Lamplighter's Festival

The lamps have been there for as long as we can remember.

The lamps have never been there, and only appear for tonight.

The lamps are strange and new — we’re still getting used to them, making space for them in our lives.

We know exactly what the lamps mean, and we’ve committed their history to heart.

We’ve forgotten what the lamps mean, even if the gravity of it still hums and shimmers around them.

We’re deciding what the lamps mean, weaving their purpose in more tightly every year, every season, every eclipse.

Tonight, we light the lamps, and we tell our stories about them.

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Lamplighter’s Festival is a map-drawing game about a nighttime festival, and the things it can illuminate about the place in which it’s celebrated. It can be played alone, or collaboratively if you like.

To play, you'll need:

• A sheet of paper, the larger the better
• Additional paper for taking down your notes (i.e. a notebook)
• Writing/drawing implements, in multiple colors if you like
• A standard set of 7 polyhedral dice (a d4, d6, d8, two d10s [single + double digit], d12, and d20)
• A leisurely amount of time; the map does not need to be completed in one sitting

The game package includes:

• Game rules (standard + print-friendly versions)
• Example maps - two high-res completed maps created using the game as examples of play, with included notes about actual play outcomes + the resultant worldbuilding!

Lamplighter's Festival was created for Mock Cover Jam 2: Rituals & Folklore. The cover art and title are by Yuri Runnel.

LINKS:

• You can watch a live group playthrough of Lamplighter's Festival on my Twitch! Heads up that this is not a very streamlined/professional demonstration, I take a few bong rips throughout and it devolves into about 69% dick jokes.
• There's also a gorgeous group play of it on a special episode of the podcast All My Fantasy Children, which I love.
• This is a great tool for virtual dice rolling that would be great for planning a map digitally or playing the game with friends over screenshare (a demonstration of use is, again, in the playthrough link above!)