the formal connections among characters just yet (that’s the next stage), though you may wish to note their identities and relationships (i.e., “chieftain’s son”) as

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well as their gender using the standard symbols for sex.

Add Loves and Hates to the Nitu Map.

Each player gets to add one Love between any two characters and one Hate between any two characters on the Nitu Map. Loves are relationships of affection, obligation, and trust, while hates are dangerously or destructively antagonistic relations rather than fruitful or productive tensions. The GM also gets to add two relationships; these may be Hates or Loves as he or she chooses.

These relationships are directional (i.e., a Love or Hate goes from one character to another: from the lover to the beloved, from the hater to the hated). They may be reciprocated (i.e., a character may love or hate someone who also loves or hates them) as well as multiplex (i.e., one can both love and hate another, or be loved and hated by the same other). It is of course possible to be loved by someone you hate, and vice versa. Relationships are valued; they begin with an initial strength of 1 and may be increased or decreased during play. Note that it is possible for one character to love or hate another at a different strength than the relationship is reciprocated; e.g., Aonaq may hate Banok at strength 2, while Banok loves Aonaq at strength 1.

Go around the table, with each player adding one Love or one Hate during his or her first round and the other relationship in the second round.

In the first round, Alfie adds a love from Oolaruq the Nitu-testing spirit-orca to his character Banok the proud warrior. Beth adds a hate from Quiruquk, Banok’s rebellious son, to Banok. Gabriel adds a hate from Banok to his character Aonaq the foolish seal-hunter. The GM adds a hate from the spirit-orca to Beth’s cunning shaman Kirakak.

In the second round, Alfie adds a hate from the village to Aonaq. Beth adds a love from Aonaq the foolish seal-hunter to her character Kirakak. Gabriel adds a love from Quiruquk the rebellious son to his character Aonaq. The GM adds a hate from Banok to Quiruquk (making their hatred reciprocal).

Loves are ties of obligation reflecting kinship, affection, and perceptions of social responsibility. They are recorded as graphical links connecting characters on the Nitu Map. Conversely, Hate signifies destructive enmity. These are also recorded as graphical links on the Nitu Map, drawn in such a way as to be distinct from Love, e.g., in a different color or with a dashed or dotted line rather than a solid one.

Add additional details or “Lore” to the Ganakagok Map.

Each player adds a single location, geographical detail, or physical danger to the Ganakagok Map. “Geographical detail” in this case might be construed as “cosmological detail” and include seemingly fanciful places such as the Stairway to the Stars or even the Constellation of the Great Polar Bear. Note that physical dangers include the monsters that may roam the ice or the sea. All such details are referred to as “Lore.”

Alfie adds the Village of the Ice Bear Clan to the map, on the ground near the People’s village. Beth adds the Crystal Spire to the map, high upon the flanks of Ganakagok. Gabriel adds Ice Bear Scouts in the area between the villages of the People and the Ice Bear Clan.

The GM may spend Stars at this point to add a “strength” to a location or other detail. This gives the GM additional points to use when shifting the dice during a player turn, and provides bonus Medicine to whoever wins narration during the turn (see below).

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The GM spends 2 Stars to add strength to the Ice Bear Scouts and 3 to the Crystal Spire, noting the addition on the Ganakagok Map.

Set the GM’s Final Fate of Ganakagok and Final Fate of the Nitu scores.You get N points to divide between the two Final Fate scores, where N is equal to the number of players in the game including yourself. You can increase these values during play, and you probably should if you want to have a chance to narrate what happens to the world or its people.

Get Ready to Start Playing

Re-arrange the players around the table in order of their characters' ages, from youngest to oldest. This is actually an important rule! It means that the younger characters will be able to rush headlong into action, while older characters will take on a more reactive role.

Collect the cards from the players and shuffle the deck. Deal out three cards in front of each player, including the GM.These are “Medicine cards” that players can use to gain an advantage in exchange for taking on additional Bad Medicine. During play, the active player can use his or her Medicine cards to affect the course of events. See below for specifics.

Player Preparation SummaryAs a group and with the facilitation of the GM, draw two pairs of cards and read each to determine the Situation of the World and the Situation of the Nitu.

Draw three cards to read as your truth-vision, change-hope, and change-fear.

Determine your character’s name and identity.

Allocate 10 points among Body, Face, Mind, and Soul (minimum 1, maximum 4) and divide 10 mana among the Ancestors, the Forgotten Ones, the Sun, and the Stars (minimum 1, no maximum).

Create three personal Gifts and three points worth of Burdens for your character.

Add your character to the Nitu Map.

Place another character (defined by name and identity) or add a folkway (cultural fact) to the Nitu map.

Add a location or other geographical/cosmological fact to the Ganakagok Map.

Go around the table and add one Love and one Hate to the Nitu Map.

Re-seat yourself in order of character age from youngest to oldest.

After the cards are collected and shuffled, draw three Medicine cards to use during play.

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Playing the Game

. . . so that evening Alexander, Nathan and I played Ganakagok with Peter and his dad Gary. It was a really great game. My character supplanted Nathan's as the shaman of the tribe and led them south to the homelands of the sun. But I was a terrible shaman and within a generation, my people had been completely assimilated into the peoples of the south—my character's daughter was even the first to marry an outsider! O the tragedy! But the show-stopping moment of the game came from Gary, whose wizened star-gazer stopped a potentially tribe-splitting argument by pulling out the only glass vase the tribe had ever owned. It was full of wolves' teeth that the tribe had killed over many generations. He hurled it to the ground and said “This bickering makes us like these teeth. And I will have none of it.” Then he strode off into the icy wastes. The rest of us were left speechless.—Michael S. Miller, “Origins 2007: Pack-Mule of the Revolution” (2007)

EACH TURN IN GANAKAGOK focuses on a single character, who is the “spotlight” character for that turn. That character's player is the active player for the turn. This does not mean that other players have nothing to do! They may take a very proactive role, bringing their characters' connections with the spotlight character to bear in order to help or hinder the action.

The Situation Card The basic sequence of events with a player-turn consists of several steps. The first thing that happens is that the player draws or is dealt a situation card that is used to guide the narration of the spotlight character's immediate circumstances. The player describes or roleplays the character's actions in response to those circumstances; the GM may deal additional situation cards to "develop the situation" so that the character eventually reaches the crux of the turn: the point at which the character's decisions are sufficiently fateful as to require going to the game mechanics.

It is the first turn of the game, and Aonaq goes first. Gabriel draws the Nine of Tears (Darkness: to lose hope, to despair). In the context of Aonaq's hunt for his brother, the obvious meaning is that he is at sea, in the fog, unable to find a trace of Nuranuq but unwilling to return home to the village. The GM proposes that the quarrel between the two brothers just happened, with Nuranuq desiring to go further and Aonaq reluctant. Nuranuq paddled out into the fog, leaving Aonaq behind. Aonaq, finally relenting in his anger, went after his brother—who was now nowhere to be found, and who did not answer when Aonaq called. Aonaq has been on the water now for hours, with no sign of Nuranuq.

The Crux Once the situation is presented to the player, he or she describes the character's reactions. This may be pure description, or it may encompass role-playing or “acting out” what happens.

Learning to identify the crux is an important skill for Ganakagok GMs, but one way of thinking about it is that when you reach a point in the narration where you don't know what's going to happen next, and it's important that you don't just pick one or the other, you're probably at the crux.

For example, suppose it's been established that a character is out on the ice, hunting. That's all we know. The situation card is thrown: Child of Stars (Reflected Image: to meditate or think introspectively). “You realize,” says the GM, “that as you have been stalking a small herd of caribou, something has been stalking you.” Now suppose the player says, “I try to lose 'em.”

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For some GMs (and some players), that will be enough, and play can progress to the next step. This is determining the nature of the crux and throwing a consequence card.

But in other circumstances, that might be too soon to go to the game mechanics for resolution; the people at the table might feel that the situation warrants greater development or more roleplaying. The GM can throw another card for inspiration. This is not a consequence card; it serves as inspiration only, and is read as contributing incrementally to the rising action of the scene.

In this case, imagine that the next card is the Nine of Storms (Hunting Camp: to set things in order, as in defense). “You head into the Slashes, a rugged region made up of densely packed icebergs crushed tightly together. The rough terrain should allow you to evade your pursuers. As you move deeper into the area, jumping from one gigantic protruding ice-chunk to the next and scrambling up and over to make another leap, you hear clearly from behind the long, low mournful-sounding howling of the cannibal-ghouls. And now, from ahead, faint but growing increasingly loud: the same evil howling sound.”

“I find an iceberg with a flat top and steep sides,” says the player. “I strip down for battle and I ready my harpoons and my knife. When they come, I'll be ready.”

Now that's a crux. Notice how the GM pushed back against the player’s declaration that he would try to evade pursuit; for his part, the player accepted the push-back and changed his intent. It didn’t have to go that way; the player could have redoubled his efforts to flee. In either case, the elaboration of the scene that is produced by pushing back against the player’s initial intention adds drama and interest to the fiction.

Gabriel says, “I keep paddling around the same area where I last saw my brother, calling his name and looking for any clues to where he might have gone.” The GM asks, “Are you happy with the point of this turn being what the consequences of your acts of searching are?” Gabriel says, “Sure, yeah.” So the GM says, “Okay, let's go to the dice.”

The GM also has to determine what the nature of the crux is. This is the relevant attribute (Body, Face, Mind, or Soul) that gets used to figure out how to sort the dice. In the context of the fiction, the nature of the crux determines the mode or style in which the character addresses whatever circumstances he or she is confronting.

Body. Body implies that what's being used is physical power, martial prowess, the ability to act boldly and with strength.

Face. Face implies that what's being used is social influence, connections, and charisma, the ability to deal shrewdly and cleverly with other people.

Mind. Mind implies that what's being used is native intelligence and powers of reason, the ability to think things through and reach correct conclusions.

Soul. Soul implies that what's being used is spiritual awareness and wisdom, the favor of the spirits, the ability to do what is morally right according to the precepts of the People and the spirits they revere. Additionally, use Soul when luck is the biggest factor in determining a particular outcome.

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Aonaq is paddling through the fog looking for his vanished brother. The GM says, “I think this comes down to whether you're lucky or not. Use Soul for this roll.” Gabriel says, “Okay, that makes sense.”

The Consequence Card Draw the consequence card and lay it on the table, showing it to the players and reading it aloud. Rolling the dice determines who gets to read the consequence card and narrate an interpretation of its meaning for the fiction of the game. It is not yet interpreted or narrated; rather, it need only be simply announced so that all concerned can have a sense of where the events of the game-fiction are headed. Some discussion of potential meanings is not inappropriate, so long as it is recognized that such discussion is merely exploratory and suggestive rather than definitive.

The GM throws the Woman of Storms (Stranger: to arrive at a new place or be unrecognized) as the consequence card. “Gee,” says Beth. “Maybe you're going to get lost in the fog and stumble upon the mysterious island.” The GM replies, “Wouldn't it be tighter if he finds a clue in the water that leads him to the Snow Bear Clan village?” Gabriel interjects, “Maybe I get caught in a storm and suffer from amnesia.” Beth raises an eyebrow. “Then how will you know you want to find your brother?” Gabriel scratches his head and shrugs. “We'll see,” says the GM.

Rolling the DiceIt is important for players to understand that the number of dice they roll is a measure of the importance, significance, or consequentiality of their action or decision to act in the current situation. Having more dice doesn’t make the character more likely to succeed, nor the player more likely to gain the right to narrate the outcome of their character’s action. Instead, having more dice makes the character’s action more weighty in the sense of having an impact on what’s happening in the larger situation and the character’s overall fortunes.

The number of dice you roll is determined by your Mana.

You will always roll either your Ancestors or your Forgotten Ones Mana. If the action is taking place in the village, roll dice equal to your Ancestors Mana. If you are on the ice, roll your Forgotten Ones Mana. To the extent that this is not clear, have the GM make a decision and drive on.

In the village. Count the scene as being “in the village” if it mainly concerns social, interpersonal, or expressive activities and maneuvers among the characters when they are more or less protected from the elements or otherwise at home. “In the village” might mean “back at camp”; it probably doesn't mean “in the secret temple of the Forgotten Ones,” even though those present are more or less sheltered from the elements.

On the ice. Count the scene as taking place “on the ice” if it mainly concerns some physical activity taking place out of doors or otherwise characterized by exposure to the elements. An attempt to rescue survivors buried amid the collapse of an ice-house probably takes place “on the ice” even though the ice-house used to stand in the middle of the village.

Being at sea counts as being on the ice, so Gabriel rolls Aonaq's Forgotten Ones Mana of 4.

Additionally, you may be able to roll either your Sun or your Stars Mana or both. If you are pursuing your change-hope, add dice equal to your Sun mana. If you are confronting your change-fear, add dice equal to your Stars Mana.

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Pursuing your change-hope. You are pursuing your change-hope when you are taking action that is directly relevant to bringing about the thing you desire.

Aonaq’s change-hope is to find his brother; searching for his brother is directly relevant to bringing that about. He adds his Sun Mana of 1 to his dice pool, bringing it to a total of 5.

Confronting your change-fear. You are confronting your change-fear when your action is directly related to dealing with the realization of your change-fear or ameliorating its worst effects.

Aonaq’s fear of never finding his brother is very closely related to his change-hope. The GM decides to allow this action to count as ameliorating the worst effects of his change-fear, in that if Aonaq didn’t search, his change-fear would surely come to pass. Gabriel adds his Stars Mana of 1 to his dice pool, bringing it to a total of 6.

There are other ways to add dice to your roll.

You can increase the number of dice you roll by spending Good Medicine from the village, the world, or yourself.

Aonaq has 16 Good Medicine and 14 Bad Medicine, and his Soul (the relevant attribute) is 4. Gabriel adds 4 dice to his roll, reducing his Good Medicine from 16 to 12. His pool now holds 10 dice.

You can also increase the number of dice you roll by playing one of your Medicine cards and adding its base value to your roll. Remember to take Bad Medicine for this, as discussed below.

Gabriel has the Ten of Storms, which has a root value of three (i.e., the square root of 10 rounded down). He adds three dice to his pool, which now holds 13 dice. Since this is the first Medicine card he’s played, he adds one Bad Medicine to his total.

Sort the DiceWhat do the dice mean? Right now, the dice determine who gets the right to intermediate narration. Later, after the rounds of reaction have been played out, they will determine who gets final narration as well as how many Stars can be spent and how much Good and Bad Medicine are generated.

Once the dice hit the table, sort them into four piles: dice showing one, dice showing six, dice equal to or less than the character's score on the crucial attribute (not including 1s), and dice greater than that score (not including 6s). Don't change the values on the faces of the dice when you sort them! You're not done with them yet. Shifting dice from one value to another by bringing in gifts and burdens via narration is how the situation will be resolved.

GOOD MEDICINE

1GIFT DICE

<= relevant attribute

BURDEN DICE

> relevant attribute

BAD MEDICINE

6Compare the number of dice in the Good Medicine and Gift dice boxes with the number of dice in the Bad Medicine and Burden dice boxes. If the total of Good Medicine/Gift dice is higher than the total of Bad Medicine/Burden dice, the player wins intermediate narration; otherwise, the GM does. By this

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definition, ties go to the GM.

Gabriel rolls 13 dice, which come up 1, 1, 1, 2, 2, 3, 4, 4, 4, 5, 6, 6, 6. The crucial attribute is Soul, which in Aonaq's case is 4. The 1s go in the Good Medicine box (3 dice) and the 2s, 3s, and 4s go in the Gift Dice box (6 dice), giving Gabriel 9 dice that count toward intermediate narration. The 5 goes in the Burden Dice box (1 die) and the 6s go in the Bad Medicine box (3 dice), giving the GM 4 dice that count toward intermediate narration. Since 9 is greater than 4, Gabriel wins intermediate narration.

As GM, you can draw dice from the active player’s Bad Medicine pool and lay them on the table as 6s. Do this after the player has rolled his dice but before you’ve established who gets intermediate narration. You may draw up to N Bad Medicine, where N is the number of players including yourself. You should do this whenever you can! It is your primary tool for keeping Bad Medicine “in play” and distributing it to places where it can affect the outcome of the game. Note that it can be used to let you win intermediate narration as well, which can be valuable for establishing limits on the scope of the current action.

Intermediate NarrationThat player describes “what happens next” as a result of the character's reaction to the situation so as to develop but not resolve that situation—moving things along, in other words, without bringing them to a close. The intermediate narration may suggest a particular direction, but shouldn't require a specific conclusion or resolution to the situation. Things could still go wrong for someone who's winning, or turn around for someone who's winning. In all cases, the narrator should keep the consequence card in mind. Intermediate narration should be short and to-the-point, no more than a sentence or two.

Gabriel says, “I float amid the fog atop an ocean grown strangely calm. I strain my ears to listen, and I think I hear voices in the distance.”

This is enough for intermediate narration. It achieves its purpose of giving subsequent narrators (including the active player, the GM, and the other players) a base upon which to build toward their vision of how the consequence card should apply in this situation.

Character Reactions: Shifting the Dice After intermediate narration, players go around the table to shift dice from one face to another so as to maximize the output they desire—some combination of narrative control, Gift and Burden dice, and Good and Bad Medicine. Every die matters!

Either the GM or the active player reacts first, and then play proceeds around the table, with the GM’s spot coming just “before” the active player.

It is helpful for the GM to physically place his or her body in the appropriate spot at the table, immediately in front of the active player, in order to establish the order of reaction.

The players are seated around the table in this order: Gabriel, Alfie, Beth. It’s Gabriel’s turn, so he is the active player. The GM positions himself in front of Gabriel (i.e., between him and Beth). If Gabriel wins intermediate narration, the reaction order is GM, Gabriel, Alfie, Beth. On the other hand, if the GM wins intermediate narration, the reaction order is then Gabriel, Alfie, Beth, GM.

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On his or her turn in the reaction round, a player may either react or pass. Reactions continue until everyone except the last player to have shifted dice passes, or until everyone has had three chances to react or pass—whichever comes first.

Gabriel wins intermediate narration. On the first round, everyone reacts. The GM goes first in the second round and passes. Gabriel goes next and he also passes. If Alfie passes now, the reaction phase ends, since Beth was the last player to shift dice on her reaction. If instead Alfie reacts, Beth would get another chance to react.

What am I trying to do?

The basic procedure for shifting dice (or “reacting”) is the same whether you are the GM or a player. You describe how whatever it is you are invoking influences the current situation, and for each thing you invoke, you shift one die one face in either direction; e.g., from a “3” to a “2” (or to a “4”). More precisely, for each point of strength associated with the thing you invoke, you shift one die one face in either direction. So if you invoke a Gift with a strength of 2 (or worth 2 points), you can shift one die 2 points, or shift two dice 1 point each. These shifts do not have to be in the same direction; that is, you can shift a “5” to a “6” and a “2” to a “1” with one two-point Gift, if you want.

At the end of the reaction phase, the distribution of the dice will determine who narrates, how much Good and Bad Medicine get handed out, how many Gifts and Burdens are received, and how many Stars fade from the Night Sky.

Given these principles, it should be clear that each participant in the reaction phase is trying to maximize the benefit for himself or herself, juggling the separate elements of (a) who wins narration rights, and what they are likely to add to the developing story; (b) how many Gifts and Burdens will be created, and how much closer the game consequently moves toward its ending; and (c) how much Good and Bad Medicine will be created.

How do I shift the dice?

On your turn during the reaction phase, you get to shift as many dice as you like by invoking some game-element from your character sheet, the Ganakagok map, or the Nitu map. Once you invoke a Gift, Love, Lore, or other game-element, you can’t invoke it again until the next player’s turn.

If you are a player, you may invoke:

Your identity, if it is relevant to what you are doing (no more than one point).Any of your Gifts, justified by their utility to your efforts (up to its strength).Any Love that you receive, if the lover could conceivably provide aid to your efforts (up to its

strength).Any Love that you give, if you are acting on behalf or in the interests of your beloved (up to its

strength).“Lore,” that is, facts from the Ganakagok or Nitu Map that bear favorably upon your efforts

(e.g., you’re trying to bring home enough food to feed the starving people, and you’re at the place called the Seal Hunting Grounds; no more than one point).

Your presence in the scene (no more than one point).Your change-hope, if you are pursuing it in your current efforts (no more than one point).

If you are the GM, you may invoke:

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Situational factors (up to the root value of the Situation card).The identity of any character in the scene, if it might plausibly work against the active character

(no more than one point).The Burdens from any character who has participated in the current turn, if you can make them

relevant to what’s going on in the scene (up to their strength). This includes Scars, Fears, and Sins.

Any Hate given by the active player’s character toward another participant in the scene who’s more or less “on the same side” as the active player, under the assumption that the character’s hatred will work against effective cooperation with the other character (up to the strength of the hatred).

Any Hate received by the active player’s character from another participant in the scene, under the assumption that their hate will make allies less effective and enemies more intransigent (up to the strength of the hatred).

Complications related to the setting (up to the strength of the location in which the scene is taking place, minus one point per point invoked by a player). Unplaytested optional rule: For every point of strength you invoke in this way, place a die or other counter on the table. Whoever wins narration during the turn gets Good or Bad Medicine equal to those counters to distribute as he or she chooses (the point of this option is to give players a reason to go to significant places on the map, since if they play their cards right they may get a Medicine bonus for doing so).

The change-fear of the active player, if it’s relevant to the current action (no more than one point).

Notes on Shifting the Dice.

Situational Factors. The GM essentially gets “free” points equal to the root value of the Situation card. Despite being free, the GM has to narrate them in; he or she can’t just say, “I shift such-and-such number of dice for the Situation card.”

The root value of the Situation card is 3. The GM says, “The fog is thick and disorienting. Sounds seem to echo in a strangely muted way. You have no idea where you are or where you’re headed.” The GM shifts a 1 to a 4.

Identity. A character's identity can be narrated in for or against that character, shifting up to one point, using either the adjectival or the noun portion of the identity as justification. Once a part of the character’s identity has been narrated in to shift dice by either the player or the GM, only the other part can be used by the other player. For example, if an arrogant hunter narrates that his arrogance makes him unwilling to give up on an effort, the GM can’t then use his arrogance against him; she must try to figure out how being a hunter disadvantages him, or forego using identity.

Gabriel says, “Because I’m foolish, I go out far into the fog, searching for my brother when wiser heads would already have turned back for shore.” He shifts a 2 to a 1.

Loves and Hates. The connections among characters are a fundamental source of narrative justification for particular outcomes. Typically, they are invoked as motivations and rationales for action, as that which drives characters to act or to refrain from acting.

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Gabriel can’t use the love from Aonaq to Kirakak because he’s not acting in his interests or on his behalf; he’s acting for himself. He can, however, use the love from Quirupuk to Aonaq, because it’s easy to imagine the rebellious son of Banok helping the foolish seal-hunter. Gabriel says, “I call to Quirupuk, my friend, ‘Is there any sign? Come, we must keep looking!’ And we continue to call out into the fog.” He shifts a 5 to a 4.

On her reaction, Beth can use the love from Aonaq to Kirakak. She says, “Because of our friendship, I once taught Aonaq a chant to find his quarry at sea. Usually, he uses it against seals; today, he’s using it to find his brother.”

Note well that, as this example implies, players are allowed to invoke their Gifts by means of flashback. The GM should look kindly on this device. Note also that Beth could also use her narration to invoke her identity as a sea-shaman.

Alfie somewhat foolishly declares that Banok is on the scene. The GM invokes the hate between Banok and Aonaq, telling Alfie, “You can’t help it, and so you mercilessly berate Aonaq for his foolishness. When your son intercedes on his behalf, you turn your anger on him and tell him that he is not worthy of his manhood, and this unleashes a lifetime of Quirupuk’s suppressed anger. He raises his harpoon to you, but then lowers it and paddles off.” For invoking three Hate, the GM shifts three 4s each to 5s.

Note that the GM could use his narration to justify invoking the cultural fact created by Gabriel, that sons must prove themselves worthy of their fathers, for an additional shift.

Gifts. Gifts are usually invoked in the service of their intended or typical use: one's spear is thrown, one's great strength is exerted, one's secrets are shared (or withheld), all to a certain effect. Be aware, though, that Gifts can sometimes be invoked for their symbolic meanings: their significance to one or more characters. For example, in one game a character's bone-cane served after his death as a reminder of the beatings he once administered with it.

Gabriel, playing Aonaq, says, “And my well-made kayak slices through the choppy waters.” He shifts a 6 to a 5.

Burdens. Scars are invoked for their debilitating or hindering effect, either physical (a limp slows, old age enfeebles) or social (ugliness puts off, deformities frighten).

The GM says, “Banok, your poor vision sends you paddling in circles, and Aonaq must come to your help to steady your kayak.” He shifts a 4 to a 5.

Fears are invoked in order to drive characters to act irrationally, or to trigger a fight-or-flight response.

The GM says, “Aonaq, your fear of losing your way is making you cautious, but you’ll only succeed with daring.” He shifts a 5 to a 6.

Sins are invoked in order to narrate in bad luck or other misfortune. If you are fanatical about fairness and internal consistency, you may wish to limit your invocation of Sins so that you only invoke Forgotten Ones sins on the ice or on Mind actions, the Ancestors in the village or on Body actions, the Sun when pursuing a change-hope or on Face actions, and the Stars when confronting a change-fear or on Soul actions. But this is more of a guideline than a hard-and-fast rule, since it’s hard to remember and adherence to it may be regarded as pedantic and persnickety as well as an obstacle to good play.

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The GM says, “Kirakak, you worry that your sin against the Ancestors may have lent the words of your chant an evil power, so that if the brother is called like a seal, he will be killed like a seal.” He shifts a 4 to a 6 (since the Sin has a strength of 2).

Mere Presence. Even if you have no other source of influence in the situation, if your character is physically present in the scene, you can shift one die by narrating your character doing or saying something in the scene. Note that this a good way of accounting for the reactions of those characters whose players have an easier time describing what they do than figuring out how to work in specific Gifts.

Beth’s reaction comes up again. She says, “Kirakak comes paddling up in his kayak. ‘Follow me,’ he tells Aonaq. ‘I see shadows in the fog this way.’” She shifts a 5 to a 4.

Other Rules of Reaction

The Law of Second and Third Chances. You do not have to invoke everything you can all at once; there is more than one reaction round—but be careful! Strategic passing on the part of other players can rob you of your chance to react, and there can only be up to three reaction rounds.

The Law of Singular Use. You can invoke any particular Gift or Burden (construed broadly to include all of the things you can invoke) only once in any given turn. In other words, you can’t invoke the same thing twice during the same player-turn; Gifts and Burdens “refresh” at the end of the active player’s turn.

The Law of Narrative Variety. Subsequent uses of the same Gift or Burden need to be qualitatively different from previous uses. In other words, you must describe your use of the Gift or Burden in a different way each time you use it. The GM should enforce this rule so as to avoid players going back to the same descriptive well too often.

Final Narration Once the reaction phase ends, compare the number of Gift dice to the number of Burden dice. If there are as many or more Gift than Burden dice, the active player narrates. Otherwise, the GM narates. Note that this comparison excludes Medicine dice, unlike the comparison for intermediate narration.

When everyone passes, Gabriel's dice are set at five 1s, a 3, two 4s, two 5s, and four 6s. That produces 5 Good Medicine, 3 Gifts, 2 Burdens, and 4 Bad Medicine. Since there are as many or more Gifts than Burdens, Gabriel wins the right to narrate what the Woman of Storms means in this context. Gabriel says, "The fog parts, and I see my brother's kayak on the beach of the mysterious island some way off. I make my way there, and pull my kayak up, and it's a rocky shore like I've never seen before. I stand beside my brother's kayak and it's empty. Then, silhouetted by starlight on a rise above me, I see a figure standing there, looking down on me. I think it's my brother, but he doesn't recognize me. He turns and vanishes behind the rise, and I follow."

The narration should be consistent with the consequence card, and social pressure may be exerted to convince a player to describe an outcome more in line with the motifs on the card than is being offered, but the decision of the winner of the turn is final, even if it wrecks an otherwise beautiful game.

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Consequences During the final phase of the turn, the active player distributes Gifts and Good Medicine while the GM distributes Burdens and Bad Medicine. Each point of Gift or Burden spent reduces the Night Sky by one Star. Gifts and Burdens do not have to be distributed; the player or GM may opt to let some or all of his or her allotment go unspent. Good and Bad Medicine, on the other hand, have to be allocated somewhere. Good and Bad Medicine awards do not reduce the Stars in the Night Sky.

Gabriel gives all five Good Medicine to Ganakagok, making it 15 Good to 14 Bad for the world. The GM gives two Bad Medicine to Ganakagok, making it 15 Good to 16 Bad for the world, and two Bad Medicine for the Nitu, bringing their totals to 5 Good and 7 Bad.

Good and Bad Medicine may be distributed to any character who participated in the scene, Ganakagok itself, or the Nitu.

Gifts and Burdens may be used to for a variety of purposes, including:

to create new characters or other details on the Nitu map;to create new places or other details on the Ganakagok map; to create new Goods or increase/decrease the strength of existing ones;to create new Burdens or increase/decrease the strength of existing ones;to create new relationships (Loves or Hates) or change the strength of existing ones;to change an element of a character's identity;to increase or decrease a character's Mana;to add to the GM’s Final Fate scores.

Turn Summary Draw Situation Card. Narrate, roleplay, or describe active character's response. Identify Crux of the Situation. Determine the nature of the crux (i.e., Body, Face, Mind, or Soul)Draw Consequence Card. Briefly examine, but do not get bogged down in analysis; the winner of the

player-turn gets to narrate what this means in context. Roll the Dice. Determine number of dice to be rolled by adding relevant Mana for scene and action,

spending Good Medicine (up to the value of the crucial attribute) if desired, and/or using a Medicine card if desired. After the dice are rolled but before intermediate narration is determined, the GM can draw up to N of your Bad Medicine and add them as dice set at 6.

Provide Intermediate Narration. Whoever has more dice in their favor (e.g., for the player, at or below the crucial attribute) narrates the developing situation. Ties go the GM.

React. Go around the table up to three times and invoke Gifts, Burdens, and other game-elements to shift dice. As a player, you can invoke the following things (the GM follows slightly different rules):

Your identity, if it is relevant to what you are doing (no more than one point).Any of your Gifts, justified by their utility to your efforts (up to its strength).Any Love that you get, if the lover could aid your efforts (up to its strength).Any Love that you give, if you are acting on behalf of your beloved (up to its strength).Lore from the Ganakagok or Nitu Map that relates to your efforts (no more than one point).Your presence in the scene (no more than one point).Your change-hope, if you are pursuing it in your current efforts (no more than one point).

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Provide Final Narration. This narration should be in line with the consequence card. Whoever has more non-Medicine dice in their favor narrates. In other words, if there are more Gift dice than Burden dice, the player wins. Otherwise, the GM wins narration rights. Ties go to the player.

Determine Consequences. The final values of the rolled dice determine the amount of Good and Bad Medicine to distribute. Additionally, other dice at or below the crucial attribute provide Gifts while other dice above the crucial attribute provide Burdens. Each Gift or Burden taken reduces the Stars in the Night Sky by one. Medicine has to be allocated; Gifts and Burdens can be waived by the active player and the GM respectively.

Check for Stage Change. If the Stars in the Night Sky have dropped below the threshold for Twilight, Dawn, or Morning, move to the next stage of the game. See “Getting to the End of the Game,” below.

Using Medicine CardsHere are the things you can do with your Medicine cards:

(1) Add dice equal to the root value of the card to your roll.(2) Replace another card with the Medicine card.

(a) the current Situation card.(b) the current Consequence card.(c) a Final Fate card.

(3) Introduce a new game element.(a) a location with a strength equal to the root value of the Medicine card.(b) a character with relationships to existing characters equal to the root value of the Medicine

card.(4) Add new or increase the strength of existing Gifts (including Loves, Lore, Goods, and Mana) or

Burdens (including Hates, Scars, Fears, Sins) by the root value of the Medicine card as an additional consequence of in-game events; i.e., you must narrate in the change.

(5) Narrate an event or other occurrence in line with the meaning of the Medicine card.

The first time a player plays a Medicine card, he or she accrues 1 Bad Medicine. The second time a player plays a Medicine card, he or she accrues 2 Bad Medicine. The third time a player plays a Medicine card, he or she accrues 4 Bad Medicine.

The GM also gets to use Medicine cards. Instead of accruing Bad Medicine, he or she must give away Good Medicine to the active player. If there is no active player (as during the Morning), the Good Medicine goes to the player of the oldest character to distribute as he or she desires.

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Getting to the End of the Game

There is joy in feeling warmthCome into the worldTo watch the sun retrace its ancientFootprints in the summer sky.—Central Eskimo chant, from Songs of the Dream People

THE INEXORABLE APPROACH OF THE DAWN is the backdrop against which the actions of characters take place. The cycle of the individual turn should at this point be apparent: the character is presented with a situation to which he or she responds, the action drives forward to its crux, the consequence card is drawn, players participate in developing the action from crux to consequence, to be rewarded subsequently with gifts and burdens. This cycle does not repeat itself indefinitely, however; as the situation develops over the course of the game, morning comes nearer and nearer. Specifically, since each Gift or Burden that's awarded during the consequence phase of the turn is accompanied by a point-for-point reduction of the Stars in the Night Sky, eventually those points will be gone. That triggers the end of the game, at which point the final fates of the characters, the people, and world as a whole are narrated.

When the game begins, it is Night. Things are as they have always been. The Stars blaze in the black sky above the cold world. The men of the People hunt by starlight, blue shadows against the stark white snow. The women use hide, sinew, bone, meat, and fat to clothe and feed the People. All seems well enough, save for the portents of truth-vision.

When the Stars in the Night Sky reaches or passes half-empty, it becomes Twilight. The dimmest Stars have faded, and sky is now indigo; still dark, but blue not black. A gray light pervades. The world has begun to change perceptibly. Animal migrations, ice-quakes, and other portents of transformation begin to occur. That change will come is apparent to all, but its precise nature remains to be seen. At your option, draw a card from the Ganakagok deck and either read it yourself or allow the player with the highest Stars mana (ties to the oldest character) to read it as a change to the world or the People. Gather up any discarded cards and shuffle the deck.

When the Stars in the Night Sky reaches or passes three-quarters empty, it is Dawn. The eastern horizon is suffused with pink and orange tones, and only the few brightest Stars remain visible. Significant and even catastrophic changes occur, producing new landscapes and weather patterns. Unfamiliar creatures may appear, and the meaning of strange portents becomes clearer. At your option, draw a card from the Ganakagok deck and either read it yourself or allow the player with the highest Sun mana (ties to the youngest character) to read it as a change to the world or the People. Gather up any discarded cards and shuffle the deck.

When the Stars in the Night Sky is empty, it is Morning. The Sun has risen, and a new age is upon Ganakagok. The main part of the game is over. Instead of proceeding to a new turn, the Final Fates of Ganakagok, the Nitu, and the individual characters are determined and narrated. Gather up any discarded cards and shuffle the deck.

The Final FatesThe general principle for the Morning turn is that anything that has more Good Medicine than Bad

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Medicine gets a happy ending; otherwise, it gets a sad ending. “Happy” and “sad” are as defined by the narrator, however, and are constrained by what has been narrated before and by the throw of a Ganakagok card.

One player gets to narrate each of those Final Fates. The right to narrate is decided by a roll of the dice.

The Final Fate of Ganakagok. Each player rolls a number of dice equal to their Forgotten Ones mana. Players who had more Good Medicine than Bad may add bonus dice up to their Sun mana; other players may add bonus dice up to their Stars mana. Bonus dice added here may not be used later to roll for the Final Fate of the Nitu. In any case, you have to decide how many bonus dice you’ll use before rolling the dice.

The GM has 5 points in his Final Fate of Ganakagok box, so he rolls five dice. Alfie has 2 Forgotten Ones mana, so he starts with a base of two dice. He ended the game with more Good Medicine than Bad, so he gets to add some, none, or all of his 4 Sun mana to the roll; he opts to put all four into this roll, saving none for the Final Fate of the Nitu. He rolls six dice. The GM rolls a total of 21 on his five dice, but Alfie only rolls 17 on his six dice. The other players do even worse, so the GM gets narration rights for Ganakagok, which has ended the game with more Bad Medicine than Good. The GM draws the card Ten of Tears (Stolen Treasure: to suffer ill-use or injury; to be wronged). The GM describes Ganakagok drifting into warmer and warmer waters as the sun rises higher in the sky until eventually there is a great cracking sound one day and the iceberg splinters into dozens of smaller bergs that drift apart, melting slowly in the warming seas.

The Final Fate of the Nitu. Each player rolls a number of dice equal to their Ancestors mana. Players may add any bonus dice they didn’t use when rolling for narration rights to the Final Fate of Ganakagok. Again, decide how many you’ll use before rolling the dice (although at this point there’s no use saving them).

The Nitu ended the game with more Good Medicine than Bad, so they get a happy ending. The GM rolls five dice and Alfie rolls three since he has no more bonus dice left to add to his Ancestors mana of three. Gabriel rolls six dice, and Beth rolls eight, based on her Ancestors mana and the bonus dice she gets from her Stars mana, since she wound up with more Bad than Good Medicine and she didn’t spend any bonus dice on the roll for Ganakagok. Beth’s total of 33 beats the next highest roll of 28 (Gabriel’s), so she gets to narrate the meaning of Child of Storms (Shaman: to be initiated; to pass into adulthood). “The Nitu survive the splintering of Ganakagok,” Beth says, “and they become a nomadic sea-going people whose legends speak of the on-going battle between Day and Night.”

The Final Fate of individual characters. Give each player a Ganakagok card. Starting with the oldest player, each player describes his own character's Final Fate in accordance with the card.

Beth ended the game with more Bad Medicine than Good, and draws the Four of Stars (Fish in the Net: to be given or granted) for her Final Fate. Her change-fear was that training the champion of the Stars would be too burdensome, and so it proves. “The undoing of the Champion of the Stars hits Kirakak hard,” Beth says. “He paddles out far to the west, where the Stars yet gleam amid the rising of the Sun, and they grant him the surcease of drowning in placid waters.”

Once all Final Fates have been narrated, the GM should formally end the game. “And so the tale of the People ends,” you may say. “Dawn has come, and we walk once more in the light of the Sun.” Thank everyone for playing, and go on to the next thing in your life.

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Alternate Pacing Mechanisms It may be the case that time is at a premium, and you want or need the game to end by a certain time. For example, you've got a group of friends together for an evening of play, starting at eight, and everyone wants to leave by midnight. Under those circumstances, rather than using the depletion of the Stars in the Night Sky as the pacing mechanism for the game, you should tie the pacing to flow of player-turns. A full player-turn takes anywhere from 15 to 30 minutes to complete; say that it averages about 20 minutes. Given that, if you want to wrap up in three hours (after having spent an hour on character creation), you can expect to complete maybe eight or nine player-turns. If you have four players, that's two turns per player. Given that, tell the players that Twilight has come after a full round of player-turns (i.e., four turns) and that Dawn has come after three more player-turns. The last player's turn will be the single Dawn turn, and then you can move into the Morning phase and the narration of Final Fates.

You can also use the clock as your guide. If you're starting the first player-turn at 9 o'clock, and it's 10 o'clock before the third player's turn commences, then you'll want to advance the stage to Twilight at that point and make the fourth player's first turn the Dawn turn, with a lot of time for Morning phase and a leisurely post-game. You can also combine methods, using the Star depletion method so long as things stay within certain time limits, then using time or turns to speed up the pace as needed.

Finally, you should pay attention to in-game events as a clue or guide to the game-mechanical pacing of the game. It may be that your story develops more rapidly or more slowly than the rules of the game have anticipated, or that the events of a particular turn make an especially . In that case, you may take it upon yourself to call an audible and advance to the next stage (or delay its advance). One way of doing that is to draw a card and subtract (or add) its value to the Stars in the Night Sky, possibly allowing the card to be narrated as an in-game event by yourself or a player as you deem appropriate.

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Running the Game I want to laugh, I, because my sledge it is broken. Because its ribs are broken I want to laugh. Here at Talaviuyaq I encountered hummocky ice, I met with an upset. I want to laugh.It is not a thing to rejoice over. — Central Eskimo chant, from Songs of the Dream People

THE MOST IMPORTANT RULE for running a game of Ganakagok is “Fight hard!” Once they figure it out, the players have all the advantages: there are more of them than there are of you, they’re gaining resources like Gifts and Mana as the game progresses, and everything is out in the open—no fudging allowed. So you have to fight really really hard to prevent the game from becoming a one-sided romp with you as the playground. Look for ways to drive the situation so that others will oppose the active player, and encourage players to pass during the reaction round if they have no dog in the fight (this helps to speed up play as well).

It’s GMing without a net, since you don't prepare a plot or an adventure in advance and simply work as best as you can to produce in collaboration with the players a good story. However, that is part of the game's charm, and its appeal. As the GM, you are letting the characters’ engagement with the setting drive the story.

To make this work, it's important to recognize that you are not looking to identify points of conflict between you and the player, or even between the world and the character. The crux of the turn is the climax of the mini-story in which the active character has taken the spotlight. The situation has developed, action has risen, and now it's time for the chips to fall where they may. That's when you throw the consequence card and roll the dice: when the player has made a character-defining choice for his or her character.

By the same token, it's important to recognize that the rotating spotlight of play, the shifting of focus from character to character as one turn passes to the next, is a central and even vital feature of the game. The story develops from the perspective of each character in turn; if that means that flashbacks or flashforwards are necessary in order for the turn-sequence to make narrative sense, so be it.

A useful device for you as the GM is to make a list of each character’s truth-vision, change-hope, and change-fear so that you can refer to it in play and read the situation card with an eye toward what the player has said motivates the character.

Still, it does not hurt to be prepared as GM, to have stock tropes or commonplaces available to throw at characters as circumstances warrant. In the village, introduce love triangles, rivalries, jealousies, resentments, and yearnings. For youthful characters, think high school romance with harpoons:

Hunter to Friend: “I want you to go tell her I like her.”Friend to Nitu Maid: “He likes you.” Nitu Maid to Friend: “But I like you!” Friend back to Hunter: “She likes me.” Hunter to Friend: “I'll kill you!”

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For older characters, infidelities and other family problems are the stuff. In any case, use parents, children, siblings, friends, mentors, and whoever else the players have drawn in the Nitu map to make demands on them and force them into action. Remember that “Loves” can be two-way obligations, so that those people to whom a character is connected all want something from the character. Possible situations include commands and dying wishes from elders, the importunings of loved ones and family members, forced marriages to reprehensible suitors or detestable brides, starving relatives, jealousies and rivalries, factions contesting some decision, and so forth.

Also, look to the characters’ truth-visions, change-hopes, and change-fears for clues to find leverage that can help you define interesting situations for the characters.

On the ice, contributions that players have made to the map are a good source of potential quest-destinations; you can also establish all sorts of interesting places, either as goals or as obstacles, when the situation card is thrown. Possible goals include a cave in an ice-chasm where strange bodies can be glimpsed frozen in the depths of the ice; a circle of ice-dolmens arranged in the center of a snowy plain; a palace of crystalline ice, high on the side of the berg; a glacial plateau scattered with the burnt bones of fallen stars; an icy labyrinth haunted by invisible demons that moan and shriek in unearthly tone, at whose center is supposed to be hidden the secret of Ganakagok; or, an icy cliff face where wise snow owls are said to nest. Possible obstacles include ice chasms; fields of treacherous, shifting, or thin ice; snowstorms and blizzards, star-shrouding fog banks; steep snow banks or ice slopes that must be climbed; deep dark caves with narrow passages; unrelenting and bitter cold; stormy waves at sea; floes of ice fragments that crushingly collide.

Additionally, threats such as bears and wolves on the ice and sharks, orca, and sea lions on the water may appear. Shapeshifting monsters that swim in the sea but walk on land may also confront the characters in one way or another. Monstrous whales, ferocious sea serpents (including perhaps white-furred sea otters the size of a kayak or even larger), and even deep-diving kraken can threaten travelers. Nitu may encounter swimming bird-women, or the ice-lodges of talking polar bears who strip off their furs to become titanic men, and even stranger things.

And of course, there's always the cannibal-ghouls.

The “cannibal-ghouls” are always somewhere out there on the ice. They are the horror of Ganakagok, but their precise nature is never determined prior to play. They could be gigantic yeti-like man-monsters, with white fur and ape-like fangs, living high on the flanks of the ice-mountain. They could be frozen dead men quickened to unholy life, their skin blackened by frost and limbs animated to some monstrous purpose. More simply, they could just be men driven mad by the darkness, their bestial hunger inuring them to cold, and so naked and free, they stalk human prey. Perhaps they are cold ghosts who drink hot blood. Ultimately, the truth will be revealed in play, to the players’ horror and delight.

Finally, remember that skilled Ganakagok players will learn to take the reins of the story and push it to where they want it to go. Especially in the later stages of the game, your role in defining the situation can consist largely of acknowledging the character’s ambitions and watching the world resist.

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Design Notes

But are we not already guilty of an insulting limitation in calling storytelling a game? Is it not also a science, an art, hovering between these two categories as Muhammad's coffin hovered between heaven and earth? Is it not a unique bond between every pair of opponents, ancient and yet eternally new; mechanical in its framework and yet only functioning through use of imagination; confined in geometrically fixed space and at the same time released from confinement by its permutations; continuously evolving yet sterile; thought that leads nowhere, mathematics that add up to nothing, art without an end product, architecture without substance, and nevertheless demonstrably more durable in its true nature and existence than any books or creative works? Is it not the only game that belongs to all peoples and all times? And who knows whether God put it on earth to kill boredom, to sharpen the wits or to lift the spirits? Where is its beginning and where is its end?— Frank McConnell, “The Playing Fields of Eden” (1989)

THE ORIGINS OF GANAKAGOK lay in the “Iron Game Chef” contest hosted on the Forge (www.indie-rpgs.com) in 2004 (and since spun off into an independent Internet enterprise). Contestants were asked to design a fantasy game making use of three out of four possible motifs: Ice, Island, Dawn, and Assault. The original entry employed the first three, its fundamental concept being “Dawn comes to the Island of Ice.” Interestingly, two relatively prominent and innovative games emerged from the Game Chef contest that year: Ben Lehman's Polaris, in which valiant but foredoomed fairy knights struggle against the fall of their civilization (Ice, Dawn, Assault) and Tim Kleinert's The Mountain Witch, in which a group of ill-met samurai journey together en route to the home of the eponymous sorceror, enmeshing themselves in webs of deceit and betrayal as they go (Island, Dawn, Assault).

Mike Holmes, the judge that year, liked the game well enough to award it runner-up status, saying that the setting wound up “creating a ‘vaguely Polynesian’ sort of aesthetic that seems to fit life on a fantastic iceberg of magic.” But the version of the game that Mike liked was much, much different than the one you're reading now. The Ganakagok tarot wasn't there yet, and still in place were now thankfully long-gone resource rules involving bone, oil, meat, and hides (used to “power” die rolls for Soul, Face, Body, and Mind respectively) that turned out to be not much fun to play with. Playtesting that first iteration of Ganakagok at a game convention in New Jersey called Dreamation in January 2005, Drew Morris (a Ganakagok early adopter) told me the resource rules were like something out of a broken German-style board game. And he was right: the resource rules, the unholy collaboration of a sadomasochistic Rube Goldberg and a manic-depressive Reiner Knizia, were the first thing to go.

The Ganakagok tarot was introduced to solve a problem that emerged in those first playtests. Ganakagok was supposed to be pure situation, with players responding to the changes wrought by the coming of the sun. But the resource rules that were supposed to motivate the players to initiate character action failed by virtue of their opacity: it was difficult to see in play what the current distribution of resources portended. On the other hand, a simple declaration that “the people are hungry” would move some players to go out and hunt for food. So clearly what was required was some mechanism for generating declarations about the state of the world and the people that the players could then draw upon to motivate character action. I'd been fooling around with a tarot-based mechanic in another project (of the sort sometimes called a “fantasy heartbreaker”: an attempt to “fix” the perceived problems of the grand-daddy of all role-playing games, Dungeons & Dragons). Putting a quasi-Inuit veneer over the ancient oracular symbolism of a deck of cards was an elegant fix (if I do say so myself) that met with Drew Morris's approval: “Random noise plus human interpretation equals

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deep significance,” he said, or words to that effect. Dave Petroski, an old friend and charter member of what Alexander Newman would later call the “Ganakagok Ganaka-gang,” was sufficiently impressed with effect of those text-only cards that he took it upon himself to design and create the much more evocative illustrated cards that now accompany the game.

The difference was magical. Tony Lower-Basch, the designer of the astonishingly innovative game Capes (whose influence on the dice mechanics of this game you may be able to detect), didn't mince words. “I saw both Ganakagok and Bill White presenting Ganakagok six months ago,” he said after a gaming convention in July 2005, “and...well...both were a trifle shaky. Not now. Now everyone who plays it comes out raving.”

Raving, he says! Raving! People really did like the game. The elements that garnered praise included the Ganakagok deck and its oracular employment in the game, the Nitu map showing the relationships among the characters, and the fiddling with the dice to determine who won narration rights. Those elements are the heart of the game, and they came together quite early in its development.

It was at about this time, too, that Tony and Ben Lehman came up with the phrase “Eskimo-punk” to describe Ganakagok. I'm not sure it's exactly right, but it gets at one way of playing the game, focusing on the alienated individuality of characters in a radically changing world. But there are other ways to approach the game as well, as Don Corcoran showed with the wire-fu version of Ganakagok he ran at conventions like Camp Nerdly and Dexcon — “Crouching Polar Bear, Hidden Orca” — where Nitu with crystal swords battled star-warriors suspended from the sky and defeated them by slicing the wires that held them aloft. Or maybe that is Eskimo-punk; I don't know.

But there were still problems with the game-as-written. Alexander Newman played in an early Dexcon game and liked the game well enough to take it home and run it for some friends in New York City. Prepping for the game was too “fiddly,” he told me, requiring too many GM choices with too few guidelines about their impact on play. All of those choices had to do with the “metaplot” — how to figure out what was happening in Ganakagok during the time that the characters were acting, and what impact character actions were having on those larger events.

So began a process of simplification that resulted in the “second edition” of Ganakagok. And it worked! The new version of Ganakagok generated some fabulous game-play.

Here's Fred Hicks, talking about the game presented in the Introduction:.

Ganakagok does several things which, together, produce an amazing game-play experience that preserved my empathy for my character. At the heart of all of those things is a common thread: everyone gets a chance to participate in every scene, but only in a way that happens through the “lens” of their characters. Even when my character is not physically present in a scene, he can affect that scene through his possessions, others' memories of him, and so on. This is gold. By making sure that I don't ever step out of “my guy” to affect the larger story of the world, I remain identified with him without ever losing sight of the big picture.

And a newcomer to story-games blogging about playing Ganakagok in the woods at Camp Nerdly in a game run by my brother Mel:

Man, did I luck out starting with this. It's a game set in an ancient Eskimo world, and we

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played it outside as the weather chilled and the sky darkened. Great stuff. Each person played a single, self-generated character, the game master gave us some elements to start off with and the rest was dictated by our choices and the drawing of cards specific to the game, each of which had an Eskimo word and various associations for it printed on it. We took turns telling our character's parts of the story, but each character could contribute within the system to another's tale. Blew my mind.

Another anonymous blogger identified Ganakagok as a “cool game,” saying that he loved the Ganakagok deck, as well as the resolution system:

Gifts are another beautiful mechanic because the rules encourage players to use them to adjust the outcome of rolls, whether their character is present in the scene or not. As long as there is some rationale for doing so e.g. Nuqaki (character in scene) remembers Maleuk’s (character not present) warning not to rush in and waits for a good opportunity, thus improving his chances.

As you see, there were some strong positive reactions to the game—mostly, however, from game-play, and mostly oriented around the functional core of the game (the part that's been known to work from early on). The presentation of the rules, on the other hand, garnered little praise and even some outright scorn. Even though Jason Morningstar generously provided scanned images of evocative out-of-copyright woodcuts depicting early illustrations of Eskimo life, my thumb-fingered paste-up did them little justice. Nathan Paoletta took the time to develop an “ashcan” layout of the game that showed me what proper layout looked like. My friend Dave Petroski, who created the look of the Ganakagok tarot—agreed to do the final layout of the game, and his work is in your hands right now.

Additionally, the games that Alexander Newman ran at Origins and Gencon 2007 produced feedback that told me that the “currency” of GM opposition and adversity was broken: essentially, the only way that players could succeed was through GM forbearance. In other words, the GM began the game with enough resources to quash player efforts, and it was only by “playing to lose” that the GM didn't win every conflict. This problem has been fixed.

So this final revision of Ganakagok is an attempt to fix those problems, to create a version of the game that can be played and enjoyed full-tilt, without holding back on the part of players or GM. I have playtested these rules and they seem to work, so I hope you’ll give them a chance. Let me know how your game goes!

Bill White (billwhite@ganakagok.com)December, 2008Huntingdon, PA

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References, Inspiration, and Source Material

Inuit myths and legends are usually short, dramatic forms dealing with the wonders of the islands of the sea, the sky, or of birth, love, old age, hunting and sharing of food, polygamy, rape, murder, incest, infanticide, death, and the dreamlike mysteries of an afterlife. . . . Inuit myths are rarely simple, and usually lacking the details we would need in order to understand them. Inuit have long believed that they have a close, mystical relationship with all of nature, and that the animals have the power to hear and understand the words of humans. . . . Carvings, lamps, and pots may be lost and frozen in the permafrost for countless centuries. But the ancient stories, songs, and dances of the Inuit become extinct the moment the last person who could remember them dies.— James Houston, Confessions of an Igloo Dweller.

Here are a few references that may be helpful. Some will be useful in giving you a sense of Inuit life and culture; others are specific aids for playing the game.

Houston, James. Confessions of an Igloo Dweller. Boston: Houghton Mifflin, 1995. Houston's memoir of travel and life in northern Canada in the 1960s. This is an impressionistic and episodic account, offering many social and cultural insights. It includes sketches of Inuit artifacts.

Houston, James. James Houston's Treasury of Inuit Legends. New York: Odyssey Classics, 2006. An omnibus reprint of four stories (Tiktalitak, The White Archer, Akavak, and Wolf Run).

Houston, James. Songs of the Dream People: Chants and Images of the Indians and Eskimos of North America. New York: Longman, 1972. This includes some evocative verse from many different native American peoples, including the Inuit and tribes of the Pacific Northwest.

Inuit Myths & Legends [on-line]. Path: http://www.inuitmyths.com. This site has some nifty art as well as stories and descriptions of monstrous and supernatural creatures from Inuit myth.

Ganakagok [on-line]. Path: http://www.ganakagok.com. The Ganakagok home page has printable play-aids including the character sheet and various GM aids.

Kunuk, Zacharias. Atanarjuat: The Fast Runner [video]. Igloolik Isuma Productions, 2001. An independent film telling a story of love, jealousy, and murder out on the ice.

Pryde, Duncan. Nunaga: Ten Years of Eskimo Life. New York: Walker & Co., 1972. Similar to Houston's Confessions of an Igloo Dweller, this memoir is a more straightforward narrative and has many details of daily life.

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Rule Summaries

Player Preparation SummaryAs a group and with the facilitation of the GM, draw two pairs of cards and read each to determine the Situation of the World and the Situation of the Nitu.

Draw three cards to read as your truth-vision, change-hope, and change-fear.

Determine your character’s name and identity.

Possible Names: Aurik, Balaboq, Karutok, Dinaq, Eenoraq, Furunok, Goriuq, Halaabak, Igoruq, Janaq, Kamuqur, Loduruq, Moqoruk, Nanaku, Otoku, Pakumuq, Quoruku, Sednak, Toriuqun, Unuqur, Vamuqu, Chabalak, Yurtoq, Ssaborak.

Possible Adjective Phrases: arrogant, bold, crafty, defiant, enthusiastic, foolhardy, generous, happy, inspirational, jejune, kayak-hogging, lazy, masterful, nefarious, officious, philosophical, querulous, rage-filled, sly, timid, unlikeable, vicious, warmongering, xenophobic, yare (i.e., agile), zany.

Possible Noun Phrases: artisan, boat-maker, child, desperado, explorer, fighter, guardian, hermit, infant-blesser, jumper-of-ice-floes, kayak-builder, leader, mystagogue, ne'er-do-well, optimist, poltroon, quest-follower, rascal, throat-singer, umiak-navigator, vandal of ice sculptures, wanderer, xerophage, yea-sayer, zealot.

Allocate 10 points among Body, Face, Mind, and Soul (minimum 1, maximum 4) and divide 10 mana among the Ancestors, the Forgotten Ones, the Sun, and the Stars (at least 1 in Ancestors and Forgotten Ones, and at least 1 in either Sun or Stars mana; no maximum).

Create three personal Gifts and three points worth of Burdens for your character.

Add your character to the Nitu Map.

Place another character (defined by name and identity) or add a folkway (cultural fact) to the Nitu map.

Add a location or other geographical/cosmological fact to the Ganakagok Map.

Go around the table and add one Love and one Hate to the Nitu Map (GM adds two Hates).

Re-seat yourself in order of character age from youngest to oldest.

After the cards are collected and shuffled, draw three Medicine cards to use during play.

Turn Summary Draw Situation Card. Narrate, roleplay, or describe active character's response. Identify Crux of the Situation. Determine the nature of the crux (i.e., Body, Face, Mind, or Soul)Draw Consequence Card. Briefly examine, but do not get bogged down in analysis; the winner of the

player-turn gets to narrate what this means in context. Roll the Dice. Determine number of dice to be rolled by adding relevant Mana for scene and action,

spending Good Medicine (up to the value of the crucial attribute) if desired, and/or using a Medicine card if desired. After the dice are rolled but before intermediate narration is determined, the GM can draw up to N of your Bad Medicine and add them as dice set at 6.

Provide Intermediate Narration. Whoever has more dice in their favor (e.g., for the player, at or below

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the crucial attribute) narrates the developing situation. Ties go the GM. React. Go around the table up to three times and invoke Gifts, Burdens, and other game-elements to

shift dice. As a player, you can invoke the following things (the GM follows slightly different rules):

Your identity, if it is relevant to what you are doing (no more than one point).Any of your Gifts, justified by their utility to your efforts (up to its strength).Any Love that you get, if the lover could aid your efforts (up to its strength).Any Love that you give, if you are acting on behalf of your beloved (up to its strength).Lore from the Ganakagok or Nitu Map that relates to your efforts (no more than one point).Your presence in the scene (no more than one point).Your change-hope, if you are pursuing it in your current efforts (no more than one point).

Provide Final Narration. This narration should be in line with the consequence card. Whoever has more non-Medicine dice in their favor narrates. In other words, if there are more Gift dice than Burden dice, the player wins. Otherwise, the GM wins narration rights. Ties go to the player.

Determine Consequences. 1s and 6s determine the amount of Good and Bad Medicine to distribute. Other dice at or below the crucial attribute provide Gifts while other dice above the crucial attribute provide Burdens. Each Gift or Burden taken reduces the Stars in the Night Sky by one. Medicine has to be allocated; Gifts and Burdens can be waived by the active player and the GM respectively.

Check for Stage Change. If the Stars in the Night Sky have dropped below the threshold for Twilight, Dawn, or Morning, move to the next stage of the game. Draw a card to describe impact of approaching Dawn (highest Stars mana narrates at Twilight, Sun mana at Dawn).

Using Medicine CardsHere are the things you can do with your Medicine cards:

(1) Add dice equal to the root value of the card to your roll.(2) Replace another card with the Medicine card.

(a) the current Situation card.(b) the current Consequence card.(c) a Final Fate card.

(3) Introduce a new game element.(a) a location with a strength equal to the root value of the Medicine card.(b) a character with relationships equal to the root value of the Medicine card.

(4) Add new or increase the strength of existing Gifts (including Loves, Lore, Goods, and Mana) or Burdens (including Hates, Scars, Fears, Sins) by the root value of the Medicine card as an additional consequence of in-game events.

(5) Narrate an event or other occurrence in line with the meaning of the Medicine card.

The first time a player plays a Medicine card, he or she accrues 1 Bad Medicine. The second time a player plays a Medicine card, he or she accrues 2 Bad Medicine. The third time a player plays a Medicine card, he or she accrues 4 Bad Medicine.

The GM also gets to use Medicine cards. Instead of accruing Bad Medicine, he or she must give away Good Medicine to the active player. If there is no active player (as during the Morning), the Good Medicine goes to the player of the oldest character to distribute as he or she desires.

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