Desperation is two replayable gothic roleplaying games about dying badly in the 19th century. Built on the same dark tone and mechanics, these are both truly pick-up-and-play experiences for you and your friends.

For lovers of card-based roleplaying games like For the Queen and The Quiet Year.

• Dead House – There's a blizzard coming, an unholy storm that will bury the town of Neola as sure as the frozen ground will refuse to receive their dead. Until spring they will lie in the dead house, and they will be stacked like cordwood. Because the citizens of Neola are going to suffer, and be tested, and be found wanting. They are going to kill and worse. The dead house is going to be full.
• The Isabel – A three-masted schooner, her pig-headed captain and crew of malcontents and passengers with unsavory secrets, are on a course that puts them in the teeth of a vicious gale. The ship is sinking, and the survivors are only beginning an odyssey of horror. On the high seas, through the punishing surf and finally on a forbidding shore, the living may well envy the dead.

Details

System: GM-less
Mechanic: Story Prompt Cards (included)
Ages:14+
Number of Players: 1-5
Genre: Horror, Historical / Period
Tone: Serious, Dark
Themes: Death, Isolation, Survival
Designer: Jason Morningstar