S&P Read-Aloud Prompts

I was inspired by the introduction to For the Queen and how everyone at the table reads the rules aloud taking turns.

Introductory Read-Aloud Prompts

Have one participant read each of the following statements aloud, going around the table, so the whole table can hear (but are welcome to follow along with the text as well at the same time if they wish):

In Shadowlight & Personae, we’ll play curious people captivated and intrigued by mysterious phenomena and circumstances, seeking out to reveal truths hidden behind, between and within them.

Together we’ll investigate mysteries, explore and unravel paradoxes, and delve into the hidden truths of the omniverse—both within our world, and possibly other worlds as well.

Gather yourself and one to four (or more, if everyone’s comfortable) players together.

One of you will be the chorus; the rest will be players.

The chorus narrates what chorus-controlled characters (CCs) do; guides the story and presents challenges to the group; asks the group questions and fills the world with their answers; will let things be tried if they're cool! The chorus is a fan of the whole group and is just as much a player as the players are!

The players narrate what their player-controlled characters (PCs) and identities do; they’ll issue or answer challenges when things might get risky; they’ll fill the world of the fiction with their ideas, take risks, and rise up from their failures; and they’ll give everyone at the table space to shine!

We’ll decide what kind of game we want to play—what kind of story or stories we want to tell together.

We’ll discuss premise, mood, tone, and setting, all the while highlighting inspirational films, television shows, novels, plays or other fictional media that’ll help the fiction of our game take shape.

We’ll follow and complete the game creation process to devise a setting of our own design, or use one of several campaign frames, or Tricks of Shadowlight, to help jump-start our collective imagination and begin play more quickly.

Each of the campaign frames, or Tricks, may put forward a suggested tone based on the premise of the Trick, but we should discuss how we might use a Trick and agree upon using it. This is a part of game creation, but if a Trick is introduced then everyone should agree as to whether the suggested prescribed elements make sense and would be enjoyed by everyone at the table.

We’ll also go over together ideas of what possible subject matter be explored during gameplay and how in-depth we want to explore them. During game creation, ideas that make any of us uncomfortable should be brought up, as well as what boundaries need to be set around them if any (this is typically referred to as establishing lines and veils).

Shadowlight & Personae is

a metaphor: recurring themes of mystery, paradox, and revealing the unknown

a meta-setting: a collection of settings where each is a monad:a unique, individual universe;

a meta-cosmology: a set of common characteristics of how the omniverse is organized and a framework for how the supernatural works in the worlds of the omniverse;

a meta-cosmogony: an explanation for how the omniverse was created; “progenitors”, who may have had a hand in the omniverse’s creation and framing; and how their “grand experiment” resulted in the omniverse’s present-day framework;

a meta-mythology: people, places and events that might be common to one or more monads, shared by them and have stories, which may or may not be true, built up surrounding them;

a meta-narrative: events and stories taking place not only within individual monads, but across monads as well, including the involvement of three species—the shiruul, shaleth, and beleshedaux—whose origins and motives and agendas are out there waiting to be discovered.