It's said that everyone has their own personal books, a script to play out life from. Nobody said you had to read the book in order, though...

<aside> ❤️ This RPG was written by Finnbar, but it wasn't without help! Thanks go to Cara for much of the discussion about the setting and some mechanical bits, and to Hannah and Jamie for brief mechanical discussions instead of going to bed.

</aside>

The Story

You are all Readers, arcane thieves who are able to manipulate their books, take events from anywhere within them and play them out, no matter how it fits into the now. You work in the world of dreams and nightmares, experts at heading in, stealing whatever information they can find and leaving without a trace. Your weapon? The ability to shift your surroundings by gazing into your heart, reading a sentence from the book of your life and bending it to fit the world surrounding you.

However, this time you may have flown too close to the sun. It was meant to be the greatest heist the world has ever seen - stealing the young Prince's secrets and ransoming them off to the highest bidder. Unfortunately, the King's own Readers are two steps ahead of you and have locked you in, now slowly closing in on you. The only way out is via the main doors, and you'll have to go on one last heist to find a way out before the opposing Readers find you and stop you. Can you escape before the Prince wakes up, or will you be trapped in his dreams forever?

Your Character

For your character you need to find one book. This book represents everything about your character, and when you gaze into your heart you'll be pulling sentences out of that book to find out what happens. I ask for three things from this book: that it has at least 100 pages, that it is published in some way and that it contains sentences that you're able to read out. (That last point is why I recommend a fiction book, as a textbook may make your life harder.) You're welcome to make this an e-book, I don't judge. I would recommend reading the rest of the game before choosing this book, but I had to make the fact that your character is a real book apparent early on.

• Some Books and What Class They Might Make You Like, Kind Of (click)

Then you need to write a few things about your character:

• Their name - it doesn't have to be the same as the name of the book.
• Their blurb - a short description of them, which you would put on the back of a book of their life.
• Their three recommended books - what would you recommend your readers read next? These double as skills - if you would do something that relates to one of your recommended books, add 2 to your die roll. For example, you could have Lockpicking For Dummies give you a +2 when you try to pick a lock. No, you're not allowed to take Everything They Teach You At Harvard and Everything They Don't Teach You At Harvard - pick deliberately specific books. These books do not have to be published or even real.
• Their two favourite flavours of magic - choose from the six in Gazing Into Your Heart.

You can even make your character sheet into a book cover if you like.

Gazing Into Your Heart

The main thing you will do in the game is gaze into your heart. This can have both positive and negative effects. To do this, roll a dBOOK (a dice with at least 100 sides and at most the number of pages of your book) and turn to that page of your book.

Then you have twenty seconds to pick a complete sentence on the page. If you do not, instead you must choose the first complete sentence on that page. (If the page is blank, roll again.) Read it out. This then happens, for better or for worse.

You can change any of the people referred to in the sentence into those around you, and you can change any objects in the same way. (Essentially, proper nouns can be changed.) This is not mandatory, however, and can be used to summon people and things into the dream.

Here are the six flavours of magic. Choose one when you read your sentence, which dictates how it manifests in the world.