The Way of the Witch

This is a solo-play tabletop journaling game about finding a community in the shadowy places and keeping your community safe. You play mainly as a witch of medieval Ireland, and a witch hunt has just begun. The Local Lord is bent on ferreting out any who would subvert his reign and the witches of the woods are becoming anxious and afraid. You have been set the very important task of collecting spell materials to cast a protection charm and keep your coven from being found out or hurt by the paranoid townsfolk. However, as suspicions mount and ingredients become more scarce, you must hide who you are so that you and your people can survive.

This game is played with a 78 card deck of tarot and a journaling method of your choice. It touches on themes of isolation, social outcasting, persecution from the Church, and paranoia. These are heavy topics and parallel real life, intentionally so, so please play responsibly for your own mental health. This game book is meant to create a sense of empathy with the drive to seek out others like you, even when others like you means other outcasts. I hope that it can achieve this purpose.

This game was also inspired by the game jam Medieval but Queer, hosted by R Rook Studio. It was not completed in time to be published as a part of it, but I wanted to give credit where credit was due. I don’t tend to do historically inspired game writing, but this was a pleasant departure from form and a welcome one. I think the theme really helped me create something that falls outside of my regular purview of games.