No One Dies Alone In Revolution No One Dies Alone In Revolution is a single-player poetry-writing tabletop role-playing game, taking inspiration from Takuma Okada’s Alone games and Ray Carter’s Dirty Computer. Their works can be found at noroadhome.itch.io and frizzoid.itch.io, respectively. by AJ Ellis (@MoreGuillotines) Layout by Ray Carter (@frizzoid) Cover Art by Darcy Murphy (@aquaqueer) You are a Vates, an empyromancer, part-historian part-priest, and when a new soul comes to commit their life and death to liberation, you are the guide who sees what path they’re on and informs them in whose footsteps they are following. You provide the materials: wood collected from homeland briars, a selection of different accelerants, a box of matches, and the knife. They build the fire, light it, and choose when to make the cut - pledging their blood to burn, to resistance. It is then when you watch the flames and smoke, and divine for them their patron saint, the martyr to whom they should pray from now on. They bleed into your ink and you put it to paper, composing the prayer on their behalf. They must memorise it and burn the page before the fire goes out. These prayers are not whispered, personal and private; they are shouted battle-cries, both a threat and celebration. They are aspirational elegies. They demand, exhibit, and induce awe. They are ritual, propaganda, and immortal last words. Some people claim that everybody dies alone, but your comrades know, and your words prove, the truth: no one dies alone in revolution. When a new fire is built, roll a six-sided die and draw that number of cards from a standard deck of 52 playing cards, placing them face down. When a new cut is made, draw four more cards and place them face up above the face down cards, then interpret them using the Oracle of Patronage to identify the saint. Name them, know them, tell their story and consider what lessons the pledging soldier should take from it (take notes if it helps) - only then can you compose an appropriate prayer. The saint died with honour for the cause, they are to be respected by and carried with the soldier until the end, until they meet in martyrdom. When composing a prayer, turn over the first face down card, roll a six-sided die and place it on top, and repeat for any remaining cards. You may also roll a die for any cards used to identify the saint and add them in any order among the overturned cards. Once this is complete use the Oracle of Verse to compose the prayer. Some prayers are longer than others, but the glory borne by each is just as righteous, just as important. Acting as Vates is a life-long duty, but you are always being hunted, and you know better than any how abrupt the end can come. Play until you run out of cards or until you tire of play. How does death find you? Who is with you when you die? The Oracle of Patronage Each card is just a starting point, a seed planted; to see them flourish you will flesh out the details as you see the truth highlighted in the history of every saint. For each of the first three cards you should have a firm idea of what happened for one major event in their life or a montage of several. For the fourth you should be able to explain the response to their death. The first card will be their Dawn - how they first saw the light; what drew them to the cause. This card’s value indicates how the martyr reached their breaking point and started fighting back. This card’s suit provides a question the new soldier considers upon hearing about this. The second card will be their Noon - how they shone; their primary role in the revolution. This card’s suit indicates the main way they fought for us, though these would often overlap. This card’s value reveals a part of the cause they held close to their heart and regularly fought for alongside others. The third card will be their Dusk - their light extinguished; how they died for us. This card’s value indicates something about the circumstances of their death. This card’s suit indicates what purpose their death served or what significance can be found in it. The fourth card will be their Night - their absence; what they left in their wake. This card’s suit indicates our initial reaction to their death. This card’s value indicates how we remember them. Dawn A - They saw one too many arrests 2 - They saw people going hungry 3 - They saw their loved ones hurt too often 4 - They saw death after death after death 5 - They saw the repeal of human rights 6 - They saw revolutionaries helping their community 7 - They saw how our environment was being poisoned and destroyed 8 - They saw how good people were misrepresented 9 - They saw through the transparent platitudes 10 - They saw landlords and bailiffs given free reign J - They saw corporate interests triumph over the interest of the people Q - They saw spite and cruelty written into law K - They saw their culture driven underground ♠ What is the appropriate response to the level of violence present here? ♡ How can we make people see that this is our reality? ♣ How does this inform who our solidarity extends to? ♢ How do the dynamics of wealth and poverty affect us and others? Noon ♠ They were a warrior, breaking the monopoly on violence ♡ They were a voice, changing hearts and minds through arts or academia ♣ They were an organiser, nurturing the growth of grassroots everywhere they walked ♢ They were a fundraiser, keeping fires burning and cupboards stocked A - Prison Abolition 2 - Climate Justice 3 - Labour Organisation 4 - Debt Relief 5 - Open Borders 6 - Food Justice 7 - Religious Freedom 8 - Queer Liberation 9 - Racial Justice 10 - Sex Workers’ Rights J - Feminism Q - Housing Justice K - International Solidarity Dusk A - They died defiantly 2 - They died in the street 3 - They died swallowing fear 4 - They died consumed with rage 5 - They died in a jail cell 6 - They died almost unnoticed 7 - They died of their own volition 8 - They died with tears in their eyes 9 - They died full of hope 10 - They died disproving futility J - They died vindicated Q - They died on stage K - They died knowing peace for the first time ♠ In the course of taking life, leaving fewer boots to step on our throats ♡ To send a message, what was it? ♣ As one of many, they represent them all ♢ Protecting others, giving everything to do so Night ♠ We responded with targeted attacks, we would not leave them unavenged ♡ We responded by telling their story, ensuring the truth was out there, if not believed ♣ We responded by setting up support networks, we saw how we must protect each other ♢ We responded with riots, destruction of property and disruption of status quo A - We fight twice as hard for the issues they cared most about 2 - We sing for them when we drink 3 - We wear jewellery which commemorates them 4 - We give their name to our children, or take it for ourselves 5 - We make pilgrimages to their grave site, or something else 6 - We plant a certain flower 7 - We study accounts of their life and their work 8 - We use part of their story as idiom 9 - We build bonfires from their birthwood and adorn ourselves in ash 10 - We use their death as a point of comparison for the soldiers still dying J - We use their image in our art and in murals Q - We quote their words in our literature K - We celebrate their feast day openly, regardless of the consequences The Oracle of Verse Each card corresponds to a line of prayer, in order. As the metre of the prayer varies from line to line it is unlikely that the prayer will flow like poems of a set metre might. However, when including cards used to identify the saint, you may still find it effective to consider the metre and emotional intent of each during placement. Each card’s value equals how many metrical feet should be included in the corresponding line of the prayer. Aces can be any amount so long as the line includes at least one exclamation mark. Face cards can be any amount but they must refer to a personal, human detail about the saint. Each card’s suit indicates which foot is used in the corresponding line of the prayer. ♠ Trochaic (a stressed syllable followed by an unstressed syllable) ♡ Iambic (an unstressed syllable followed by a stressed syllable) ♣ Dactylic (a stressed syllable followed by two unstressed syllables) ♢ Anapestic (two unstressed syllables followed by a stressed syllable) The die result indicates what emotions the corresponding line of the prayer should evoke, in the speaker and the listener. [1-2] Reverence and fear [3-4] Reverence and ecstacy [5-6] Reverence and fury If you have multiple adjacent short lines then they may be condensed into a single line so long as their feet, order, and emotional intention remain the same. If several lines in a row are attempting to evoke the same emotional response, then you could write one overarching sentiment which takes all of the lines to express. As a Vates your words flow onto the page as divine knowledge and inspiration flow through your heart, but as a player you can practice and experiment with the prayer until you’re satisfied. Writing can be difficult, and the rules and guidelines given in this ritual can make it even harder, so if you find success in abandoning some procedures then the success is more important. _________________________________________________________________